I am a conservative who is very proud to call Forsyth County home.

As many of you know, our Board of Commissioners has enacted new residential design standards. They are now considering changes to the Tree Protection and Replacement Ordinance and the Soil Erosion and Sedimentation Ordinance.

On the surface, residential design standards and these two ordinances sound good, but they are full of regulations that could cause property values in the county to drop and housing prices to fall.

As an example, in the tree ordinance, the commissioners are proposing to increase the penalty to remove a tree from $400 to $750 per tree, and adding new burdensome permit requirements for tree removal.

All of these new regulations could drive up the cost to build homes and, therefore, could drive down the cost of land in the county.

We already see the signs of decreased home values in Forsyth County.

According to Zillow.com, in April 2019, the median sale price for a home in the county was $339,000; as of August, that number was $316,000.

Our commissioners have publicly stated that their goal is to raise home values through design standards, the Tree Protection Ordinance and the Mass Grading Ordinance. It appears, their efforts are having the opposite effect and are hurting our home values.

The commission leadership sounded like Donald Trump on the campaign trail, yet govern and regulate like Bernie Sanders.

I urge you to contact your commissioner and ask them not to crash our housing market through over-regulation.

Phil Dacosta

Cumming