A five-year update of the Joint Comprehensive Plan for Gilmer County and the cities of Ellijay and East Ellijay is taking shape.
The Georgia Planning Act of 1989 requires local governments in the state to update their comprehensive plans every five years to maintain eligibility for state loans, grants and permits. The plan also provides a platform for the entities to develop future projects and goals.
The plan’s stakeholder committee, which gathers community input and makes recommendations to local governments, recently held its third meeting to gather input for the five-year update managed by the Northwest Georgia Regional Commission.
“This is an update of the prior plan, and I think it’s going to be fairly consistent with the prior plan. The first meeting was a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis that basically highlighted what the sense of the community is (with) concerns and strengths for the county. There was a very large community participation at that meeting,” said Laurel Johnson, stakeholder committee chair.
“The second meeting was primarily the stakeholder and ex-officio members, although it was open to the public. We went over more of the process involved, as well as some discussion with regard to the results of the SWOT analysis. There was a lot of consensus with that.”
Among the issues being discussed are land use, economic development and environmental preservation, Johnson noted.
“The (third) meeting focused primarily on land use, planning and zoning, housing and those kinds of issues. It’s an update every five years, but the land use planning maps are intended to give direction for the next 25-30 years,” she added. “We are going to have growth and development, but how do we preserve the things about Gilmer County that we all love?”
Possible points of interest that were not in the last five-year update include the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the boom in short-term rentals across the county.
“COVID was an unanticipated crisis that affected the county and development of the county. The upswelling of short-term rentals has affected the availability and pricing of housing in the county,” Johnson said. “Those two things weren’t anticipated in the last comprehensive plan, but I anticipate they will be addressed (in this one).”
An objective for the planmakers is for there to be a more coordinated approach between the cities and county when it comes to issues that affect all three entities.
“(That’s) so we can kind of prevent the unanticipated negative consequences of one entity making decisions that have an impact on the other entities. We would really like to see more coordination on those types of issues,” Johnson said. “We’re (also) looking at what kind of projects do we, as stakeholders, see that the local governments should probably be engaged in over the next five years.”
After the stakeholders submit their recommendations to the local governments, the cities and county will review and revise information for the update. The plan is to be finished by December.
Community involvement is always welcome at the stakeholders meetings, Johnson noted.
“The meetings we have are open to the public, who can show up and participate. The next one has not been set yet, but I anticipate it will be later in July,” she added.
A community survey offers another chance for the public to have a say in the plan update. The survey can be found online at Survey.alchemer.com/s3/7877324/Gilmer-County-Community-Vision-Survey. Completed surveys will be accepted until July 12.
“We’re asking people to share that survey widely. We want as much participation as we can get from county residents, part-time county residents and people who work here. We’re hoping to get as much input from the community as possible,” Johnson said.