Gordon County commissioners debate poultry regulatory-fee ordinance; staff recommends 15¢ per square foot

Speaker 1 said at a meeting the board was considering a first-reading ordinance to adopt regulatory fees for poultry (chicken-house) operations and described staff’s recommended rate of 15¢ per square foot.

The recommendation emerged after staff said the state statute (cited in the meeting as OCGA 48‑13‑9) required counties to adopt a fee schedule and that applying the statute’s construction-based formulas could produce very large assessments in some scenarios. Speaker 1 said one formula could have yielded an example assessment of about $90,000 for an 850‑by‑600 house, which prompted staff to seek a lower compromise: “we came up with a recommended fee of 15¢ per square foot,” Speaker 1 said.

Staff and commissioners described the county’s approach to defining a regulatory fee as broader than a one-time building permit. Speaker 1 outlined costs tied to ongoing regulatory activity — application reviews, inspections, plan review, zoning confirmations, road and driveway impacts, erosion and fire inspections, code enforcement, GIS mapping and related staffing — and listed departmental budgets as the basis for the county’s estimate of regulatory cost exposure. Using figures presented in the meeting, Speaker 1 said the combined budgets for departments involved in regulation this year were reported as about $1,853,635 and argued the 15¢ rate would be a small share (about 1%) of that local regulatory budget for a very large operation.

Not everyone agreed on the scope of county authority. Speaker 2 cited a 2009 state law that he said preempts local ordinances that regulate agricultural production and animal husbandry practices. Speaker 1 pushed back, saying while the county cannot regulate production methods, it can act within its jurisdiction to address impacts — such as road damage, soil erosion, fire safety and nuisance conditions — and recounted past incidents the board had addressed, including on-site disposal and pond pollution that affected neighbors.

Industry representatives and farmers in the room urged negotiation. A farmer who identified in the record as Speaker 5 asked the county to convene appropriate industry representatives and technical experts so the parties could work through perceived public misconceptions and reach a practical solution. Speaker 3 summarized outreach to neighboring counties and state agencies and said approaches vary across jurisdictions.

Because of the range of views and lingering legal questions, Speaker 1 proposed an ad hoc committee or a negotiation session with industry stakeholders. Speaker 2 said, “Table it,” and the transcript shows the board considered delaying action pending those discussions; no formal vote or recorded tally on that tabling motion appears in the transcript.

Next steps: the county plans to convene staff and industry representatives for further talks and to return the ordinance for additional consideration; the record in this transcript ends with the board discussing formation of an ad hoc negotiating group and no final ordinance adoption recorded.