VALDOSTA – Lowndes County purchased a property for more than half a million dollars near Moody Air Force Base saying it wants to prevent encroachment on the air base. A Valdosta businessman, however, wants to know why the land is being bought now and why the price is so high. 

The County Commission approved the purchase — 41.543 acres on Highway 122 for $568,971 — from Building Valdosta, LLC, late Tuesday.

County leaders said the high cost was “inclusive of the development costs incurred by the current owners.” 

Meghan Barwick, county public information officer, said this means the purchase price reflects what the developer paid for the property and the cost of infrastructure improvements made during the time the developer owned the land. 

She said the county discovered Building Valdosta, LLC, was planning a residential development in the area around September 2021. Finding the area to be in the approach zone for runways at Moody Air Force Base, something had to be done.

“Moody Air Force Base is more than half a billion dollars in economic impact to our area,” Barwick said in an email. “It is important to not only Lowndes County but our entire region that the base be protected from encroachment.”

According to Rocket Mortgage, encroachment, as defined from a real estate point of view, means one property owner is violating a neighbor’s rights by building or extending some feature and crossing onto a neighbor’s property lines.

This isn’t the first time Lowndes County has purchased property to protect Moody from encroachment.

Barwick said in 2019, Lowndes County purchased 27.34 acres on Davidson Road for $820,000 for that purpose. This area was next to the base entry gate and is now being used as a maintained green space.

Businessman Scott Alderman, in an email sent to county leaders and also made available to The Valdosta Daily Times, questioned the county’s decision in taking so long to purchase the land and wanted to know what will be done with the land.

Alderman asked, “Who initiated this proposed transaction and why? Was it Moody AFB, the Commission or the current land owners?” 

Alderman also asked the county to provide its written policy, if it has one, for acquiring property. 

The Georgia Open Meeting Act allows government agencies to go behind closed doors to discuss the terms of property transactions but requires any votes to purchase, sell or lease property to take place in open public meetings. 

Alderman said the current owners paid $245,000 just one year ago and asked county leaders if the $323,971 balance of the purchase price is going for reimbursement for their development costs?

“If the County knows now that it needs to purchase this property, why didn’t it know that a year ago, or four years ago, when it could have purchased the property for $173,000 and saved the taxpayers the $395,971 difference?” Alderman asked. 

In terms of policy, Barwick said Lowndes reaches out to base personnel for feedback on how the development could affect Moody’s current and future missions. The county moved forward based on those conversations, she said. 

Alderman wants to know what the county will do with this property, “other than removing it from the tax rolls, and letting the land lie undeveloped, or partially developed?”

No plans have been made on what will be done with the land now that it is bought, Barwick said in an email. 

Alderman also wants to know, “If the federal government does not provide the funding for these purchases, and since Moody is clearly a federal government facility, why do the local Lowndes County taxpayers bear the full burden of paying for these properties to support a federal institution, instead of all American taxpayers?”

This story was updated on Jan. 28 at 1:01 p.m. to reflect that the property was on Highway 122 rather than Highway 42.