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Agriculture Protection Project Update

As part of its 2010-2014 Regional Work Program and through its annual contract with the Georgia Department of Community Affairs, the NEGRC Planning & Government Services Division has begun work on the development of a local agriculture protection guide for Newton County. Statements of interest were solicited in September and October 2010 from counties throughout Northeast Georgia, and the final selection was made by the Planning Advisory Committee at its October 11th meeting based on the demonstrated need for farmland protection, staff availability, and the overwhelming support of elected officials from Newton County, each municipality therein, and other stakeholder agencies. The first project meeting was held in Covington in late October 2010.

According to the 2007 Census of Agriculture, Newton County lost approximately 20% of its farmland acreage and 10% of its total farms between 1997 and 2007. Though the economic recession still has a grip on many areas of Northeast Georgia, Newton County’s location in proximity to the Atlanta region suggests that more losses will occur in the future if action is not taken. According to a newly-released report on smart growth and rural communities, the highest rates of population growth have been occurring at the metropolitan edge, where suburban and rural areas meet. Newton County stakeholders have been engaged through the Leadership Collaborative (LC) at The Center for Preservation and Planning, located in the City of Covington. Their efforts have resulted recently in the development of a Land Conservation Plan, in which the LC identified areas in the eastern half of the county to be reserved for rural and conservation uses, focusing growth in the already-developing western edges and within existing municipal boundaries.

Geographic priorities for agricultural preservation have been somewhat identified through the Land Conservation Plan, and the next steps are to refine those target areas and develop a set of implementation strategies for the community. NEGRC will facilitate an education and outreach effort to solicit input on potential strategies through spring 2011.

Multi-Use Trails

Communities across the nation and throughout the world are looking for new ways to encourage healthy lifestyles, attract economic development, protect environmental quality, and engage citizens. Many see multi-use trails that provide safe spaces for walking, bicycling, jogging, in-line skating, and other forms of active transportation as appealing investments that can help accomplish all of these goals.

Two approaches popular to Northeast Georgia are greenway trails and rails-to-trails. Most classical greenway planning involves two essential, complementary components: trails and conservation. In conserving environmentally sensitive land such as riparian areas and wetlands, communities often encounter opportunities to incorporate trails into their designs. These conservation corridors can easily accommodate low-impact recreation and transportation facilities such as paved paths or natural-surface trails, and their typically-linear nature offers residents greater proximity to the facility than traditional parks do. Greenways also provide plenty of opportunities for environmental education and experiencing nature.

The rails-to-trails movement centers on preserving historic railroad corridors and converting their former rail-beds into trails for pedestrians, bicyclists, and, sometimes, horses. While greenway corridors mostly occupy low-lying areas (usually along streams), rail-trails tend to exist along upland corridors historically favored by railroad companies looking to avoid topographic change. This means that the nature of a rail-trail can differ greatly from that of a greenway: while greenway trails might hug the banks of a meandering river and undulate in elevation to avoid damaging the sensitive riparian landscape, railroads were often built as straight and as flat as possible; this makes for convenient cycling and walking. As with greenways, communities also make interpretive use out of rail-trails, focusing on the historical importance of the original rail line as a generator of economic development and/or source of personal mobility.

Within Northeast Georgia, greenways and rail-trails exist most significantly in Athens-Clarke County and Newton County, the region’s two most populous communities (2008 US Census estimates). The City of Oxford’s Multi-Use trail network, with 2.6 miles of concrete path built and several more planned, takes advantage of Oxford’s varied natural areas and historic, unused street rights-of-way. Athens’ 3.5-mile North Oconee River Greenway, along with other trails on and adjacent to the University of Georgia’s campus, is a community point of pride; its construction has helped spur significant private reinvestment into the downtown commercial district and nearby neighborhoods.

While on-the-ground trails remain conceptual throughout much of the region, they are on many communities’ wishlists. Comprehensive plans for nine of the region’s counties reference a desire for future greenway and/or trail construction, whether by the local government or as part of new private-sector development.

Efforts to facilitate this process have been in the works at the Regional Commission for some time. A committee of elected officials, staff, and citizens has been working to promote development of the Firefly Trail, a rail-trail planned for the 39-mile former “Athens Branch” connecting Union Point to Athens, since 2007. Communities see the Firefly Trail as a way to attract tourism and businesses, encourage residents to become more active, and increase safety for cyclists and pedestrians. Parts of the project are currently funded: Athens-Clarke County plans to construct just under a mile of the trail in the near future, while a 10-year SPLOST package that was recently approved by voters designates funding for impressive stream crossings near downtown and trail construction in the City of Winterville.

Similarly, another regional rails-to-trails project has recently garnered significant interest from local governments and residents alike. The “Athens Line”, which once ran from Madison to Athens but is now served only from Athens to Watkinsville, has been a topic of discussion for rails-to-trails planning, and has its own committee dedicated to planning and promoting the project. An interesting option to accommodate both rail service and non-motorized use along the corridor is rails-with-trails.

The RC also conducts greenways planning. Currently, staff are assisting Jackson County in developing a plan that will address non-automobile transportation (bicycling and walking, whether on-road or off-) and greenways (conservation spaces as well as trails). Preliminary priorities include active recreation and public health, safe routes to schools, riparian corridor preservation, and regional connectivity. In the past, NEGRC has undertaken greenways planning and mapping for Oconee County and Athens-Clarke County, and drafted a region-wide greenway study; greenway trails are also addressed in the Northeast Georgia Plan for Bicycling and Walking, adopted by the RC Council in August 2010.
 

Regionally Important Resources Management Plan Adopted

The Regional Commission Council adopted the Regionally Important Resources Management Plan at its November Council meeting. The Plan identifies twenty-five individual resources in northeast Georgia, in addition to State Vital Resources, that were deemed valuable to the region and vulnerable to the effects of uncontrolled or incompatible development. Now, we must implement the Plan.

The Regional Commission (RC) is charged with actively promulgating the plan in an effort to coordinate activities and planning of local governments, state agencies, land trusts, and conservation or environmental advocacy groups toward protection and management of the identified resources. Specifically, the RC will encourage local government to include the designated resources as conservation areas in their respective local comprehensive plans. Additionally, the RC will review and evaluate local comprehensive plans for consistency with the Regional Resource Plan.

To facilitate the resource protection, local government should encourage developers to consider the plan’s best practices when designing new development in close proximity to a designated resource. Further, the RC will review Developments of Regional Impact located within one mile of a resources for consistency with the recommended development standards.

A copy of the Plan is available on the RC’s website.

Upcoming Online Training Opportunities

Free webinars available at http://www.utah-apa.org/webcasts.htm:

February 1 - Arkansas Chapter- Planning with Social Media - Tool or Trauma
February 4 - Missouri Chapter - Healthy, Active and Vibrant Communities
February 11 - Florida Chapter - Impacts and Opportunities of an Aging Population
February 23 - Developing Aging-Friendly Communities
February 25 - A Framework for Assessing Aging in Place Technologies with Cities- Allied CM APPROVED
March 18th - Western Central Chapter - Special Assessments Must Create Special Benefits: How to Avoid an Unconstitutional "Takings"
March 25 - Technology Division - Planning for an Aging Society: Technologies for Safe Transportation Mobility

Additional training opportunities:

February 10-13, 2011, North American Trail Ride National Conference, Nashville, TN http://www.natrc.org/ToolTip_Announcement-assets/Flyer.pdf

March 26, 2011 - Confluence 2011, Georgia Adopt-a-Stream, Gwinnett Environmental & Heritage Center
http://georgiaadoptastream.com//db/Confluence.asp

April 11-13, 2011 Georgia Water Resources Conference, The University of Georgia, Athens http://www.gawrc.org/