The Development Authority’s New Website
The Douglas County Sentinel ran a story today about the Development Authority’s new website that informs developers about land opportunities in Douglas County. The story suggested that this was the Development Authority’s first website, however it is not as a prior website was online since March 8, 2005.
The website follows contemporary styles, unlike its predecessor, providing better information, documents, maps, and images for the developers and the public. Underneath the glitzy color is a different story that the Sentinel won’t mention. For one, the Development Authority does not actually authorize developments. Does that you have thinking?
Brief History
The Development Authority was formerly named The Industrial Development Authority when it was established on February 2, 1973 by the Board of Commissioners. Even then Douglas County was going through an increase amount of activity with developments and government controversies. Pressure to evolve was coming from all directions, especially in the shadow of Atlanta.
Progress in the 1980s showed jump in commercial investment as industries saw potential with the aid of the Development Authority. The County was commercializing in a way to compete with other Metro Atlanta counties. More young families were moving into trailer parks or small houses. It wasn’t until the late 1980s that things began to slow down.
The frantic pace to develop Douglas County was finally leveling out in the early 1990s. However, the slow movement produced a catalyst that would forever change the County. When word came that the largest mall in Georgia would be located in Douglasville, top executives of national businesses were listening.
The Development Authority was becoming more active in attracting potential industries to the area. Bring as many big names as possible - it’s the only way to survive. Land was rezoned for the purpose to aid in the Authority’s marketing campaign. Evidence of this is the Douglas Hill Business Park on Thornton Road and New Manchester where the mega-subdivision Tributary is located.
Instead of authorizing or putting some control on development, the Development Authority is a marketing machine with the sole purpose to convince businesses to move here. The more major businesses that operate out of the County provides more jobs, while more tax money for spending. An easier way to look at the Development Authority would be to compare it to a realtor agency supported by the government.
Deeper inside the website
The Sentinel and the Development Authority stated that the web domain name is www.choosedouglascounty.com. This is true, however they both forgot to state about another address – www.developdouglas.info – which was created on April 10, 2006. Both addresses were registered by Eric McDonald, a retail and marketing specialist for the Authority. You can view server registration information for the first address and second address.
The paper went on to state that developers are able to view tax and property information, aerial photography by GreyStone, and topography from the WSA. These features may be available after entering a client login code, though this is unknown. What is publicly present lacks details, especially with the discovery that much of the information is not on the server.
Further investigation shows that information is being pulled from this website: www.edsuite.com. EDSuite is an online business marketing suite that provides a database, web tools, and more while making web design a breeze using templates.
Essentially EDSuite is a Content Management System. I strongly believe that the new website is based off a template and not a custom design. Reason being is that the previous site lacked design quality and information, much like the rest of the local government websites.
Entries in the database can be viewed in two ways: Buildings or Sites (property). After looking over all the entries one trend was very clear – the majority of the entries were all located within the city limits of Douglasville. General information concerning facilities, plat, zoning are provided along with optional photos and links.
A remote map link is provided which takes the user to Microsoft’s Virtual Earth to view a development location. One nice feature is the birds eye view, which is close up of the land from a helicopter or plane. Problem here is that Microsoft does not update their imagery that often like Google.
All downloadable files, including images, PDF documents, and brochures are located on the external server www.edsuite.com. This is a no-no in the web standard community because if edsuite.com goes down, so does the new Development Authority’s website. Was this situation ever thought about?
The information that is provided is a great improvement from some months ago. Only real improvements that the Development Authority could provide is a list of developments they dealt with along with information and mapping images. A similar feature is provided by Losing Georgia, all which is free to the public.
You’re anylsis of the Development Authoriy’s website is right on. EDSuite was hired to design the engine that makes the back end work. The main reason we didn’t use them for the whole thing was they were expensive. Our goal was to get property information out there to the public and also provide some basic information to site selectors looking at our community. There is a wealth of information available, mostly under the community profile section. Our site is mainly set up for commercial/industrial developers and brokers and site selectors. We are working to include smaller properties and parcels to help individuals find small retail or office space. We always welcome suggestions. One thing to remember about the DA’s website is that it was designed to be easy to manage by people with little or no web experience.
As far as the prospect code goes there really is no need to have one unless you have specific project in mind. We will set up a specific site that will address the needs of that client. Nothing sinister hidden back there. To access the Aerial photos & topo and specific tax plat info would require a visit to our office to use our GIS software. To place all that on the web is very expensive and not all that necessary with Google Earth around.
I must admit that your use of Google Earth is fantastic. In fact I just stumbled onto it today and will more than likely use it to show companies looking for land & buildings what’s going on around them.
Your thoughts on the Development Authoritiy’s role are right on as well. Our goal is to increase economic opportunity to the citizens of Douglas County and Douglasville. Many people don’t realize that the government can not sustain itself on the backs of the residential tax payer. It is not my place to defend the spending habits of local government, our job is to feed it. Large distirbution centers may not be very pretty or sexy but they demand very little service and pay a tremendous amount of tax. Even with tax breaks Maytag alone pays of $500,000 annualy in property taxes. That industry does not have one kid in school, uses the roads very little, the building will put the fire out itself. You take that same amount of land (50 acres) and plant about 150 homes on it and you see the demand created. By the way that average subdivision will pay $250,000 in annual property tax and use well over $500,000 in government services. A net lose of $250,000.
The other thing to consider is that Douglas County is in a high growth area. Like it or not, there are tremendous pressures on the land that we have. If land can not go industrial it will go residential. Land in high growth areas doesn not stay vacant unless it is bought by government, conservation groups or individuals who have lots of money. I agree that there are beautiful places being mowed down by bulldozers. The bottom line is that the property owners made the choice to sell thier land and make money. We can’t deny them of that ability. That would be like me telling you that you can’t move to a better house across town or change jobs because I don’t want you to sell your house because I like you as a neighbor.
Well I have rambled on long enough. I invite anyone to call my at 770-920-7459 with questions about what we do or why we do it.
September 15th, 2006 at 3:28 pm