The Hall County School Board approved a resolution Monday opposing the proposed de-annexation of the site of a proposed apartment complex near Lanier Technical College.
The 58-acre property on Lanier Tech Drive is currently annexed in the city of Gainesville, but a consent agenda item from the Hall County Commission would bring it back into the county's jurisdiction, making any potential future residents part of the county school system as well.
The developers, Capstone Acquisitions, LLC., are looking to build the apartment complex on the property and requested the de-annexation. The city has granted that request.
Hall County Schools Superintendent Will Schofield said he opposes the move because it would bring more students into the school system without bringing in an equitable amount of tax revenue.
"The idea of saying we will just agree to take an apartment complex back with a lot of students, a lot of expense and no property value is just a head-scratcher for me," Schofield said. "We'll approve the exact verbiage of the resolution next week, but the gist of it is: we oppose all de-annexation of residential property back into the county, and I don't care if it's a million-dollar home or an apartment building."
School Board Vice Chairman Nath Morris agreed.
"We sit in a county school system that has two independent school districts in our zone that have annexation abilities and can annex any piece of property at any time and potentially change school districts, and that has been a very sore subject of mine," Morris said at Monday's meeting. "It just seems to me like the work that we've done to try to protect our Hall County taxpayers from having to increase funding to cover schools because we've lost money to municipalities and independent school districts is now being overrun with the potential for de-annexation. This has to stop."
The Hall County Commission is set to vote on the consent agenda at the beginning of their voting session at 6:00 p.m. Thursday.
