Our Mission

• Protect environmental quality for all by maintaining clean air, clean water, and protected green space and green infrastructure.
• Reduce sprawl and automobile dependence by encouraging communities that are multi-use, walkable, bikeable and connected; and by encouraging improved public transportation.
• Promote a diverse and affordable housing supply for all income levels.
  Promote efficient development patterns that keep taxes low.
• Attract responsible businesses and industries by maintaining a beautiful, functional, diverse community with a high quality of life.
• Ensure that policies balance the rights and needs of the community with the rights and needs of individual property owners.
  

In the Fall of 1997, Athens-Clarke County began to revise its Comprehensive Land Use Plan. Citizens provided a remarkable amount of input, completing over 1,200 “visual preference surveys” and attending more than 200 public meetings. The result was a Future Land Use Plan and a progressive set of Guiding Principles which promoted preservation of the environment, responsible development, alternatives to automotive transportation, and the prevention of sprawl. The County Commissioners, swept along in the tide of public support, unanimously approved the plan and these principles in 1999. The County was subsequently recognized nationally as a leader in “Smart Growth.” There was only one more step: to pass Zoning and Development Standards to put the plan into action. That’s when the special interests took notice. Throughout 2000, under pressure from some short-sighted developers and realtors, the county commissioners chipped away at essential components of the Zoning and Development Standards. The area set aside as a low density greenbelt eroded in size and increased in density. Environmental protections grew weaker or disappeared.  Month after month, the vote on the standards was delayed while developers scrambled to push projects through under the old rules. In December 2000 the Commission voted 6-4 to adopt the new Zoning Ordinance with one unit per acre zoning in the AR zones and no design guidelines for the AR zone's "conservation subdivisions".

The Athens Grow Green Coalition was formed in September, 2000, by Athens citizens from neighborhood associations, environmental organizations, and other concerned groups to urge the County Commissioners to pass and enforce Zoning and Development Standards that protect the environment, reduce sprawl and preserve a high quality of life. We held rallies (drawing a crowd of several thousand to "Land Aid," an event that featured information booths, speakers, and bands, including Grow Green supporters REM); hosted educational workshops; took out advertisements; hosted a candidate forum on land use issues for the November 2000 Commission candidates; and held a candlelight vigil on the City Hall steps, with over 500 participants.

While the Zoning and Development Standards passed by the commission in December 2000 promote sprawl development in the county's AR zone, Grow Green has continued to work to improve the situation. Besides promoting tools such as Transferable Development Rights and better design standards for Conservation Subdivisions, we decided that we needed to become active in the political process. We worked in 2002 to provide information to the voting public about the records and positions of the Mayor and Commission candidates on land use and sprawl. We are continuing our public education and lobbying efforts with the goal of fixing the Zoning and Development Standards so that they implement, rather than subvert, the Guiding Principles of our Comprehensive Land Use Plan.

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Athens Grow Green Coalition May, 2003