The City of Madison and Morgan County are in the early stages of developing a comprehensive plan agreement, and the city council voted on a preliminary step during its Nov. 10 meeting.
The TSW Design firm has been chosen as the city’s partner in the plan process at a total cost of $162,450 over the next two years.
According to Madison’s assistant director of planning and development, the city received two responses to its recent request for proposals (RFP), one from the Lumenor Consulting Group out of Alpharetta and the other from TSW Design.
The Northeast Georgia Regional Commission was also considered the primary partner for the comprehensive plan. Still, state officials said they did not have enough staff to develop the entire plan without outside engagement, according to Madison’s Senior Planner Monica Callahan.
“While TSW could cover everything, we saw them as being able to coordinate more with less [Madison] staff requirements,” Callahan said.
The Morgan County Board of Commissioners had already approved an agreement with TSW pending a decision by the City of Madison.
In essence, Morgan County, and the cities of Bostwick, Madison, and Rutledge, and the Town of Buckhead, were looking for a qualified consultant team to help develop a 20-year Morgan County Joint Comprehensive Plan.
The plan process will commence in December 2025 with public meetings, and a draft will be submitted to the Northeast Georgia Regional Commission and the Department of Community Affairs by December 2026. The final plan would then be adopted by June 2027 and serve as the guiding document into 2047.
“The Lumenor proposal, if you’ve had a chance to read that, is more of a baseline proposal similar to what we would get from the [Northeast Georgia Regional Commission – NEGRC],” Bogle said. “TSW was much more detailed and responded specifically to our RFP and the things that we were requesting above and beyond the baseline comprehensive planning process.”
According to documents provided by Madison’s planning staff, the total cost of services is divided up between the county and its municipalities.
The proposal submitted by Lumenor would cost $212,278.76, with Madison paying $53,070; the TSW proposal would cost $349,800, with Madison paying $87,450.
Other costs involved in the comprehensive plan process, including Madison Greenprint, the urban redevelopment plan, land use analysis, etc., bring Madison’s total to $162,450, split between the FY2025-26 and FY2026-27 budgets.
According to Bogle, planning staff initially requested $100,000 for each budget, under the assumption that the comprehensive plan would be prepared independently of Morgan County. Still, the joint approach has turned out to be less costly.
Madison City Councilman Eric Joyce made the motion to select TSW’s proposal. The vote was unanimous.
City Manager John Klimm praised the work done by the city’s planning staff leading up to the decision.
At the conclusion of the meeting, Callahan announced that Ann Sessions made a $1,000 donation to the city’s “Art Where We Live” program, overseen by the Public Arts Commission.