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into the city limits and the city by day. This is a key component to that,” City Manager Josh Beck began. “We think this neighborhood has a historical value and the aesthetics to really attract the younger generation and attract new people to the city. We want to help preserve that.”

Beck continued, stating concerns had been growing in the area because of the construction of multifamily housing units. He said that to combat this issue, he was asking that the City place a moratorium on any development from 2nd Street to Pinewood Drive and from Bay Street West to Church Street.

According to Beck, many of these areas were in residential zoning or office/residential zoning, which allows for a lot of businesses in the neighborhood. “We want to try to slow things down with development in these areas and try to figure out what is going to be the long term goals that we have in our plan. In my opinion, I think we need to pause and think, ‘does this neighborhood justify businesses in it or do we want to try to locate some of those businesses in other areas and try to really key in on what our comprehensive plan outline is — for this area to be primarily residential?” he remarked. “We’ll do this moratorium period and then we’ll think about how this zoning needs to look. It just allows us to hit the pause button and properly figure out what’s best for this area.”

The moratorium was unanimously approved on a 4-0 vote, as Councilman Cecil Thompson was absent from the meeting.

SPLOST

During the called meeting, the Council also approved to the Special Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) Agreement between Toombs County and the cities of Lyons, Vidalia, and Santa Claus for the distribution of SPLOST collections. With this new agreement, the amount of SPLOST funding collected by Vidalia will increase from the current rate of 31% to 35.77%. “This is a good thing – this is good news. We have more money,” Beck remarked.