Forty percent of the town of Lookout Mountain, Ga., is undeveloped and city officials are trying to plan for and guide its future development. The planners are discussing the existing core of the town as well as the growth. To move forward, a Comprehensive Plan Committee has been created. Members are Chairman Jimmy Campbell, Jan Weaver, Fred Robinson, Kevin Leckenby, David DeVaney, Kenny Lee and Cindy Whitaker. They met for the first time Monday night. The group will determine goals that will be targeted.
Mr. Campbell said that all meetings will be open to the public and available to read about on the town’s website.
A comprehensive plan was developed by Phil Walker in 2009, but was never adopted. Glenn Sutherland, a member of the planning committee who participated in the discussion, said not a lot has changed since 2009, so information gleaned from and questions used in the original survey will still be valid and included in the new study. Items discussed Monday night will also be incorporated. The committee members and citizens of the town are being asked to submit a list of subjects that they feel need to be addressed. All of these items will be compiled to create an unbiased survey.
In several days a letter will be emailed to every address that the city has on file for residents, informing them about the survey and asking for their input concerning a comprehensive plan for Lookout Mountain, Ga. Consultant Phil Walker will participate in one meeting to be held on Tuesday, May 22, at noon to help the committee coordinate the survey and advise how to proceed from that point. Following that, there will be public meetings to get more feed-back from the community. Citizens will be asked to rank items in the order of importance.
Some of the items that were discussed included:
· The need to identify the kind of growth that is desired. Monday night, there was agreement among the committee members that that there is no desire to become another Signal Mountain, or to strain resources or create a need to increase taxes.
· If there is a need for an economic consultant
· With the decisions that will be made, how will they be paid for, such as more services if it is decided that there is a desire for more apartments
· What do people in the community want
· Recreational opportunities
· Traffic
· The pedestrian element
· Sidewalks and/or bike paths – especially on Rock City Trail leading to Fairyland Elementary and on Hardy Road leading to Fairyland Club
· Trails
· A community pool
· How to have more diversity in age, to provide opportunities for younger homeowners while keeping property values up
· To develop an identity for the community
· If design standards needed for new construction and major remodels
· How to incentivize people to use what is here instead of moving out of the core community and building new subdivisions
· How to make sure that homeowners take better care of their properties and take pride in them. Mr. Sutherland said little things are important such as keeping grass cut and parking in driveways, not in yards. He said that the city has codes, but there should be procedures “with teeth,” for enforcing them.
· There should be modifications made to the subdivision plan so that a house cannot be torn down and replaced with multiple homes on the same lot
· Consistently, there are maintenance problems with rental houses. Short term rentals can be regulated, but long term rentals cannot be prohibited, although there is an ordinance that no more than four unrelated people can live in a rental. Landlords should have to maintain it because they owe a debt to the community, said Mr. Sutherland, and enforcement is needed.
· Improvements need to be made to upgrade the appearance of roads, such as filling ditches and widening some so that two vehicles can pass
The new municipal buildings that will form the Town Center will create a positive impression on visitors and it is hoped they will encourage improvements to other buildings. The goal is for everybody to participate in the process, have community pride and to do their part in making the town attractive.
Residents are encouraged to send questions or comments that they would like to have included in the survey of the town which will be used in development of a new comprehensive plan. They can be emailed to compplan@lookoutmtnga.com.