GREENE COUNTY
Prior to Tuesday’s city council meeting, a public hearing was held on the city’s newly created five-year comprehensive development plan. Cities and counties create and use these plans as guides for the future in all potential areas of development including transportation, housing, land use, and economic development.
Work started in May 2023 on Greensboro’s plan and involved public hearings and the establishment of a steering committee of local officials and community leaders, all under the guidance of the Northeast Georgia Regional Commission (NEGRC).
Greensboro’s new Comprehensive Development plan outlines 40 action items, including:
• Amenities such as outdoor seating to make downtown more inviting
• Identify blighted areas and consider a blight tax
• Upgrade and map existing water and sewer lines
• Improve broadband service
• Place an electric vehicle charging station downtown
• Adopt a complete street ordinance
• Plan to connect Greensboro to Firefly Trail corridor through Union Point NEGRC Senior Community Partner Carol Flaute said there is an incentive for local governments to follow through on their plans.
“For cities that accomplish a large percentage of what they say they’re going to do,” she said, “they have a program … which makes them eligible for more funding from the state.”
Mark Beatty, NEGRC Planning & Government Services Director, said governments must complete about 75 percent of their work plan to qualify and apply for the money. He said usually only three to 12 submit applications and only five are selected for additional funding.
Part of the plan’s process is to evaluate the city’s work and actions on the previous 2019-23 comprehensive plan. The group determined that 16 of the 47 action items were completed.
Some of those were:
• Install speed bumps where needed
• Streamline business permitting and licensing processes
• Implement low-income development tax credit for senior housing
• Add emergency generators for water and sewer systems Some of the items from the 2019-23 plan are still in progress. Others were canceled or postponed but added to the new plan.
About 15 citizens attended Tuesday’s public hearing with only a few comments or questions asked.
Greene County and cities in the county have developed their plans. Flaute was asked by the Lake Oconee News about the compatibility of Greensboro’s plan with the plan developed by the county.
“There are places in this plan,” she said after a pause, “where we have identified areas of collaboration between the two and they’re certainly not, um, something, look at their land use plan, there’s not a conflict there about the areas around Greensboro and what we’re looking at.”
The city council Tuesday agreed to send the plan to the state for approval which is expected by April.