Land Use Into Second Year in Stephens Co.

Land use is into its second year of existence in Stephens County.

The Stephens County Commission passed a land use ordinance in March 2014 by a 4-1 vote and implementation began immediately after.

One year in, Stephens County Administrator Phyllis Ayers said that the administration of that ordinance has gone well overall.

She said that land use has allowed county staff to have an idea of things taking place in the county from a development perspective before they happen.

“We are able to see who is doing what on what parcel of land and is being looked at carefully by the Planning Commission as to if it is the right thing,” said Ayers. “If we are doing a re-zoning, the Planning Commission is looking years down the road as what would happen if we changed the zoning of a parcel.”

Under the land use ordinance, applications and requests for things like the re-zoning of property or variances to land use regulations come first before the Planning Commission.

The Planning Commission then makes a recommendation to the county commission, which has the final say.

Ayers said that the Planning Commission has done a great job so far, along with the county staff responsible for the administration of land use.

“It has been a learning process,” said Ayers. “We still learn. I can say we are doing a lot better this month than we were a year ago and we are learning more. The Planning Commission members, I could not thank them enough.”

Overall, Ayers said that through its first year, the county has only encountered one major problem from an administrative perspective.

“I think the only hurdle, which we just adopted, was the telecommunications ordinance,” said Ayers. “It was the only hurdle just because we do not have anyone in house that knows and understands all the FCC regulations.”

Stephens County Commissioners voted to approve the Personal Wireless Service Facility ordinance to deal with that subject matter in March.