Review of Selig Tract Raises Questions

Read the column here (27 November 2011).

I always ask my wife to proofread my columns (so if an error slips through, I can blame her, right?). Upon reading this one, she said that I sounded angry.

And you know what, she is correct; quite apart from the self-righteous sanctimony of asking Selig to "negotiate," when its proposal is exactly the kind of mixed use development we say we want and the company is asking for no incentives whatsoever in connection with the project, this "hold" – kind of like moratorium lite – and "negotiation" strategy is a terrible one to pursue if we are serious about economic development. The community of folks who are involved in economic development around the state is a pretty small one and they all know what the others are doing, so don't think for a minute that they all do not know how things play out in Clarke County – i.e. a developer adhering to existing ordinances and design guidelines is not enough - as do the companies they are trying to recruit.

When we demand that the Commission adopt more stringent environmental regulations than what the state EPD and the federal EPA requires (not that the locals have the authority to do so, but that is another matter), like we did when Certainteed investigated asking for industrial development bond funding to expand its Athens location a few years back, every business or industry thinking about expanding in or relocating to Athens hears about it.

When we toy with the idea of making economic development bond issues a political football by having the full Commission vote on them, rather than simply having the mayor sign off on them as traditionally been the case (as was also mentioned in connection with the proposed Certainteed expansion), every business or industry thinking about expanding in or relocating to Athens hears about it.

When we demand that a developer (in this case Selig Enterprises) that is acting in full accord with our existing zoning ordinances and downtown design guidelines, “negotiate” to make its project smaller just to pacify local elected officials, every business or industry thinking about expanding in or relocating to Athens hears about it.

When we simply suspend entire sections of our existing zoning ordinances (we are up to how many development moratoria now?), typically with little to no public notice whatsoever, so as to prevent developers from doing precisely what those zoning ordinances say they should do, every business or industry thinking about expanding in or relocating to Athens hears about it.

When we mount a fullscale wand well-funded PR campaign (complete with billboards and a web site) to convince a high-end biotechnology facility (NBAF), precisely the kind of industry that we say that we want, not to come here, every business or industry thinking about expanding inn or relocating to Athens hears about it (of course, I think that there was qute a bit of Bush Derangement Syndrome evident in this episode, but the principle still applies).

I keep making the argument that what we do locally has repercussions beyond whatever issue with which we may be dealing at the moment, and those repercussions are stifling our meager attempts at meaningful economic development.

Okay, now that I’ve got that out of my system, here is some source material.

Unified Government Code of Ordinances. See Section 9-4-15(c)(4):
http://library.municode.com/index.aspx?clientId=12400&stateId=10&stateNa...

Commission Minutes (March 2010). See pages 11-12:
http://www.athensclarkecounty.com/archives/42/March%202,%202010%20minute...

Commission Minutes (September 2011). See pages 2-3:
http://www.athensclarkecounty.com/archives/42/September%2022,%202011.min...

Finally, even on the company’s own web site both “Walmart” and Wal-Mart” are used, so take your pick.

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