West Point planning director talks Comprehensive Plan at rotary club

WEST POINT — Since 1989, Georgia cities and counties have been required to have comprehensive plans. For some 35 years now, these plans have served as guides to shape the growth and development of local communities. Effective planning ensures that future development will occur where, when and how the community and local government wants. Entire communities benefit from such sound management.

The City of West Point’s planning director, Dennis Dutton, talked about this at Thursday’s noon hour meeting of the West Point Rotary Club. Dutton explained that the larger cities and counties have more complex plans, the the smaller cities like West Point have more minimal plans. Any plan that’s accepted by the state’s Office of Planning is recognized as a policy document that charts the future direction of a city or county. Local citizen input is vital in formulating the plan. Rotary Club member Bill Gladden currently chairs the city’s planning committee.

Plans are submitted and approved in five-year cycles. The next deadline for Troup County and the cities of LaGrange, West Point and Hogansville in October 31, 2025.

The new plan will reflect a consensus of where community leaders see as future growth needs.

“It’s a statement of what we want to achieve over the next five years,” Dutton said. “It’s a way of getting across what we want the city to look like 20 years from now.”

Zoning has always been a contentious issue, especially in the rural and small town areas of the state. Comprehensive planning does not require this but does back zoning.

“The idea of a compressive plan is to coordinate different departments such as fire and EMS, the police department and the water department. All departments need to know what’s going on. You can lose out on grant opportunities if you don’t.”

Dutton said he wanted it clearly understood what comprehensive planning is not.

“It’s not a zoning ordinance or a regulation document,” he said. “It’s not a law that has to be followed in a certain way. It’s a guide with policies that have been agreed to. It gives you an overview of where you are going.”

Comprehensive plans can have positions on future land use, and to list the needs and opportunities that are available for the city or county.

It can include ideas that are already in the planning stages. West Point, for example, is looking at having some new walking trails in its river park. Those trails could possibly link up with trails originating in Lanett.

Planning, Dutton explained, involves trends and forecasts of what could be in the local area’s best interests. Planning can involve what’s known as character areas. These are places in the city that have unique characteristics and are different from other places in the city.

“Exit 2 off I-85 will be a character area with the developments that are being planned,” he said.

The new Love’s Travel Plaza, located off Exit 2, is already one of the company’s busiest stores. Anyone who has driven up I-85 to Atlanta recently have noticed the huge Amazon warehouses that have been built right off the Interstate. Troup County would appear to be next in line.

“Amazon and other distribution centers are looking for places to expand,” Dutton said. “They are heading in this direction.”

Dutton expects West Point’s tax base to grow in the coming years. It might be wise to have updated land use maps to guide future growth.

He mentioned the Tenth Street corridor as an area in need of some clearly understood planning.

“It’s the gateway into the city,” he said. “Some of it has been cleaned up, but some portions should be preserved. There’s a trend by younger people toward apartment and town house living.”

The city has annexed close to 1,000 acres on both sides of I-85. This is a hot spot for future growth in residential and commercial areas.

Dutton said that character areas can be new development or traditional areas of the city such as long-established neighborhoods, recreation areas and the historic downtown district.

They can also include industrial areas like the 600-acre Kia pad and the Northwest Harris Business Park.

There is no single approach to creating a strategic plan, but most efforts boil down to five overarching steps:

4 Defining a vision.

4 Assessing where you are.

4 Determining your priorities and objectives.

4 Defining responsibilities, and

4 Measuring and evaluating results.

The state provides financial resources to aid in implanting local planning. These include Community Development Block Grants, water and sewer loans from the Georgia Environmental Finance Authority (GEFA), economic development funding from OneGeorgia Authority and a variety of other programs from the Department of Community Affairs (DCA) and its partner agencies.

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