Regional Land Grab in Georgia

The Stealth Land-Grab of Regional planners

Thrive 2055 is a 40-year tri-state regional plan­ning scheme to cre­ate public-private part­ner­ships that will exchange the cur­rent rep­re­sen­ta­tive gov­ern­ment for a regional gov­ern­ment, with the ulti­mate goal of elim­i­nat­ing the prop­erty and per­sonal rights of residents.

The peo­ple of Polk County Ten­nessee cher­ish their land. Farm­ers will tell you the soil con­di­tions on every square inch of their acreage and landown­ers rev­er­ently dis­cuss their prop­er­ties’ his­tory. These peo­ple would never know­ingly sub­mit to strict zon­ing reg­u­la­tions or gov­ern­ment con­trol of their land. Yet with­out their knowl­edge or their informed con­sent, that is exactly what is about to happen.

Thrive 2055 is a plan­ning scheme to roll 16 coun­ties in Ten­nessee, Alabama and Geor­gia into a sin­gle regional bun­dle effect­ing over 1 mil­lion res­i­dents. Drive dis­tances to work, bike paths, light rail, mixed-use con­struc­tion, and green­belts will all con­verge into a uni­fied scheme that is a car­bon copy of plans unfold­ing across Amer­ica. By form­ing a region, zon­ing deci­sions now made by local com­mu­ni­ties, will be under the author­ity of a pow­er­ful, regional board.

Most Polk County res­i­dents never heard of Thrive 2055. It is no won­der. Only a hand­ful of res­i­dents attended plan­ners’ meet­ings. On a recent radio appear­ance, a spokesper­son stated that after 2 years of com­mu­nity out­reach, plan­ners received just 1200 com­pleted com­mu­nity sur­veys. Of the planned region’s 1 mil­lion res­i­dents, 998,800 did not participate.

Accord­ing to the plan­ners, com­mu­nity mem­bers decide their plan’s makeup and the sur­veys are crit­i­cal for gath­er­ing their infor­ma­tion. The ane­mic par­tic­i­pa­tion sug­gests very few are inter­ested. Nor have plan­ners been forth­com­ing about who took the sur­veys. Were they stacked with the fam­i­lies of venders who stand to profit from Thrive 2055, or pos­si­bly groups of oppo­nents and their friends? Why are they con­tin­u­ing with a so-called ‘com­mu­nity plan’ with so lit­tle inter­est on the part of the com­mu­nity? The plan­ners have not answered one of these questions.

Com­mu­nity par­tic­i­pa­tion and full-disclosure about the good and bad of regional plan­ning is fun­da­men­tal if res­i­dents are to make informed deci­sions. Thrive 2055 offers no plan details. They claim the com­mu­nity decides the plan. What com­mu­nity? Are the 1200 who took the sur­vey decid­ing the plan for the remain­ing 998,800?

The few who have heard of the Thrive 2055 have scant idea of the out­comes beyond the col­or­ful brochures and trendy planner-speak. Feel good phrases like, “edu­cated peo­ple with good jobs liv­ing in a great place” do not inform peo­ple. Rather, they dis­arm them from ques­tion­ing the under­ly­ing flaws of the process.

Since many peo­ple own their land and can pro­duce a prop­erty deed, they feel their rights are safe. Where region­al­ism is involved, this fatal mis­un­der­stand­ing sets peo­ple up to lose their prop­erty rights, their home val­ues and their way of life.

The gov­ern­ment does not need to own land to gov­ern what own­ers can do with it. Instead, they need to con­trol the zon­ing of the land. That is what regional plan­ning does. It turns zon­ing deci­sions over to un-elected boards who must com­ply with the require­ments of the fed­eral grants that paid for the regional plan’s implementation.

Already, in Chat­tanooga, the eco­nomic epi­cen­ter for Thrive 2055, plan­ners are enter­tain­ing the idea of form-based codes. This is a pro­gram­ma­ble sys­tem for fast track­ing zon­ing ordi­nances while mar­gin­al­iz­ing or alto­gether bypass­ing legislatures.

Nowhere do plan­ners dis­cuss these impor­tant facts with com­mu­nity members.

The com­mu­nity did not ask plan­ners to sell them a regional plan that would swal­low their com­mu­ni­ties’ choices. It is incum­bent on the plan­ners to reach a rep­re­sen­ta­tive num­ber of peo­ple with full dis­clo­sure. It is not incum­bent on the peo­ple to par­tic­i­pate in a poorly defined and unso­licited scheme that endan­gers their prop­erty rights.

Per­haps it is time for Thrive 2055 to admit their fail­ure to inform and engage the pub­lic, and sim­ply to move on.

Source: http://agenda21news.com/2014/08/stealth-land-grab-regional-planners/

Comments

UN Agenda 21 implementation planners are now forming regions across state lines.  This violates the “home rule” provisions in most State Constitutions.  Americans are used to having elected officials in counties and cities manage the services they perform with local tax dollars.  Federal squander-grant funding allows planners to create this fantasy land planning when elected officials are too lazy to do their jobs and too reliant on consultants and staff to make all the decisions. 

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader