Jasper once again extends residential rezoning moratorium
City Council July 13, 2022
PICKENS COUNTY, Ga. — The Jasper City Council once again extended a moratorium on residential rezonings during their July 11 meeting. The moratorium, first adopted in August of 2021, has now been extended three times.
Resolution No. 2022-10, unanimously passed by the council, extends the moratorium on “all rezonings, rezoning applications received after the passage of this moratorium, and the issuance of all building permits that would require or necessitate a residential rezoning within the City of Jasper” until October 15, 2022.
City Manager Sonia Jammes said the additional extension came “as a result of the complexity of drafting a modified zoning ordinance and the current efforts at master planning the utilities system.”
The resolution itself gives a more in-depth reason for the moratorium, reading in part: “to develop and implement a comprehensive approach to controlled residential growth by way of zoning ordinance for the City of Jasper, Georgia, including enacting new zoning regulations pursuant to said approach, to create a balance of development within the City between residential, commercial, and industrial development in order that the City may continue to have a high standard of living, and have appropriate zoning regulations to balance a private property owner’s right to a reasonable use of their property which is balanced against the need to have these uses be within appropriate districts and areas of the City and prevent negative impact to the property surrounding said uses and also make determinations as to the availability of water and sewer service.
The resolution again says that during the moratorium period, the city intends to do a “complete and comprehensive updating of the zoning ordinance as to residential uses and determine capacity and availability of its water and sewer service.”
The council also passed Resolution No. 2022-11 during the same meeting. This resolution, entitled Temporary Residential Annexation Moratorium, places a moratorium on “all residential annexations, and residential annexation applications received after your passage of this moratorium, and applying to all annexations that would require or necessitate a residential zoning within the City of Jasper.”
Similar to Resolution No. 2022-10, this resolution expresses the necessity of the moratorium to combat unchecked growth and provide time for the city to prepare coming expansion. “The City Council of the City of Jasper, Georgia, intends during the time period of the temporary moratorium to start the expansion of the water plant and the waste water plant,” Section Three reads.” The City of Jasper has been working to begin an expansion of its Water Pollution Control Plant and recently received an almost $11 million loan package to do so.
Other Business
City Manager Sonia Jammes discussed a proposal for outsourcing the city’s residential sanitation services. She explained that the city is currently in discussion with Waste Pro USA to bring a “built-in efficiency” to sanitation services with “more defined customer delivery benefits.”
Jammes said outsourcing residential services is the first step of the city’s new service delivery strategy, which also aims to benefit the city’s workforce: “Our number of workforce that we currently have are stretched thin to not only take care of our sanitation services, our streets and parks, and making sure that we have all of our right-of-ways mowed. We are pulling from the same pool of staff for all of these items.”
The council also approved purchases of body cameras, computers, and other equipment for the Police Department as well as the reclassification of some firefighter job positions at the request of Chief John Sherrer.
Council approves Jasper Police and Fire Chief selections
City Council, Police & Government April 1, 2022
PICKENS, Ga. — The Jasper City Council held a work session on March 31. During the meeting the council discussed ordinance amendments, approved several purchases, and extended employment offers for Jasper Police and Fire Chief positions.
After a nationwide search for Jasper’s next fire chief, the council unanimously voted to extend a conditional offer of employment to John Sherrer III. Similarly, Interim Police Chief Mathew Dawkins was selected from a national group of candidates for Jasper Police Chief. The council’s conditional offer of employment to Dawkins was approved after another unanimous vote.
Councilmember Sonny Proctor complimented the qualifications of both candidates, and Councilmember Anne Sneve highlighted the number of strong candidates that were considered during the process. Mayor Steve Lawrence called the process exhausting, but said “it was well done, and I feel like, again, we have gone out nationally to get the best … person for our city. I admire this council greatly for taking that action, and a special thanks to our HR director who did such a good job setting all this up.”
After the city council work session, The City of Jasper released two press releases noting the offer of employment, for Fire Chief and Police Chief, and marked the beginning of both candidates’ commencement period.
Ordinances
The council also discussed ordinance revisions during the work session. The Fats, Oils, and Grease (FOG) Policy Ordinance, intended to strengthen and clarify existing city policy, was approved by the council. The revision will also establish a maintenance program that will include penalties for non-compliance, according to Kim Goldener.
The council also heard from City Manager Jammes on the city’s alcohol ordinances: “In an effort to evaluate some of the economic needs and long-term liability and sustainability in our downtown, we would like to amend certain parts of the current alcohol ordinance to make some allowances for some new types of businesses that are wanting to open up in our vibrant downtown.” She also noted that the ordinance was approved during the 1970s and is outdated in some ways, specifically mentioning a restriction on happy hour specials.
The council’s discussion focused on two sections of the Alcohol Ordinance, concerning pouring licenses for independent living facilities and whether or not high-end beer service would be permitted without food sales. While the council agreed that independent living facilities should not be restricted from obtaining a license, City Attorney David Syfan raised concerns about potential ambiguity in high-end beer facilities. “I have the tendency to think if we allow a high-end beer facility, that we ought to have a food requirement,” a suggestion Syfan said would prevent possible ambiguity that could lead to bars opening downtown. Ultimately, the council gave their opinion that an amended ordinance should allow independent living facilities to obtain a pouring license, but enact a food sale requirement for high-end beer facilities.
Purchase Approvals
The Jasper City Council also approved several purchases during the meeting. Among the purchase approvals were already budgeted expenditures, like inventory parts and a lawn mower for the city’s Water Department. The council also approved the purchase of raw water pump.
Notably, the council also approved the purchase of an additional user license for the ArcGIS system, the geographic information system software used by the city of Jasper, at a cost of $27,000. City Manager Sonia Jammes, who presented the request, said “I know this comes as no shock to anyone, that the secret of Jasper is out. The jewel is out, and as such we need to prepare for future development, and we need to provide staff with the tools to prepare for that future development.” Jammes told the council that a second user license would let staff work on two projects simultaneously and increase accessibility to precise and updated information.
Other Business
Continuing the discussion on downtown bathrooms, the council discussed conceptual drawings for proposed downtown bathrooms. The council moved to create a committee to further communicate with the engineers of the project, who say the project should be ready to move forward in weeks rather than months.
Discussion on Perrow Park also continued during the work session. A cabin currently on the property will be removed at the suggestion of a steering committee, according to City Manager Jammes. She said the committee recommended removal “with a caveat that they would like to use some of the existing stone foundations to pay homage to the … original owner of the property by putting some plaques and incorporating that stone in different sites of what the vision is for the property.” The council voted to approve removal of the cabin.
Before the council began an executive session, Councilmember Kirk Raffield noted that March 31 was the last day of Women’s History Month: “We are ending Women’s History Month with a city organization being restructured where our ladies are actually leading the entire organization. I do not want that to fall on deaf ears, this is history in the making.”