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Walton County begins community outreach for Land Development Code rewrite
Summary
Walton County planning staff and consultant SwiftGev outlined a data-driven effort to update the county's Land Development Code, citing a 2017 baseline, a recent E report and plans to publish permitting SOPs and run neighborhood workshops before advancing text amendments.
Walton County planning staff and a consultant said the county is launching public outreach and drafting work to revise the Land Development Code to better reflect recent growth and to reduce permitting confusion. "My name is Sabrina Dugan and I am a managing partner at SwiftGev," Dugan said, describing SwiftGev's role in the county's Building Permit Review (BPR) program and public workshops.
County staff told attendees the rewrite is based on a recently completed evaluation (E) report from DPZ and follow-up text amendments to the comprehensive plan. Staff said the E report has been presented and accepted and that planning will use the report to scope a fuller code rewrite. "Once the E report is adopted through the state-mandated text amendment process, we will be moving forward headlong into a full plan development code rewrite utilizing our SwiftGev partners," a staff member said.
Why it matters: Walton County has experienced rapid growth, and staff said inconsistencies between the comp plan and existing code have caused review delays and confusion for applicants. To make the process more transparent and easier for residents and industry, staff said they will publish standard operating procedures (SOPs) for single-family permitting online within about a month and apply the same SOP approach to other permitting streams.
Staff described a data-driven approach to prioritizing code changes. Planning staff and consultants said they have analyzed recent BPR activity and recurring comments to identify frequent applicant errors; staff reported roughly 950 single-family permit reviews in recent months and said about 60% were resident-initiated and 40% were from builders or developers. Those recurring review flags will inform which code sections to revise first.
Staff emphasized community workshops and visual examples before formal code changes. The county plans topic-specific roundtables (parking, setbacks, wetland protection, flood-zone issues) and said it will show visual comparisons of current code outcomes versus proposed language so residents can see how changes affect house placement and parking layouts.
Next steps: Staff said they hope to "really get into" the LDC rewrite by the end of the year and that additional neighborhood workshops and a virtual Q&A on wetlands with state agency representatives are planned. The county invited residents to submit feedback and attend future sessions.
The town-hall closed with staff apologizing for a registration notification error earlier in the day and promising improved communications for registered participants.
