MOULTRIE — The Citizens for Property Rights — a group boasting several thousand members — got what they wanted Tuesday night at a county board meeting. The controversial land use plan the Colquitt County Board of Commissioners was working on is now scrapped.

More than 100 of the citizens’ group were on their feet cheering, but they had a short-lived victory when commissioners turned the tables and voted to enforce a 1977 zoning ordinance already on the books. Up until now, the 1977 zoning ordinance has applied only to three areas in the county: Veterans Parkway, Clubview and the Tallokas Circle neighborhood. Some say the ordinance is outdated and too restrictive in its own right.

Citizens for Property Rights spokesmen Wayne Norman and Ray Gene Williams pointedly asked commissioners three times for one to step up and move to strike the Georgia Conservancy-backed land use plan. Finally, Commissioner Merle Hall moved to do so, and after a pause Commissioner Billy Herndon gave the motion a second.

Other commissioners went along with the vote after some discussion that the old ordinance would now be enforced.

Chairman Max Hancock was the sole vote against abandoning the board’s work product. (Commissioner Luke Strong abstained.) Hancock was incensed that the board didn’t follow through with tailoring the drafts for Colquitt County. He wanted to present a draft to the public for comment and have an up-or-down vote on the document, he said.

“I worked a year on it,” Hancock said. “There’s things in there that certainly needed to change, and I thought one of them was the concerns citizens had to pass property to their heirs, and that was in the process of being changed. We have worked a year revising this thing. We agree 7-0 to look into it and revise it. We promised another group not as large as this, but another group, and I’m as good as my word. If I say I’m going to do something, I do it.”

“Sure there are flaws in it,” he said. “There’s flaws in that one we accepted tonight. There’s flaws in all of them, but I’m telling you there’s not a committee that can write a document that complex and make it work. They can’t. I beg to differ with the gentleman out there who said he knows how, because doesn’t know how any more than I do.”

Commissioner Rebecca Whitaker, who made the motion to enforce the old law, acknowledged that the ordinance needs an overhaul. Now, the board has something to work with, she said, but first the county needs an updated map.

Numerous citizens took the podium before the board and delivered rousing speeches against overzealous zoning. They, supported by a majority of the audience, said they want input from the common citizen into any zoning ordinance the county considers. The prevalent sentiment in the crammed room was that too often the board sides with elitist interests and ignores the average Colquitt County taxpayer.

Hall, in her motion, supported the formation of a cross-section citizens committee to help write a new proposal. It is undetermined at this time if such a committee’s input will factor into any future amendments to the 1977 ordinance.