Flowery Branch happy with planning session

Published:  03-23-2005

Flowery Branch city officials left their first retreat Tuesday with a sense of accomplishment: a plan for the South Hall town's future is under way.

During the meeting, held over two days at the downtown depot, participants met with a representative from the Urban Land Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to planned city growth.

"This (program) is not going to be a council-type decision, it will be a community-type decision," she said.

Originally, the council had a five-item list of projects to discuss. But members altered the meeting's course in order to go along with a pyramid structure suggested by Jim Durrett of the institute.

Called the Flowery Branch Growth Management Process, the pyramid starts with a base of leadership, which requires the council to involve key city businesses and residents in the process.

With their input, council hopes to create a vision statement and growth plan, identifying services needed. They then would pitch the plan to the community and business prospects.

"We want to involve all our citizens in this," Smith said of the leadership phase. "I'm looking at the land owners, those people who want to sell their land, builders, developers, county commissioners, the Chamber of Commerce, the South Hall Homeowners Association, churches. ... We made quite a list."

In addition to guiding urban development, Durrett advised the city on upkeep of its current districts and gave an excellent presentation on how to revive sections of a city that have seen decline.

Among the ideas suggested were extra-wide sidewalks, attractive crosswalks, new buildings, building facades and planting trees. City Management is optimistic about the city's future. There may be many facets which contribute to a successful Flowery Branch, but there are an equal number of capable individuals ready to make it happen.

The retreat also featured reports from City Management and City Planner James Riker, who spoke about steps the city could take for cohesive development.

Riker warned that without proper foresight the city could grow as separate communities on either side of Interstate 985.

The retreat went so well, members plan to meet more often in that format. So far, no dates have been set.

E-mail: mweeks@gainesvilletimes.com

Originally published Wednesday, March 23, 2005

By MATT WEEKS

The Times