Newton County board endorses short-term text edits to comprehensive plan, defers map changes to full update

Newton County commissioners met in a work session April 21 to review proposed amendments to the county comprehensive plan and directed staff to pursue short-term text cleanups while moving more substantial map and character-area boundary changes into the county's full plan update.

Shana Applewhite, Newton County director of development services, and Eva Kennedy, executive director of the Northeast Georgia Regional Commission, briefed the board on a two-tier approach: priority 1 changes are mostly text amendments to clarify character-area descriptions and the list of zoning districts allowed within them; priority 2 changes involve revising character-area boundaries on the future land-use map and are best handled as part of the major comprehensive-plan update. "The priority 1 are taking a look at those mostly text amendments," Applewhite said, adding that map and boundary work…