NEWTON COUNTY – The Newton County’s Board of Commissioners is continuous to work to develop an up to date Unified Improvement Ordinance (UDO) for the county.
On Tuesday, Jan. 7, the board held a piece session to listen to a presentation on the UDO objectives, schedule and evaluation from Brian Mabry, a consultant from marketing consultant Kendig Keast Collaborative. The next day, the county held a group assembly the place residents of the county requested Mabry questions and raised their issues.
The UDO will give the county an up-to-date one-stop doc that outlines rules for zoning, land use, design and different improvement insurance policies. The UDO is the adopted authorized doc that helps the county implement its Complete Plan.
The intent of the commissioners is to make sure that their respective districts are outlined in a manner that most accurately fits their constituents’ completely different wants whereas balancing the big-picture requirements of the entire county.
Mabry outlined a number of objectives that they hope the UDO will accomplish. These targets embrace:
- To be the first regulatory instrument for the implementation of the Newton County Complete Plan
- To create extra predictability for future improvement
- To align all improvement rules in order that they seamlessly work collectively
- To incorporate present finest practices and revised improvement requirements
- To consolidate improvement regulation right into a single doc with all rules associated to a particular subject in a single place
- To create a extra user-friendly ordinance
Maybe essentially the most mentioned subject in current conferences has been overdevelopment in Newton County, with commissioners and residents alike giving their suggestions on the elevated development all through the county
Commissioner Stephanie Lindsey, District 3, mentioned she is particularly involved about addressing overgrowth in her district. Lindsey mentioned she goals to discover restrictive overlays that may tackle overdevelopment alongside the western aspect of Newton County.
“What a couple of critical restrictive zoning for the realm?” Lindsey mentioned. “Is it permissible to have a selected space the place there’s completely no multi-family housing in any respect?”
On the following day’s group assembly, many voters gave their enter into the UDO and highlighted their issues.
Most commentators expressed adverse emotions towards rising improvement throughout the county, with most critiques geared toward District 3’s development in recent times.
“District 3, the west aspect, wants its personal particular plan to undo the harm,” mentioned one citizen commenter. “We’re a particular case in comparison with the remainder of the districts.
“If this does not lead to one thing particular for District 3, then we as a county—you guys have not executed your job nicely. This will’t be one other plan that simply goes on a shelf. District 3 is exclusive, and we’ve to have a particular final result for our district because of this course of.”
At Lindsey’s insistence, the county could take into account implementing aggressive and complete restrictions on sure areas of the west aspect. This is able to bar builders completely from constructing sure varieties of tasks in particular areas, which might assist the county try to hold neighborhoods extra cohesive and deliberately deliberate versus over-industrialized and crowded.
“We’ve got to look at the overlays after which put an overlay over these overlays that’s going to supersede every part and trigger there to be a prohibition of sure varieties of use,” Lindsey mentioned.
The general public commenters had been unyielding in expressing their want for critical consideration within the populous district.
Residents from the extra rural areas of the county additionally expressed discontent with development spreading into their areas.
“On the Complete Plan, it reveals gentle industrial and heavy industrial going all the way in which all the way down to New child, and that is not one thing I voted for or needed,” a second citizen mentioned. “It’s ruining the character of our entire state. In every single place you go it’s like that, within the identify of constructing Georgia the primary place to do enterprise, and I’m not for that if it means we’ve received to spoil our state and if we’ve received to destroy our high quality of life.”
Although practically each commenter expressed a level of discontent with the developments which have unfold throughout the county, many additionally acknowledged that change and development can’t be halted completely, with one commenter admitting that if a county is “not rising,” then it’s “dying.”
A consensus was shaped among the many residents who need the native authorities to proactively management development, selecting what particularly to permit in addition to when and the place to disclaim improvement. Although District 3 homes essentially the most overdeveloped parts of Newton County, the attendees agreed some restrictive rules should lengthen throughout your entire county.
“When you say you’re not doing any improvement in District 3, it is going someplace,” one other commenter mentioned. “Into [Districts] 1, 2, 4 and 5.”
The general public additionally raised some zoning issues, displaying discontent with the classification of “mixed-use,” calling it too obscure and saying that improvement candidates are abusing the time period.
“Blended-use is so obscure, so we find yourself having three automotive washes inside two miles of one another; we’ve storage items which are popping up between Rockdale and Newton County, so what are you putting in?” mentioned the primary citizen commenter.
The consultants agreed that the UDO may tackle this subject by defining “mixed-use” extra particularly or together with distances of required separation within the report.
The commissioners and consultants agreed that the ordinance must be drafted in “plain English” so it’s comprehensible by the typical reader, giving the group extra skill to grasp the event course of necessities.
“Having user-friendliness is what most locations are in search of,” Mabry mentioned. “Making it in order that the typical individual can perceive this doc, that it has a great deal of graphics and tables and remains to be legally defensible however would not take an legal professional to grasp.”
