Roswell committee advances 2045 comprehensive plan transmittal, asks staff to compare 2040 residential language and pursue housing study

The Roswell committee advanced the draft 2045 comprehensive growth plan toward transmittal while directing staff to compare the plan’s residential language with the city’s 2040 plan and to carry out a targeted housing study.

Michelle Alexander, the city’s director of community development, opened the discussion by saying the comprehensive plan is “a required policy document” that frames long-term decisions but does not itself change zoning. She told the committee the draft emphasizes economic development and activity centers, and that staff had engaged the public with three community meetings and a survey with more than 1,000 responses.

Why it matters: the committee must transmit a final draft to the Georgia Department of Community Affairs (DCA) and the Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) by a July 27 transmittal hearing; once transmitted and reviewed there is very little room for later modification before adoption. Council members said the draft’s condensed residential language felt weaker than the 2040 wording and asked staff to prepare a direct comparison so elected officials — and the public — could see specific differences.

Council members proposed different fixes. Council member Christine Hall and others argued that some residential sections in the 2040 plan contained more detailed protections and should be reinserted verbatim into the 2045 draft. Council member Sarah Beeson and others asked for precise comparisons and cautioned against assuming change without evidence from the documents. Mayor Mary Robicheaux and staff emphasized the transmittal timeline and asked for expedited side-by-side pages and a short feedback window.

On policy details, the committee discussed consolidating Community Work Program tasks across five activity centers, adopting minimum transition-buffer language to protect adjacent single-family neighborhoods, and ensuring work-program items tie to follow-up actions such as UDC (Unified Development Code) text amendments when appropriate. Alexander said the CIE (Capital Improvement Element) and impact-fee financial report for FY2025 will be filed with the transmittal packet.

Public input: following a council vote to allow limited public comment during the committee meeting, many residents urged explicit, unambiguous protections for existing single‑family neighborhoods and asked that any substitution of 2045 text be clearly presented and explained. Speakers pressed for definitions (for terms such as “pockets” or “missing middle”), warned about developer loopholes and past zoning litigation, and urged that staff’s housing study be paired with an implementation or execution strategy so findings do not simply sit on a shelf.

Next steps: staff will prepare 2045/2040 side-by-side comparisons for council review, circulate those pages, accept expedited email feedback where feasible, and present any agreed edits before the July 27 transmittal. The committee did not adopt final plan text at the meeting; it advanced related consent items (minutes and two grants) and asked staff to return to council with refined language and a timetable for the housing study and implementation steps.