The Cobb County Board of Commissioners enacted a seven and one-half month moratorium on the construction of above-ground electrical transmission lines exceeding 115 kilovolts. Georgia Transmission Corporation Appellee filed a petition for declaratory judgment and injunctive relief against Cobb County and members of its Board of Commissioners Appellants, asserting that the ordinance was unconstitutional. In an extensive order, the trial court concluded that the moratorium violated the home rule provision of the Georgia Constitution of 1983, Art. IX, Sec. II, Par. I c, and the uniformity provision of the Georgia Constitution of 1983, Art. III, Sec. VI, Par. IV a. Accordingly, the trial court granted declaratory judgment, and Appellants filed a notice of appeal. We granted a motion for expedited consideration of the appeal. 1. We recently held that a very similar ordinance, on its face, violated the home rule provision of the Georgia Constitution by effectively infringing on Appellee’s exercise of its statutory power of eminent domain to acquire property interests for the construction of a high-voltage line specifically targeted by the ordinance. Rabun County v. Georgia Transmission Corp. , __Ga.__ 1 Case Number S02A1374, decided January 13, 2003. As Appellants themselves state, the only significant differences in the present moratorium and the one held invalid in Rabun County are the latter’s greater length of three years, its prohibition of all new power lines, regardless of whether they are above-ground, and its application to lines which exceed 35, rather than 115, kilovolts. Because these differences are in degree, and not in kind, the instant case is not distinguishable. We therefore conclude that, under the controlling authority of Rabun County v. Georgia Transmission Corp. , supra at __ 1, __ 2, __ 3, the trial court correctly held that the Cobb County ordinance, on its face, violates the home rule provision of the Georgia Constitution.
2. This conclusion “renders it unnecessary to pass upon the other ground of attack upon the constitutionality of the ordinance.” Floyd County v. Scoggins , 164 Ga. 485, 490 2 139 SE 11 1927.
