Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Future Land Use topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Proposed future land use map aims to guide growth to 2045; commissioners press for sewer, neighborhood protections
Summary
Planning staff presented a proposed future land use map designed to accommodate roughly 30,000 new residents through 2045 and focus growth on corridors; commissioners expressed concern about sewer/water capacity, neighborhood protections, and asked staff to coordinate service-delivery and parks plans before a February vote.
Planning staff presented a detailed proposed future land use map that would guide Athens-Clarke County through 2045 and accommodate roughly 30,000 additional residents in the next two decades.
Bruce, a planning staff member, said the map is a policy tool — not zoning — intended to concentrate change on corridors, limit sewer expansion where appropriate, expand housing variety and protect environmentally sensitive areas. He noted that after removing government-category refinements and rural-residential clarifications only about 6% of the map represents substantive change, concentrated on corridors such as Atlanta Highway, Hawthorne, Gaines School Road and other growth-ready arterials.
Alex Sams, chair of the future land use steering committee, urged the commission to view the map as the product of a year-and-a-half citizens’ process and said the committee tried to balance growth, infrastructure and community input: "It's a citizens committee...we met for a year and a half or so and put a lot of time into this map and the verbiage." Several commissioners asked for the full staff presentation to be posted publicly for constituents to review.
A recurring theme was sewer and water capacity. Commissioners and Manager Bob discussed an overlapping service-delivery plan for utilities that staff expects to present in the next months; staff said basin-level studies and the utilities service-delivery plan will identify where extension or upgrades are needed to support map-designated growth. Commissioner Myers and others pressed for an explicit tie between the future land use map and planned sanitary-sewer investments.
Other commissioners raised neighborhood-protection and "missing middle" housing concerns: Commissioner Link said she will ask for targeted amendments in small, in-town neighborhoods that she and constituents fear could be redeveloped for student housing; Commissioner Fischer recommended incremental, corridor-focused change coupled with zoning-code reform.
Staff and the mayor stressed the calendar: the map presentation is the gateway decision that would allow staff to move forward with zoning and corridor-level planning; commissioners were told a formal vote could occur as soon as the February cycle (a vote two weeks from the meeting was discussed). Staff agreed to circulate the full presentation and related sewer and parks planning materials before the next meeting.
