1 Land Use, Planning and Zoning.

In 2000 the Commission passed a zoning ordinance that allowed suburban development at one unit per acre in the AR zone. In 2003 the Zoning and Development Standards were revised to change the AR zoning to 1 unit per 10 acres, and to remove some loopholes from the Conservation Subdivision regulations.
 

Athens has a number of unique characteristics that limit our control over growth here. We are very small in size, our job market is determined by outside entities and our roads are built by a state transportation authority which is weighted in favor of the surrounding counties. The result is that growth will come to Athens, and if we are not careful with our plannign, it will result in sprawl. If the UGA regents say that UGA enrollment will swell by 5000, then we can expect an additional 5,000 to 10,000 additional people attracted by the resulting support jobs. If the only thing we accomplish is locking up the green-space in Athens, then the growth will simply skip over the greenspace, down DOTs extravagant feeder roads into other counties. In essence, if we only protect our greenspace, then all we will have done is exacerbate the problems of sprawl by forcing it further out.

In order for smart growth to happen we must do a number of things. The first of these is to create a system for pushing growth inwards and creating density. This will require a system of Transferable Development Rights. We must identify places in Athens, such as the perimeter and Milledge, ro some of the old industrial sites along the CSX line, where we can add new, dense housing. Then we must establish at TDR system to allow dense development there in exchange for protecting greenspace. A nice bonus to this is that it allows people to pay the landowners in the green zones so they don't feel like they have lost the development value of their land. Ultimately, this program may reuqire a regional approach to TDRs because of our small size.

Further, to make this work, we must have sensible zoning codes. Our codes are now overly-simplistic definitions of four types - single family, multi-family, commercial and industrial. For dense, livable growth to occur, we must redefine these so we get more row-housing, mixed-use and upwards development. We must create zoning that will mix the present types of development and open up the sharp-division between single family and multi-family we now have for these growth zones. Additionally, we need building codes which reinforce realistic small-lot development and don't hamper growth. In other words, we need zoning ordinances that reinforce the vision of our land-use plan rather than ordinances that hinder it. Our zoning, at present, contains no workable vision of implementing the land use plan and we must make our zoning maps and land-use maps overlap. We must have Zoning that reflects and supports our land use plan so we can begin to implement it.

Further, we must reconsider how we define downtown/urban codes so that we can also grow upwards in some areas. At present, there is a 100ft limit downtown. If you take into account topography, this limit is not useful. It is too high near the top of the hill downtown, and far too low in the hole at the bottom of Broad Street. We must reconsider the use and placement of height in our town and not be afraid to use it in dense areas.

Further, we absolutely must start a discussion about regional planning. If our land-use map does not line up with the surrounding counties maps, then we cannot stop sprawl from h appening. A good example is the end of Barnett Shoals Road at Oconee County. Barnett Shoals in Athens ends near a country club and this area is slatted for medium density suburbs in both Oconee and Ogelthorpe counties. If this area grows as they plan, there will be thousands of people living there, all of whom work in Athens. Of course, they will not drive out to Watkinsville to come to work in Athens. Instead, t hey will drive up Barnett Shoals, thus requiring us to widen a road we shish to remain low density. We must stop this by convincing our neighbors to make their maps match with ours. I know a number of people are very pessimistic about this, but I believe that there are a number of ways we can approach this problem which will result in positive change. We can and must make the attempt, or we are doomed to failure.

Finally, we must, somehow, take control of our own transportation planning. I do not know how we can get DOT to cooperate, but we must stop the creation of additional feeder roads such as the widening of the Jefferson Highway. Instead, we must get a plan going which reinforces more and denser development in our core. This means more walkable areas, more mass-transit, and a people centered street design in all areas except our primary feeder roads.

One other area for concern is also our sewer master plan. Development tends to follow sewer lines. We need to create a good sewer plan which will get our residential areas with small lots (e.g. Green Acres (yes, it does have anumber of houses on septic)) off of septic in a manner which does not, in any way, create access to these lines from our greenspace. We must make sure that these plans are created and that they do not enter our greenspace. We need to do this now so future commissions can not undo this planning.

We should make neighborhood organizations such as the neighborhood federation or the neighborhood roundtable actual citizens advisory groups overseeing some departments such as the ordinance enforcement department. We need to establish NPUs and within these define the overall vision for how we want the different parts of our town to develop. The NPUs can then become the first line of planning approval so all new development will fit within the vision neighborhoods have set fgor themselves and their future growth. CAPPA is a good working example of how this can be accomplished. We need to expand the possibilitites of how land is zoned. Our land use map has a highly variegated vision for how Athens will develop. But we have a paucity of zoning types. These broad-brush types do not allow us to fully define how we want development to proceed so that we will have a town that will end up looking like the vision in our master plan. We must have more highly articulated zoning that is more closely tied to our land-use master plan.

We need to dedicate SPLOST funds specifically for neighborhood improvement. Neighborhood boards or associations could decide how to allocate these funds to various projects such as neighborhood parks, sidewalks, etc. Let neighborhoods pick the projects and the contractors. A neighborhood organization should have first review of all planning decisions for that neighborhood. This would be part of any good NPU system.

We need topographically sensitive zoning regulations. We need an ordinance forbidding devleopment on highly sloped land. Additionally, we might want to restrict building on areas with sensitive hydrology. Protecting highly sloped land is only found in the newly revised conservation subdivision ordiannce. It needs to be applied to all zoning types. Finally, we should limit development in areas with exposed granite. The tree ordinance in the works will likely remove the need for a development envelope in RS areas, but it is still soemthing we should investigate since minimally invasive devleopment is more than just preserving the tree canopy. We need to identify all of the perennial streams in Athens. Only some of our perennial streams are mapped by the USGS maps used by planning and it is these maps that are often used to determine where and when to investigate compliance with our stream buffers. Finally, we need a system of city parks and neighborhood parks separate from the overall greenway plan.

Greenspace also means local, small scale spaces. These parks may be completely domesticated, but they increase the health and welfare of neighborhood residents. Another resource issue, not related to greenspace, is water conservation. Our population is challenging our water resources and we need to develop ways to encourage water conservation and the use of less water intensive landscaping.

The solutions generally pushed by the developers are to create cheap housing. This means small, low-quality housing further and further out of town. The distance is a huge impediment for our lower-wage workers because cars are expensive and we do not have adequate mass-transit. Additionally, the prospect of simply supporting affordable housing by simply moving it out to cheaper areas is not in the best-interests of Athens. This non-solution would require building a very expensive, subsidized transportation infrastructure (e.g. a large route bus system) which is much more expensive than the savings we get from allowing it to be further out of town.

Finally, we need to recognize that affordable housing is NOT cheap housing. We need quality housing that is subsidized, and is close to town and the other places where people work. In other words, we need a comprehensive system for subsidizing housing. We have some of the pieces in place, such as the Athens Housing Authorities apartment system. But we must also make sure that affordable neighborhoods remain near downtown. To do this, we need to expand the mortgage subsidized hosuing programs in Athens, both those that are government run and those run bynon-profits such as habitat and the Athens land Trust.

One of the first things I think we need to do is define areas we want to remain affordable housing. One problem we have is that the rental developers pay finders fees to real-estate agents, so they end up getting the properties they want. After a while, this breaks up communities so that areas that were self-supporting, become fragmented and wither. New Town is a good example. So we must identify the areas we want to remain affordable.

Then, we must create a bond pool to buy up these properties as they come on tehmarket. We cannot solely rely on federal funding and the generosity of non-profits for our affordable hsouigns needs. At present, the city is relying solely on HOME and CDBG funds for its affordable housing projects. So our second step needs to be to create the pool of money we can use to stabilize these affordable housing neighborhoods. Additionally, we should not use CDBG funds to support items that are recurring and mandated expenses. An example would be the Elderly Transportation funds which we use CDBG money to support out of the Council on Aging. This is a federally mandated service and we should pay for it out of general revenue costs and not out of CDBG. Another example would be water-line extensions we fund for a profit making enterprise: Sewer and Utilities.

Then, the city should acquire all of the housing in areas threatened with upscaling whenever a house is sold. We can use the bond pool to fix them up and sell them at affordable rates. The agreements on the sales will include the normal 10 years to sell clause, but they should also include a right of first refusal for the city or managing agency to purchase these properties at market rates. In this way, the city and our secondary agencies will have sufficient funding through the bond pool and a legal means to re-acquire properties and keep affordable neighborhoods near town intact.

In addition, we need to explore some other avenues of creating more transitional housing. Presently, most of our efforts are focused on either apartment projects or home ownership. We must also explore the use of self-controlled affordable housing systems such as cooperatives. And, we must also look at how we zone and develop very low-cost starter homes such as the People of Hope are doing and, when we find workable projects such as taht, we must make sure they are fully funded.

4 Business and the Environment.
There has recently been much debate over whether government decisions that provide environmental protection (riparian buffers, revisions to the conservation subdivision regulations, etc.) are “unfriendly” to business.