Gray population skyrockets, little change in Forsyth
Call it a tale of two cities: Forsyth and Gray are in similarly sized counties growing at nearly the same fast rate, but the cities themselves could hardly be more different.
On average, Gray added a dozen people per month from 2000 to 2010. Forsyth added a dozen people -- in the entire decade, census figures show.
Comparatively, Jones and Monroe counties grew by nearly identical rates -- 21.3 and 21.5 percent, respectively.
And so while Gray is coping with bustling traffic and other changes brought by 80.9-percent growth during the past decade, nearly all of the thousands of new residents in Monroe County are settled outside the city limits of Forsyth, which grew just 0.3 percent.
Forsyth Mayor Tye Howard said he plans to dispute the results, saying the U.S. Census Bureau likely undercounted the city’s population by hundreds of people.
“I don’t trust the numbers, and we will file a challenge,” he said.
Howard said Forsyth also is expecting more growth when the economy improves. The city approved 701 new housing units in early 2008, he said, including one apartment complex with about 300 units. More people may move to the city to cut their commuting time to the new Georgia Department of Corrections headquarters, Howard said.
Gray officials also expect further growth in the future, but Councilman Benny Gray Jr. said most of the city’s new residents have come from subdivisions annexed into the city limits.
U.S. Census Bureau maps show Gray annexed a significant amount of property, generally along U.S. 129 south of the center of town and around Ga. 18 on the south side. In comparison, Forsyth’s city limits stayed relatively stagnant. Annexation can bring in existing residents, as well as bring in land that can be developed into new homes.
“We’ve annexed land depending on the need for utilities,” said Gray Mayor Gus Wilson. Residents inside the city limits receive water and sewage services, while residents in unincorporated Jones County only receive water. “We’re not trying to grow all out in the middle of the county.”
Sewage service lets developers build more dense subdivisions.
“There’s still room for growth and development in a lot of existing neighborhoods,” he said, adding that there are also quite a few homes for sale in the city.
Longtime residents have watched the change and taken advantage of it.
“We were seeing houses go up everywhere, and a lot of them were just sitting for a while,” said lifelong Jones County resident Tammy Sharp.
She contends that Gray is still growing, although after dramatic growth during the past 15 years, she said the rush has tapered off within the past three.
“That’s why I opened a skating rink here,” said Sharp, owner of Gray-8 Skate on Gray Highway. “I was advised that a skating rink would never make it in Gray because we didn’t have the population.”
Three years later, the rink is still open. And while there may only be a few cars in the parking lot on a Friday evening, Sharp said there are usually more than 100 people skating inside.
“There’s not a whole lot of places where folks will go and drop off their kids,” she said. “There’s that comfort level (in Gray).”
Changing bedroom communities
In 2000, Gray’s population was less than half the size of Forsyth’s. Now it’s just 500 people shy.
For now, the city government of Gray has been handling the rapid increase like it has dealt with population in the past, said Gray, who has been a councilman for more than 21 years.
“We have to wait until the economy breaks to come up with an analysis for what to do from here,” he said.
Many new residents move to these bedroom communities seeking refuge from the hustle and bustle of city life.
“Macon and Gray are not very different,” said Amy Jang, who moved to Gray in 2007 after living in Macon for 16 years. “Macon’s not really a big city, but there’s traffic.”
While it’s not clear whether Gray will see another surge of growth, the city’s recent expansion has already begun to change life in the area.
Gray grew from 1,800 to nearly 3,300 people in just 10 years, creating quite the traffic jam on Gray Highway during rush hour.
City officials are working to complete a bypass road, hoping to divert some of the traffic traveling through downtown.
Despite a 40-minute commute to her Bibb County restaurant each day, Jang said the move to Gray was worth it.
She made the decision after her two adult children moved away and she and her husband wanted a change of pace.
“We like a kind of country style -- quiet and peaceful -- and the property tax (in Macon) is higher,” Jang said.
Gray also offers more trees, fresh air and space to plant organic fruits and vegetables, she said.
Macon, however, is better suited for her business.
“If you open a restaurant in Gray, you may have the same customers each day,” she said, but Macon’s population allows for a larger customer base.
In comparison, John Gibbs settled in Monroe County, well outside Forsyth, simply because that’s where he found a house lot.
“We looked all over Macon and Bibb County, and we could not find what we wanted,” said Gibbs, a retiree. “And we found a subdivision just across the county line that was available, and we built our house.”
Gibbs’ lot is less than a mile inside the Monroe County line. He said nearly all his neighbors commute to Macon. New residents have discouraged some of the longtime residents, because people have supplanted the wild turkeys, foxes and squirrels he’d regularly seen in his fast-growing area south of Bolingbroke.
“Now with the (human) population increase, we see less and less of them,” he said.
County living
If the three most important things in real estate are location, location and location, Gray has an advantage. With many residents commuting to Macon, the proximity of the city -- six miles -- helps. In contrast, the closest part of Forsyth to Macon is 14 miles as the bird flies, U.S. Census Bureau maps show.
Internal Revenue Service numbers show many of Monroe County’s new residents are either coming from Bibb County or Atlanta’s sprawl, such as Henry County.
Monroe County Commission Chairman James Vaughn said growth in his county has been focused on the extremes, rather than in the middle in Forsyth.
“I think that certainly most of the new subdivisions in the last decade that are oriented toward Macon are in the south end of the county,” Vaughn said. “I think that’s a large part of the growth, and Forsyth’s far from that. And then we have a fair number of the population that are in the High Falls (area) and off Johnstonville Road” in north Monroe County.
River Forest, a 1,700-acre horse-and-golf subdivision in north Monroe County, advertises its proximity to McDonough, in Henry County, as well as to Atlanta and Atlanta’s airport. Miles of undeveloped land sit between the big development and Forsyth.
Looking forward
In some ways, Forsyth is less growing and more rebuilding. The Department of Corrections campus is in the site of the formerly bustling Tift College. A former Trane air conditioning plant used to employ 50 people in Forsyth, but it shut down in 2006. Encore Plastics hopes to launch in that building and have as many as 100 employees.
In 1990, Forsyth had 4,268 people. That fell to 3,776 in the 2000 census and raised just slightly to 3,788 in the 2010 census.
Gray had also lost population in the 1990s, falling from 2,189 in 1990 to 1,811 in 2000. But it overcame that loss and more, surging to 3,276 in 2010.
Planning for the future of Gray will be a balancing act, Councilman Gray said.
Because of tax exemptions available in the city, most of Gray’s new residents are senior citizens, while the county’s younger population lives outside of the city, he said.
“You need some incentives to keep (younger people) in,” he said, noting that bringing industries to Gray would give trade workers and college graduates an employment option there instead of having to commute to Macon or Milledgeville each day.
Wilson anticipates more jobs coming to the city through the development of Gray Business Park.
More social options, such as nice restaurants, also could attract a younger demographic to the city, Councilman Gray said.
However, when asked if a more urban scene was on the horizon for the city, he said that having lived there so long, it would be nice if it stayed the way it is.
“We want to conservatively grow,” he said. “We don’t want to just grow because you see a dollar bill.”
To contact writer Caryn Grant, call 744-4347. To contact writer Mike Stucka, call 744-4251.
This story was originally published April 4, 2011 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Gray population skyrockets, little change in Forsyth."