Commissioners review proposed urban growth boundary, debate annexation impacts on fire, schools and roads

Commissioner Billy Slater said the county's comprehensive growth policy coordinating committee voted to recommend a new urban growth boundary and an annexation interlocal agreement that would, among other things, commit municipalities not to pursue referendum annexation outside the agreed growth boundary.

The measure matters because it would change how municipalities and the county handle future annexations: county officials said the draft agreement removes referendum annexation as a repeated source of litigation and adds language requiring cities to take responsibility for roads they annex.

Slater, the commissioner who presented the committee's work, told the commission that the committee concluded its second public hearing and recommended both a revised boundary map and an interlocal agreement. "At the conclusion of the second public hearing, the committee voted to recommend a new urban growth boundary and an annexation interlocal agreement, which states the municipalities agreed not to pursue annexation by referendum outside its growth boundaries," Slater said.

County Mayor (unnamed in the transcript) described concessions he said county negotiators secured. "We did get agreement on that for those areas outside of the growth boundary. We did get some concessions on the road issues that have been addressed," the mayor said, adding that the agreement includes paragraphs saying that when a city annexes an area it will also take responsibility for the road that serves it.

But multiple commissioners and the mayor noted important questions the agreement does not resolve. The mayor and Commissioner Rogers raised concerns about schools and fire service and revenue. The mayor said schools were not addressed by the growth-boundary agreement: "The schools has always been a problem," he said, adding that whether a school becomes a city school would require agreement by both school systems. On fire protection, the mayor said the agreement does not require cities to reimburse the county for lost fire tax revenue when property is annexed: "We're never gonna get the city to agree to reimburse us for what we lose in fire tax money either," he said. He explained the county's fire levy is separate and that annexation shifts taxable property out of the county fire tax base while service obligations may change.

Commissioner Rogers and others pressed for clarity on how services must be provided after annexation. County staff said the annexation "plan of services" must show immediate provision of police and fire protection and that longer timelines are allowed only for utilities such as sewer (the law's reasonableness standard means delays beyond seven years are generally viewed as too long). "In the plan of services, those things have to be immediate. You cannot annex an area and not have a plan to provide it with fire protection, or police protection," a staff member said.

Commissioner Slater said the planning committee approved the map unanimously (one abstention noted by Slater) and the interlocal agreement by 7-1, with two members absent. He said the map changes reflect property-owner requests and efforts to compromise among county, city and citizen input. Mayor and staff repeated that the agreement removes referendum annexation from future dispute by putting the cities' commitment in writing rather than relying only on an attorney general's opinion.

Linda Cash, Bradley County director of schools, later told the commission she served on the committee and supported the concessions: "I think that they brought in the boundaries, enough to allow for growth, but not to not to overextend," Cash said, and recommended county leaders pursue an interlocal agreement on fire service to resolve operational concerns.

The matter was presented for discussion; commissioners were told the item is scheduled for a future voting session (Slater said it will be on the April 7 voting-session agenda). No final county commission vote on the growth-boundary agreement occurred at this meeting.

Ending: Commissioners and staff recommended further interlocal discussions, particularly on fire-service agreements and school impacts, before the commission's scheduled vote next month. The committee will provide the final map and written interlocal agreement to commissioners ahead of that vote.