www.dadeinfo.com

Executed orders
Facility: Tauqueta Falls land application system/Rising Fawn
Location: Dade County
Order Number: EPD-WQ-MDO-09-046
Date of Issue: July 27,2009
Cause of Order: Violation of NPDES Permit/exceeded Permit limitation of total suspended solids
Requirement(s) of Order: Correct immediately
Settlement Amount: $250.00

Facility: Tauqueta Falls urban water reuse land application system/Rising Fawn; order issued to Tauqueta Development, LLC
Location: Dade County
Order Number: EPD-WQ-MDO-09-003
Date of Issue: April 13,2009
Cause of Order: Violation of NPDES Permit/failure to monitor and report depth to groundwater for all groundwater monitoring wells
Requirement(s) of Order: Correct immediately
Settlement Amount: $1300.00

Facility: Canyon Ridge (section K and phase II) project site; order issued to Mr. John Wise
Location: Dade County
Order Number: EPD-WQ-4724
Date of Issue: May 15,2007
Cause of Order: Violations of General NPDES Permit for Storm Water Discharges Associated with Construction Activity/failure to properly design, install and maintain erosion and sediment controls; buffer encroachment
Requirement(s) of Order: Immediately cease all land disturbing activity at site except installation and maintenance of temporary or permanent E&S controls, and until all phases of project are in compliance with Rules for Wate
Settlement Amount: $10500.00

December 13, 2010 1:40 PM
Grove Street Partners announced Monday that they have made final selections of the development team for the planned hotel and conference center in Walker County, Ga.

Sonesta Hotels, Boston, Mass., brings its signature brand to the development and will manage the hotel and conference center.

Atlanta-based Rule Joy Trammell + Rubio has been announced as the architect and the contractor will be locally-based EMJ Construction ensuring that the majority of the job creation will be local. Raymond James, Co., also of Atlanta, will be the bond underwriter.

“The team members we have chosen have outstanding national reputations,” says Grove Street President Kevin Kern. “This project will have a tremendous economic impact on Walker County and the region, and we are pleased to have assembled such an impressive team.”

Sonesta Hotels, a worldwide hospitality ownership and management entity, will manage the marketing and day-to-day operations of the facility.

“We really believe that the Canyon Ridge development will become a premier destination for business and pleasure travelers from around the country,” said Lorie Juliano, Director of Corporate Communications for Sonesta. “The hotel and conference center will have accommodations and amenities that when coupled with the unique location and scenic beauty will create a spectacular destination. We are excited to bring the Sonesta brand to this mountain resort.”

by Christi McEntyre
In the past few months in Walker County, one development has inspired an entire range of feelings, from pride to avarice — and ground hasn’t yet been broken on the project site.

The proposed Canyon Ridge Hotel and Convention Center has some Walker County residents so worried that a petition has sprung up, garnering more than 400 signatures in print and online, and fueling a strong band of resistance whose members are asking some difficult questions.

Saying they are “The Voice” of the people — and represented by petition founder Jane Bullock and other concerned Walker County citizens including Mark Shaw, Jack Hart and Bill Scarborough — the opponents are growing in number. Their concerns — momentarily abated just before the new year with county commissioner Bebe He-iskell’s announcement that the Canyon Ridge project had been shelved — are now back.

During the first week in January, project developer and Canyon Ridge owner Randy Baker announced that the Canyon Ridge Hotel and Convention Center project was not as done for as commissioner Heiskell made it out to be, and that, with luck — or lack thereof, depending which camp you listen to — Congress will pass an extension on the tax-exempt portion of the Recovery Zone bonds, $21 million of which are still allotted to the project.

This announcement renewed the petitioners’ worries, prompting them to redouble their efforts to research the project, specifically, the nature of its funding.

The money questions
The main worry of many of the concerned citizens is a wariness about how the funding for the development is coming about.

As it stands now, the project is still waiting on $21 million in Recovery Act bonds to combine with private in-vestments and self-imposed property owner taxes to fund a total of $57 million. The extra levied property tax rate (called a millage rate) on Canyon Ridge property owners is slated to be used for renovating the Canyon Ridge prop-erty.

This has Bullock wondering if the money to renovate the Canyon Ridge golf course, which is scheduled to begin in the spring, is going to come initially from the county’s coffers. After all, she said, the money from the homeown-ers’ self-levied 20-mil property tax increase, which is meant to pay for the golf course, clubhouse and fire station construction and renovation, will not be available to the county until after the end of the year 2011, once the new millage rate has been paid. In order to break ground in the spring, she wonders where the upfront funds are going to come from.

“There has been so much misinformation thrown out,” Hart said. “The numbers don’t match.”

For instance, in a Chattanooga television station’s news broadcast on Jan. 5 featuring Canyon Ridge developer Randy Baker, he claimed that the hotel, once built, “would bring in $18 million in a year,” Shaw said.

Having crunched his own numbers based on the estimated projected occupancy and price of the hotel rooms, Shaw said he realized that the $18 million figure is completely unrealistic. “That’s 150% booking (on the hotel) at over-rate every day of the year,” he said. He wonders where the $18 million figure came from, and how it can be explained mathematically.

“There’s a logical sequence that these things follow,” Hart said, arguing that plans for the Canyon Ridge devel-opment have not yet revealed publicly a formal business plan or an impact study. He asks for transparency from the local government, and a clear set of plans and studies that are performed with accuracy before the plans for the development go forward, and which clearly outline the apportions of projects funds for public scrutiny.

Problems with the property
After doing some private research, Hart and the other petitioners said they found something somewhat disturb-ing about the Canyon Ridge property — as of Jan. 18, it has amassed $65,594.80 in unpaid taxes.

Bullock and the others feel that the entire project, with property owner Randy Baker, who owes the $65,000, at-tached as developer, is really functioning as an elaborate and expensive means to “bail out” Baker’s back taxes.

“As a taxpayer, I’m incensed that they’d let someone run up a $65,000 bill,” Shaw said. “They’d never let me owe $65,000 in back taxes.”

But because Baker owns a large tract of potentially useful property and is willing to make it into something the county sees as worthy of making money, Shaw maintains, Baker is being allowed to get away with it for the time being.

“If it wasn’t for the county’s involvements, he’d probably be in bankruptcy right now,” Shaw said.

As for the property itself, which contains approximately a dozen homes inhabited by permanent residents among the nearly 70 finished homes on site, those themselves mostly lying dormant amidst more than 100 unsold tracts, the detractors see these numbers as proof that the Canyon Ridge development is ultimately failing and in need of a government bailout.

“We’re going to spend all these millions of dollars to save these 12 peoples’ homes,” Shaw said.

“It’s public funding for a private enterprise who’s already broke,” Hart said.

“Bailing out wealthy peoples’ second homes … it’s like a moral thing, an ethical thing,” Scarborough said.

After finding the overdue taxes, which are listed as public records at the Walker County tax commissioner’s of-fice, early in the morning of Dec. 9, Hart said, he called the Georgia Department of Community Affairs expressing his concerns about the Canyon Ridge project. On that afternoon, he said, DCA commissioner Mike Beatty sent a letter to commissioner Heiskell advising to avoid “local government guarantees” in “individual economic develop-ment projects.”

Hart, who said he was already keeping an eye on bonds for sale for his own personal financial investments, said he decided to keep an extra lookout for the Recovery Act bonds about to be put up for sale. They were never put up for sale before the Dec. 31 tax-exempt deadline, for reasons of sudden and unprecedented interest rate increases, according to Baker and commissioner Heiskell. Hart said he is convinced it is because of his warning.

Hart takes credit for alerting the Georgia Department of Community Affairs to developer Randy Baker’s back taxes and the questionable nature of the entire project, according to him. This prompted the DCA’s letter to com-missioner Heiskell, he said, which he called a means of self-protection on the part of the DCA against any repercus-sions from Walker County government involvement in the Canyon Ridge project. Furthermore, he feels that his actions helped to keep the $21 million in Recovery Act bonds off of the public market.

He feels that his call to the DCA and their resulting letter to commissioner Heiskell is proof that they were un-aware of Baker’s back taxes, and by telling the commissioner to avoid local government guarantees” in “individual economic development projects,” they were expressing their disapproval of the situation and unwillingness to be involved.

Hart believes that after that point, the tax assessor assigned to the sale of the Recovery Act bonds needed for the Canyon Ridge project to move forward began to drop out of the project. “If the tax assessor moves, if Wells-Fargo bank moves, that’s it,” said Hart.

Government involvement
If the bonds do sell and the project does go forward as planned, the Walker County Development Authority will be lending its credit rating to the bonds, effectively serving as a cosigner on the loan and holding the property titles in trust until the project is finished, the opponents say. For Bullock and the others, this is a questionable plan.

“How is holding something in name not the same as buying?” asked Bullock. “Are not co-signers responsible should something fail?”

And if the project should fail, which these detractors think is a likely outcome, considering the rural location and upscale atmosphere, they fear Walker County taxpayers would have to pay the price on any outstanding bonds or loans.

“I don’t think the county should be in the business of real estate,” Shaw said.

The Walker County Development Authority has a provision by which it can raise the county property tax rate by one mil in order to cover economic development projects. According to Shaw, the WCDA has not yet done so, and is still reserving the right, presumably, he said, for after the Canyon Ridge project fails.

“Those of us who live in this area, it’s (going to be) raising our taxes,” Shaw said. “This whole thing is really like a shell game, the way they’ve treated the public.”

In summary
It really boils down to two questions, Hart maintains.

First, there is the issue of taxes, he said. This group of concerned citizens wants to know whether their taxes will end up being raised if the hotel and convention center should fail, and if tax money from the public is going to be used to fund the initial building of the project before the special tax district funds come in, he said.

Secondly, the group wonders about the recorded lien on the Canyon Ridge property: Is the project moving for-ward as a means to pay off the developer’s back taxes, and, more importantly, why is he being allowed to continue not paying those taxes? As “The Voice” asserts, the Canyon Ridge project is being pushed forward in order to save the property from foreclosure and eventually pay off those taxes.

Such is the fear of Bullock, Shaw, Scarborough, Hart and more than 400 other petitioners. The online petition against the Canyon Ridge development has nearly 250 signatures to date. The paper petition being passed around Walker County by Bullock and the others brings that total to around 420 signatures.

As stated online, the petition asserts an opposition to “the use of any public funds for the development of a ho-tel/conference center on Lookout Mountain or for the purchase of a golf course or for the maintenance of a golf course (public or private), and for the lease of the Mountain Cove Farms property for a period greater than five (5) years.” The petition asks “that the County Commissioner and/or the Walker County Development Authority or any government agency seeking funding for any of these activities cease the development of such business deals or part-nerships.”

As stated online, the main goals of the petitioners are to ask the Walker County Development Authority for trans-parency and accountability in providing the following items for public scrutiny: facts concerning the proposed hotel such as a business plan, feasibility study, funding, and debt reduction plans; a master plan for the proposed addi-tional phases of the development with infrastructure requirements, costs and funding; an impact study on the com-munity; and a master plan for Mountain Cove property and the stipulations of the lease on such property.

For now, the project is still up in the air, waiting on the bond issue. These concerned citizens hope that if and when it should become viable again, the county government, the developer and the Walker County Development Authority will provide clear answers, plans and studies that confirm the feasibility of the Canyon Ridge hotel and convention center and make all financial aspects of the project clear and public record.