Gilmer County’s five-year comprehensive plan will be getting a review.
Gilmer Chair Charlie Paris asked commissioners to approve a review at a special meeting on Nov. 30.
“I think we are in a whole different time now, different situation,” he said.
In recent county commission meetings, citizens have brought up the comprehensive plan when dealing with a moratorium on building and with various zoning requests. It has been used to argue for and against the issues at hand.
“Now, a lot of people have seemed to latch on to the comprehensive plan, on both sides,” Paris said.
One specific issue, he said, was when the plan was drawn up, there were not as many zoning designations as there are now.
In the current plan, R-1 should represent 48 percent of the county, A-1 another 50 percent and the last 2 percent was commercial and industrial. The percentages are out of whack, now.
“If we went strictly by the current plan, nobody would be happy,” Paris said.
Growth has hit the county hard in the last year with multiple requests for large subdivisions to be built in the county. In some cases, the subdivisions are planning for thousands of homes, he said.
“We want to make sure it is conducive to our situation today,” Paris said. “Things have just really broken loose on all this.”
Commissioners voted in a moratorium on subdivisions over 50 homes at a meeting in August. It is set to last for six months.
At the time, commissioners also asked the Department of Community Affairs to come in and help the county do some studies about growth and where it should take place in the county and where the infrastructure was deficient.
DCA recommended looking at the comprehensive plan.
A steering committee will be set up, and Kent Sanford, executive director of the Greater Gilmer Joint Development Authority, was asked to help with the effort.
Paris said the commissioners should not be involved in the review of the plan. Several committees will be made up of citizens and stakeholders in the county.
“It is not going to be the commissioner’s plan,” he said. “It will be the people’s plan.”
It should also deal with where the county has infrastructure to handle the growth, such as water and sewer and roads. As an example, Paris said Yukon Road cannot handle more growth. It is already overburdened in his opinion.
“It’s time, even though it hasn’t been five years,” Paris said.
He told the commission he hopes the review will be done before, or right as, the moratorium on building large subdivisions expires.