Planners from the Northeast Georgia Regional Commission tomorrow (Thursday) night will showcase the work to date of the Oconee County Stakeholders Committee updating the county’s Comprehensive Plan.
The meeting is scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. at the Community Center in Oconee Veterans Park, 3500 Hog Mountain Road, west of Butler’s Crossing.
The meeting will have a drop-in format, meaning that there will be no formal presentation but that interested citizens will have a chance to see what the Stakeholders Committee and its subcommittees have agreed upon so far.
A central part of the Comprehensive Plan is a Future Development Map that is designed to be used by the Board of Commissioners to guide decisions about the location of future development in the county.
Stakeholders Committee
Justin Crighton, the NEGRC planner who is spearheading the county’s work on the 2018 Comprehensive Plan, told the 29 citizens on the Stakeholders Committee that it wasn't necessary that they attend the meeting tomorrow night.
 |
| Future Development Map Being Revised |
For all of them, however, the presentation tomorrow night will be the first chance to see what Crighton and his staff have assembled based on their discussions.
The Stakeholders Committee is made up of 24 citizens appointed by the Oconee County Board of Commissioners, a representative of each of the county’s four cities, and a representative from the Board of Education.
The Stakeholders Committee has met as a group and in subcommittees over the last several months.
The subcommittees have focused on Transportation, Land Use, and Parks Recreation And Greenspace.
Land Use
The Land Use Subcommittee was the most recent to meet, holding an hour-long discussion in the conference room of the Government Annex on the south of Watkinsville on July 12.
The discussions focused on changes to the 2030 Future Development Map and on changes to the Character Areas designated on that map.
Crighten ended the meeting by indicating he thought he had enough information from the Subcommittee to create documents for review tomorrow night.
Only three of the 15 members of the Land Use Subcommittee attended.
Public Forum
The meeting tomorrow night is officially designated as a Public Forum.
In an email message Crighton sent to the Stakeholders Committee on July 21, he said the meeting “will be an opportunity to gather broader public input on the needs, opportunities, and goals developed thus far in the planning process.”
“The Public Forum will be a drop-in style meeting,” Crighton wrote, “where people can spend as much or little time speaking with an NEGRC staff member about the plan as necessary.”
The meeting has no official end period, but the Community Center does close at 9 p.m.
Video
Land Use Subcommittee members David Jackson, Daniel Marks and Marcus Wiedower (left to right, backs to the camera, in the video below) attended the meeting on July 12.
Crighton acknowledged, in response to a complaint from Wiedower, that he had not sent out any notice about the July 12 Land Use Subcommittee meeting either to the members of the Subcommittee or the full Stakeholders Committee.
Also in attendance was Eva Kennedy from NEGCR, B.R. White, director of the Oconee County Planning and Code Enforcement Department, and Michael Prochaska, editor of The Oconee Enterprise.
Sarah Bell recorded the meeting.
The Land Use Subcommittee also met on June 28, with five of the 15 Subcommittee members in attendance.
2 comments:
How can you expect people to attend a meeting if no notice is given that a meeting is to take place? Looks like VERY poor planing by whoever is responsible. And we wonder why we have such little confidence in our leadership.
The stakeholder meetings are being very poorly attended. This is concerning. Is the problem the people on the committee or the organizers (no reminders of the meetings) or both. The meeting tonight was informative on land use, but really no information on any of the rest of the deliberations. Good think you are recording the meetings.
Post a Comment