ELLIJAY, Ga. – Gilmer’s Commissioners are still discussing developments in the county as citizens and business continue the debate of Gilmer’s future including a topic of impact fees. With developments increasing, some groups like Keep Gilmer Rural are still pushing hard in the county to increase restrictions for incoming developers looking to build 1000 unit properties and similar issues.

When Chairman Charlie Paris broached the subject, he questioned impact and infrastructure as the common issue the county as a whole faces with some higher-density developments. Paris spoke on needs like new fire stations and increased staff for public safety departments as well as new roads, traffic, and connections to be built and maintained.

The idea for regulations and ordinances requiring developers to provide assistance for these needs was also questioned by Paris.

Specifying impact fees is the obvious first concept for this, but Paris looked further at requiring land to be dedicated for fire stations or road widening or other additions.

Post Commissioner Hubert Parker agreed that the taxpayers should not shoulder the immediate costs of these massive developments. Post Commissioner Karleen Ferguson said, “I am for impact fees and have been for a long time.”

Public Works Director Jim Smith also agreed saying that he understood that impact fees are generally frowned upon but he felt that any developer coming into town and making as much money as they do on their developments should participate in the building up of the necessary infrastructure/ Smith stated, “It is nothing but fair that they participate on the front end and the existing taxpayer is not burdened with the requirement to build that infrastructure for them.”

Discussion continued on how to engage such judgments. A case by case basis was proposed, but later spoken against as potentially having a perception of unfairness to one entity or another. Another thought of presetting certain lot number limits to tiers of impact fees could be a possibility. Citizens are questioning those developers who would max out the possible lots numbers before hitting next tiers to avoid those higher fees and then immediately building an additional subdivision nearby as a separate project that they will eventually join together.

Fire Chief Daniel Kauffman commented on the topic saying that fire and rescue infrastructure do benefit from impact fees. He also stated that he had experience with such things in a previous job.

Fire Chief Daniel Kauffman speaks to Gilmer’s Board of Commissioners during the January Worksession.

Eventually, the board decided to look further into the issue via committee to return with investigations and better information to include local developers as well as citizens and others with possible special insight. No specifics have been set into who would be on the board aside from an agreement among the BOC that local developers would need to have representation.

Smith told the commissioners that impact fees could be imposed in different ways including partial fees or full coverage, split amongst the developer or other parties. Paris said his idea would have the fees imposed on the developers without affecting builders who build in the project.

The board also received questions and comments during their regular meeting after tabling the agenda item. The board members explained that they were looking deeper into the topic and will hold the agenda item as a discussion topic in future meetings so they may continue looking at the topic, discussing, and developing both a committee and the possibility of actually implementing impact fees in some manner in the future.

Some even called for the board to extend the current moratorium to aid in continued discussion. However, Chairman Paris said he said when the board established the moratorium that he wouldn’t ask to extend it and he wanted to stick to his promise.