Controversial annexation request raises questions on the county’s role in approval 

HOUSTON COUNTY — The most recent annexation request brought before Houston County commissioners was at Old Perry Road and Highway 127, and it stirred public outcry at the May 19 meeting. 

What appears to be a yes or no choice has laws and nuance behind the scenes, according to local leadership. 

How do Houston County annexations affect citizens? 

Annexation requests can become controversial when homeowners near the proposed parcel are concerned about what might go there. 

Chairman Dan Perdue said an annexation request can affect citizens, but it depends on what the end use of the property is. 

“Some citizens feel very strongly about ‘what’s going to be built next to me,’ whether it be traffic, public safety or infrastructure implications,” he said. “You have a surrounding community that does not want commercial development, that does not want commercial development on that corner.” 

This request on Old Perry Road was only for annexation, not annexation and rezoning.  

“When there’s not a rezoning, it’s a very high standard to try and object, and it’s very difficult to meet that standard within Georgia law,” he said. 

With how Perdue interprets Georgia law, there was no opportunity to object, however, it doesn’t mean they have to agree and concur with it either. 

He said there were two different directions the commission would go. If they were to concur, that could be seen as being in favor of the annexation and the fear that the request would eventually be rezoned commercial.  

The other would be non-concurring and the fear would be the Georgia Department of Community Affairs (DCA) denying any grounds of non-concurrance. 

“I felt like taking no action was the way that we could ensure that the annexation did not get a stamp of approval, either from the Board of Commissioners or from the DCA,” he said. 

What qualifies as an annexation in Houston County?

On a county level, commissioners are presented with an annexation request primarily from landowners or developers who want to receive city services, like water, power, sewer and public safety.   

Perdue said once the city receives the request, they will then send it over to the county commissioners, and they will have 45 days to respond to that request. After that, the city’s planning commission will hear the annexation request, and they will recommend approval or denial to the city council. 

The county’s action on an annexation is to “concur” or “non-concur” rather than “approve” or “disapprove.” Perdue said that language is intentional. 

“We don’t really have the full power to disapprove an annexation. There are a lot of parameters in state law whether or not we can concur or non-concur,” he said. 

Perdue said the county typically concurs with annexations around 80% of the time. 

What happens if Houston County does not concur? 

First, they send their vote to the DCA, and Perdue said they will make the decision whether their non-concurrence complies with Georgia law. 

The DCA then decides whether to form an arbitration panel. This panel includes representatives from counties, cities and members of academia, people who have studied these issues fairly closely. If the request were to get to that arbitration panel, they would hear both sides. 

According to the DCA, the arbitration panel is not authorized to approve or deny a request, but can decide whether or not to “attach zoning, land use or density conditions to the property in question, which will remain in force for two years”.

Perdue said there is a third option where the county, landowner and the city can come to some sort of compromise to then pick it back up and concur with it once the changes are made. 

Houston County Commissioners’ Annexation Power  

With how their form of government is tied to private property rights, Perdue said the landowner/developer really holds the power by asking to come in and wanting city services. 

“Unless there’s a significant change in the zoning or the use, there’s very narrow windows for how we can object to annexation,” he said. “The power that we have is most often used to get to a compromised position.” 

The general public may think our county commissioners have more power when it comes to these annexation requests than they actually do. 

“You have to offer a level of predictability, so it can’t be how you feel in the moment about this particular case,” he said. “It has to be regulated in a way that someone can read the law and understand what’s going to happen, and that is much harder to do [while also] accounting for people’s emotions about a particular annexation.”