ATLANTA – A proposal that would chop down local efforts to ban the use of wood in high-rise apartment buildings is being pitched as a way to protect rural jobs.

The proposal, sponsored by Rep. John Corbett, R-Lake Park, is a response to local bans in fast-growing Sandy Springs and other suburban areas of Atlanta, where local officials have prohibited wood-frame buildings taller than three stories or larger than 100,000 square feet.

“Atlanta is a crucial downstream market for our timber farmers,” Corbett said. “When you cut off market access, you compound the problem of our tree farmers being able to compete in a free market.”

The forestry industry is a significant employer in Georgia that had an overall $35.2 billion economic impact in 2016, according to a Georgia Forestry Commission report issued this year. 

Most of Georgia’s dozens of sawmills are located in rural communities. Corbett, who is also a timber farmer, said rural lawmakers became aware of the local wood bans in the Atlanta suburbs during one of the House Rural Development Council’s meetings last year.

Proponents of Corbett’s bill argue the local wood bans threaten jobs and could discourage landowners from growing timber. Georgia currently has the largest number of private forestland in the country, with about 22 million acres.

“This doesn’t force anyone to use wood,” Corbett said. “If you want to build apartments out of gold or silver or whatever you want to build them out of, it’s fine. We just ask that you don’t ban wood.”

But Sandy Springs Mayor Rusty Paul says Corbett’s proposal would rob local officials of their ability to protect their residents.

“Let us make the decision about what happens in our community where we think the lives of our residents and first responders truly are on the line,” he said.

Paul said the measure also goes too far and may violate the state constitution by stripping local governments of their ability to have a building code that is more rigorous than the state’s minimum standards.

The mayor may soon find himself weighing whether to legally challenge the state on the question. Corbett’s proposal has already passed the House with a vote of 125 to 43 and was scheduled to hit the Senate floor Monday, where it appears destined for final passage.

A pro-concrete association, Build With Strength, joined forces with local officials in Atlanta’s suburbs to try to defeat the measure. The opponents have clashed with the state’s powerful agricultural industry under the Gold Dome this session.

“This type of overreach from local government sets a scary precedent that we need to ensure doesn’t continue to spread to other localities and especially other products that could come under scrutiny based on misinformation and fads,” said Alex Bradford, who is state affairs coordinator for the Georgia Farm Bureau.

Corbett has also argued banning wood drives up cost of construction by as much as 50 percent, which he said hurts would-be tenants.

“It’s pretty clear. Fire safety isn’t the true motivation behind these code changes. It’s just being used to justify the code changes,” Corbett said.

Paul said the ban did start out in 2016 as a quick way to stop low-quality development in his city, which is home to more than 100,000 people. But he said it was a temporary solution meant to give the young city time to fine tune its other planning policies for managing its growth.

Now, the mayor said safety concerns and the city’s capacity to respond to fires at high-density, high-rise structures are driving the city’s push to stop Corbett’s bill.

“All we want is the ability to assess our own situation to make the decision affecting the lives of our first responders and residents,” Paul said. “That’s all we ask. We’re not trying to impose this on anybody else.”

Jill Nolin covers the Georgia Statehouse for The Valdosta Daily Times, CNHI’s newspapers and websites.