Background
The Georgia Department of Community Affairs (DCA) is a state agency that provides resources, assistance, and guidance to help Georgia communities grow and develop. It oversees programs related to housing, economic development, infrastructure, and community planning. The DCA aims to improve the quality of life for Georgia residents by fostering sustainable development, promoting affordable housing, and supporting local governments with technical and financial assistance.
The planning effort will examine and update community goals through a combination of DCA options including a citywide vision statement, city policies, and a breakdown into specific character area narratives to match local community goals with the Georgia DCA quality objectives for local planning and ensure that development patterns address State, regional, and community issues and goals. Our preference is to work with measures that can be applied citywide or to unique character areas which may have their own priorities and requirements to identify three types of community goals:
1. A general Bainbridge Vision Statement
2. Bainbridge Goals and Policy statements
3. Bainbridge Character Areas with specific narratives
Approach
The Georgia legislature adopted rules for planning in 1988 and the Georgia Department of Community Affairs (DCA) was charged with oversight for the preparation, review, and adoption of a local government comprehensive plan in Georgia (see Chapter 110-12-1 Minimum Standards and Procedures for Local Comprehensive Planning). Although some of the planning elements are optional, we recommend that Bainbridge prepare a plan with all nine DCA “required” elements including:
• Community Goals
• Needs and Opportunities
• Community Work Program
• Broadband Services
• Capital Improvements
• Economic Development
• Land Use
• Transportation
• Housing
Community Quality Objectives
Georgia DCA provides supplemental recommendations to assist the planners and the community in preparation of the comprehensive plan. These include 10 Community Quality Objectives that overlap and interact with each other to ensure that the plan objectives help ensure a more successful future for the community:
• Economic Prosperity
• Resource Management
• Efficient Land Use
• Local Preparedness
• Sense of Place
• Regional Cooperation
• Housing Options
• Transportation Options
• Educational Opportunities
• Community Health
The planning process incorporates the planning elements and tries to integrate and address the quality community objectives for planning through the guidance of meetings with staff, stakeholders, and community input. The adopted comprehensive plan should provide documentation of the planning process, the goals, the public engagement, and the community’s recommended agenda for the 2025 to 2050 planning period.
Needs and Opportunites
The use of multiple approaches to preparing a comprehensive plandocument helps to define needs and opportunities that affect the city as awhole and supports the use of specific implementationstrategies.The planning process for the City of Bainbridge incorporates recent planningstudies including the Shotwell and Scott Streets Planning Study, the Citywide HousingNeeds study, adopted Downtown and Industrial Development plans, and regionaltransportation plans to address how the city has proceeded with realizinglong-term planning goals for the future. As an example, apreliminary capital improvements element will be considered to help monitorinvestments and determine if the city may want to consider impact fees in thefuture.