State Planning Recommendations
The State Planning Recommendations are a component of the Local Planning Requirements and are intended to help communities develop their comprehensive plan. They are recommendations to consider and use as is relevant to your community.
Most of the components are organized into categories, but only to make the lists easier to use. These categories are not intended to dictate an outline for the format of your plan.
Please feel free to edit any of the recommendations/suggestions to make them more specific to your community. In regards to words such as “urban” and “rural,” these are only meant to distinguish developed areas from undeveloped areas such as farmland, so they can apply to your community whether you have a population of 800 or 80,000.
Following are active links to the individual components of the State Planning Recommendations. Please use these to help you create and implement the best plan possible.
Community Assessment
Typical Issues and Opportunities (PDF)
This list of typical issues and opportunities is intended to prompt thinking of what the community needs to address in the comprehensive plan. As you read through the list of issues, think about areas in which your community is not as effective as you would like, or has not advanced or progressed as anticipated. The issues are presented in a general manner and should be edited to address the specific issues or opportunities in the community. For example: the issue, "We lack sufficient jobs for local residents," should prompt questions such as what skills do residents have; how many residents need jobs; how many need training, etc. Also note that any of these issues can easily be restated in a positive way—as an opportunity—if desired. Also, note the list is not presented as a series of policy statements, action-items, or specific projects though it could be useful in creating those items, later in the planning process. In addition to this list, the Quality Community Objectives Local Assessment will help further define the community's issues and opportunities.
Typical Character Areas (PDF)
Use this list of typical character areas in Georgia to prompt thinking about the character of your community and to help identify both existing and potential character areas in your community. Character area planning focuses on the way an area looks and how it functions, instead of only existing land use.
Applying development strategies to character areas in your community can preserve existing areas, such as the downtown, and help others function better and become more attractive. You are encouraged to create additional character areas, or modify these, to fit your community vision. More details can be found by referring to DCA’s Guidebooks: Discovering and Planning Your Community Character; Planning for Community Involvement; Visualizing Character Areas; and Character Areas: Techniques and Guidance.
Community Participation Program
Suggested Stakeholders (PDF)
This list of suggested stakeholders for community planning is only a starting point to build upon. A stakeholder is an individual, group, or institution who has a “stake” or interest in the future of their community. It is important to identify and involve stakeholders (supporters and opponents alike) at the outset of the planning process. Those who are invited to participate or are involved from the beginning are more likely to support implementation of the plan, and less likely to undermine the planning process at a later time.
Recommended Community Participation Techniques (PDF)
A number of techniques are available to engage the public in the planning process. Communities generally have varying conditions that dictate which program techniques suit them best. This document offers a variety of community participation techniques that take into consideration a community’s budget, schedule, and target audience. Be creative in designing your program and keep in mind that a combination of techniques can be used to reach the largest audience.
In an effective community participation process the following principles can ensure that the process is meaningful and productive:
- The public has a say in decisions about actions that affect their lives;
- The public is involved as early as possible in the community participation and decision-making process in order to build trust;
- The involvement of those potentially affected is sought and participants are encouraged to assist in defining how they participate;
- Participants are provided with the information they need to participate in a meaningful way; education and participation are directly combined whenever possible; and,
- The needs and concerns of the public are listened to and their input is integrated into the outcome.
Suggested Schedules
for Completion of the Community Agenda (PDF)
These schedules aim to assist the community in creating its own schedule that will show when, and in what order, the local government will involve stakeholders and the general public in the comprehensive planning process. The community may choose one of the schedules as a starting point and adjust it as needed, by dropping or adding events or by expanding or contracting time periods, in order to reflect local preferences. There are a variety of participation techniques that can be plugged into these schedules where “event/activity” is referenced. For more information on community participation, refer to State Planning Recommendations Community Participation Techniques and DCA’s guidebook: Planning for Community Involvement.
The Local Planning Requirements call for public and stakeholder participation only during the preparation of the Community Agenda portion of the comprehensive plan. Schedule #1 shows such participation in the Community Agenda. Schedule #2 is similar to schedule #1, but it places an additional emphasis on the early development of a community vision.
Community Agenda
Recommended Development Patterns (PDF)
Community development patterns are the way that the location and bulk of buildings, intensity of use, streets, parking, open space and public facilities look and work together. These suggested development patterns can create safe, walkable, economically-sustainable communities. Apply these development patterns to your community’s character areas to create or maintain the character of your community.
Recommended Plan Implementation Measures (PDF)
Now that you have developed your vision and identified desirable development patterns, how do you translate that into action? Implementation! It’s the critical step necessary to make planning tangible. These inventories, programs and regulations are best management practices that can address the community’s issues and opportunities and help achieve the goals of the community vision.
Other resources to assist you in implementing your Community Agenda include: the Character Area Implementation Measures Chart that identifies regulations according to their applicability to character areas.
Character Area Implementation Chart (PDF)
This chart identifies appropriate Implementation Measures for typical character areas in Georgia in order to help your community define the Implementation Measures most likely to help your community realize its vision for the future.
Recommended Policies (PDF)
The suggested policies are for inclusion in the implementation program portion of the Community Agenda.
