Special district is key March 11, 2006 By KEITH LAING and MARY STARR The Brunswick News Georgia is offering its 159 counties a chance to turn undeveloped land into living space and economic opportunity without having to sweat over details like roads and water lines. The concept - known as a Community Improvement District - is available to anyone who dreams big and who can win support for a vision from the governing bodies of the county and state. In Glynn County, the process has already begun for the community’s second Community Improvement District. The proposed new district, in southwest Glynn County in the area of U.S. 82 and Georgia 99, is known tentatively as the Turtle River Community Improvement District. It has been approved by the Glynn County Commission and has made it through the state House of Representatives, where Rep. Roger Lane, R-Darien, was the sponsor. The legislation was signed Thursday by Sen. Jeff Chapman, R-Brunswick, the last member of the local state delegation to accept it. His signature guarantees its passage in the Senate. Community Improvement Districts provide developers a taxation plan to generate revenue to pay for infrastructure. The county can be asked to levy an additional 2 1/2 percent property tax on commercial properties within the boundaries of a district for up to 12 years. The district could use those funds - under the direction of a seven-member board consisting of two county commissioners and five district property owners - exclusively to provide infrastructure, such as roads and water and sewer facilities. The first Community Improvement District in Glynn County - Altamaha Community Improvement District - was granted by the General Assembly in 2003 to developers of the proposed Steamboat City theme park, located in the area of Georgia 99 and Interstate 95 in north Glynn County. The Turtle River District consists of four tracts of land owned by local developers Joe McDonough and John Carbonell. . . . Plans call for it to feature both residential and commercial properties, including a golf course and a marina on the river. If fully developed, the county estimates that the district would create 5,000 jobs and generate more than $50 million annually in property and sales taxes. Carbonell, a Savannah native who has lived and worked as a developer throughout the United States and Europe, is possibly best known for having had a hand in the development of Peachtree City, a planned city south of Atlanta. He is enthusiastic about the Turtle River development. “The barrier islands are either government-owned or have reached a saturation point as far as development is concerned,” said Carbonell. “But inland, there are hundreds of thousands of acres of timberland (very little includes) waterfront property and ocean access.” Carbonell says the Turtle River community is still in the master planning stage. The development . . . will include 364,000 square feet of retail space, 1.5 million square feet of R & D/Logistics workplaces, a golf center, a marina and yacht club and single and multi-family housing. The area is (near) Oak Grove Island, an upscale subdivision and golf community situated on U.S. 341, north of Brunswick. The development group favors Community Improvement District status for a number of reasons, one being that Glynn County government is, according to Carbonell, interested in quality growth. “A CID is nothing more than a layer to create an efficient way to finance infrastructure by allowing the investors, rather than the developers or the taxpayers to do it,” he said. “The process also accelerates waiting for investors - it gets the attention of global investors. “Our project would still happen, it just wouldn’t happen as quickly without it being a CID.” State House Majority Leader Jerry Keen, R-St. Simons, says a Community Improvement District is an excellent way for citizens to ensure they are getting what they pay for. “It’s a very effective mechanism for helping people who want to have improvements do it internally,” he said. “It allows them to sort of charge themselves. The owners agree to build in additional fees and the money stays within (the district) to develop or maintain infrastructure.” State Rep. Lane says that though county residents stand to gain from having a Community Improvement District in Glynn County, the county itself has nothing to lose. “The county doesn’t give up any of its taxes,” he said. “This doesn’t affect anything that’s going to the county.” Glynn County Commissioner Cap Fendig says being a designated Community Improvement District is an excellent way for citizens to have more control on what happens in their areas. “If people want to vote for and pay for improvements, they don’t have to wait for the county to get the money to make (the improvements),” he said. “It gives prospective land purchasers confidence that infrastructure extras are going to be available and supplied.” Fendig says the only downside to Community Improvement District status is that once it is established, it stays in place for at least six years. “There may be particular owners within the CID who don’t want to pay those additional taxes, but people have the choice to purchase land within a CID or not,” he said. “It’s not much different than what people experience in homeowners associations.”