OK. I'll be blunt and up front. I'm prejudiced. I am not open-minded about taxes. Now that I've discovered/decided that the main purpose of taxes is to keep the currency moving at a goodly rate, back into the Treasury for counting and redistribution, I don't think anybody that uses our currency should be exempt from paying taxes.
On the other hand, I also don't think we should be, metaphorically speaking, nickel and dimed to death, having our time wasted, by having to pay up every time we spit. Though sales taxes are becoming less of a problem, now that they can be calculated and collected automatically and we don't have to waste time figuring with each purchase, I'm generally in favor of lump sum payments like property taxes and income taxes and automobile registrations. Those who demand extra services should pay extra.
However, using our currency to enforce/ensure a moral stance or enhance social status should be taboo and certainly not something our governmental bodies are into. Bribing people with exemptions, insuring that others pay more, is downright immoral.
So, what's the matter with Cannon's Point Preserve? As the people at FOX would say, "you decide."
The matter is that it's a scam. The Sea Island Company, which went belly-up in 2010 after a storied history on the Georgia coast, didn't just bite off more than it could chew, when it went into hock to tear down and rebuild The Cloister and some condo units on the side. No, it also went over-board in the effort to convert the timberlands it had acquired cheap into exclusive communities which, since they are built around man-made lakes and ponds dug out of the muck, get to be exempt (a sign of specialness) from being regulated by the EDP as waters of the state. (Ground waters, not being navigable, don't count as being connected, regardless of the fact that water seeks its own level all over the earth).
The results are still obvious at Frederica Township, the development across the road from Cannon's Point, whose vacant lots, despite having been rescued from Welles Fargo by Wayne Huizenga (Frederica Development Group LLC), still languish in a depressed real estate market. Had the economic crash not called a halt, Cannon's Point could well have been just another one of many contributing factors in the collapse of an organization whose fantasies far exceeded its capacities. For proof we need but take a quick look at this infrastructure assessment from 2009, a full year before the formal collapse of Sea Island.
According to the Department of Community Development of Glynn County:
“Listed below are the affected subdivisions/ projects in which improvements were secured by bonds or letters of credit. In some instances bonds have been released; in others they remain partially in force. The project improvements appear to have some form of tacit administrative acceptance, though there is a clear lack of a documented paper trail. . . . Some of these projects have been constructed over a decade ago. Staff failed to require the developer to get items in for acceptance in a timely manner and never followed up on outstanding issues in a timely manner. Staff further approved building permits for structures to connect onto the non-accepted systems and did not deny the permits nor call the bonds to force the issue. Some bonds were allowed to expire without the County receiving the required documentation. Likewise the developer made commitments to make submissions but failed to totally meet the submission requirements.”
It was probably just luck that the 600+ acres now known as Cannon's Point were preserved from the fate that befell their neighbors across the road. Either luck, or the fact that Jones heirs had reserved some five+ acre enclaves for themselves and prudently did not rush into carving the rest of the landscape into building lots. After all, at that point in time the Sea Island Company had already 675 approved lots to be served by central sewer and water systems and a grand total of only 80 houses either built or under construction. In other words, they'd pretty much saturated the market for building lots on St. Simons Island alone. The number of vacant lots on Sea Island itself remains unknown. What is known is that while townhouses on the north end and around the new Ocean Forest golf course are on a sewer force main, the original cottage community of some five hundred residences still relies on septic tanks floating in a giant, unseen
cesspool on the dunes.
Then there was the mainland acreage for which grandiose plans, eagerly supported by the Glynn County Development Authority, never materialized. And let's not forget that, perhaps in imitation of their Sea Island patrons, any number of minor speculators set about developing residential enclaves, whose vacant lots dot the rural landscape and, to this day, give the lie to the old saw that “if you build it, they will come.” Even the Glynn County School Board was tempted to get into the act and acquired some 57 acres of swamp at the end of what is now known as Spur 25. At least, that site, supplied with both water and sewer by the Joint Water and Sewer Commission, didn't sprout a school nobody needs.
On the other hand, much of the mainland Sea Island acreage seems to have escaped the general bankruptcy by transitioning into various spin-offs -- limited liability companies with hard to pronounce names like SLV IV GA ALTAMA LLC and SIAPROPCO II LLC. That was the solution on Cannon's Point, as well. While it is a preserve mainly because it preserves the family assets on Cannon's Point, that those 600 acres, now owned by two entities (Cannon's Point Preserve LLC and CD Preserve LLC) were originally destined for subdivision into small lots is suggested by the network of side roads leading off the central spine--lanes with quaint names like Hogwallow and Overseer Road.
That's the same pattern deployed for the original Sea Island Cloister and Cottage development.
Moreover, it's not just the street layout that's similar. Another characteristic these Sea Island developments have in common is that the ownership of sensitive areas (marshes and wetlands and ponds and the river frontage) are retained by the developer as supposedly common (but restricted) lands, making him a sort of modern day lord of the manor. That the resulting water bodies (features) are effectively excluded from supervision by our public resource protection and conservation agencies is not necessarily detrimental, especially if the developer's standards are the same or better. Very often they are not. Man-made lakes located on one property don't have to have buffers of natural vegetation that serve to preclude chemical run-off of, so they don't. Turf reigns supreme. Add a few palm trees and the marsh becomes an upland scene. Not for everyone. Only "special" people get special treatment. Sea Island Acquisitions, or its successor Limited Liability Companies, look the other way, like the proverbial "fence," when it's convenient to someone's pocketbook. The ubiquitous fences securing our "upscale" communities are both real and metaphoric--guarded by antiqued or weathered padded sentinels, to add a touch of authenticity.
The St. Simons Trust people, the organizers of the Cannon's Point Preserve, want to have it both ways, passing themselves off as a charitable enterprise so donors can take hefty tax deductions, even as they serve to preserve the heirs' privacy and way of life with electronic gates on the so-called "wilderness." Electronic gates, asphalt paving, viewing towers, a Georgia Pacific pavilion and a dock to accommodate commercial kayak tours from Sea Island, whose "programs" are being marketed at the Brunswick Golden Isles Airport by the "Inn at Sea Island," and which, like the "Shops at Sea Island" and the "Sea Island Golf Course" (about to host the
McGladrey Classic) and the
Lodge at Sea Island, is actually on St. Simons Island, hardly qualify as "unspoiled wilderness" or pristine maritime forest. Think of it more as an amusement/education park with a wilderness and ecology theme.
From the perspective of the Jones heirs, whatever shame is attendant to having three generations of family enterprise go bankrupt, it is, one hopes, somewhat mollified by the St. Simons Land Trust coming to the rescue with twenty three million dollars -- enough to secure the six hundred acres adjacent to their estates. Even if property values have continued their slide and the current appraised market value is only in the thirteen million range (buying low and selling high is still sweet), the St. Simons Land Trust control of public access to the "preserve" is surely a good example of making lemonade out of lemons. Except that is, from the perspective of the public. What the public, in being expected to exempt this quasi-public venue from property taxes and provide a subsidy from the public purse, is being asked to swallow, and appreciate while it goes down, is more like lemon-flavored KoolAid, laced with who knows what chemicals.
For, while the Sea Island pattern of maintaining ownership of all the surrounding marshes, creeks and tidal zones, like some giant moat, assures the estates' privacy, not just on land, but from the sea, if past is prologue, the natural environment is almost certain to suffer increasing depredation not only from man-made structures (docks and viewing towers and educational pavilions), but from the killing machines needed to keep the wild things (bugs, invasive species, hogs, deer and non-natives) in check. It's not hard for environmental interests to morph into an exclusive regimen. Keeping things and people out looks just like virtue, as long as what people look like is ignored.
Once all the accumulation and the deception on which it rests are recognized, I think we have to ask how it happens that this anti-social behavior can go unchecked. And I think the answer is that most ordinary folk simply don't care how much someone else has or what they do with. Until, one day, it suddenly becomes too much and a sense of deprivation can't be shaken. Then it's time to say, enough is enough. Stop pissing on us and telling us it's raining.
It's probably ironic that the Glynn County administrative folk have made it clear that the Land Trust people can't set out Porta-Potties indefinitely. Maybe this invention out of Savannah is the perfect solution. Maybe, instead of "if you build it, they will come," it should read "if you pay, it will be done."
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This video by Southeastadventures is also slightly deceptive in suggesting that kayaking excursions from East Beach to Cannon's Point (from which the old dock has been removed) is an easy jaunt. It does, however, give you an accurate picture of the area over which the Sea Island and Land Trust people want to exercise exclusive and tax exempt use.