Henry Daily Herald

By Valerie Baldowski

vbaldowski@henryherald.com

Property owners living in the Dutchtown area will have a chance to hear an update, as well as ask questions about, the county's master planning process in their community.

The Henry County Planning and Zoning Department has scheduled a Zoning Advisory Board (ZAB) hearing for Aug. 12, at 7:30 p.m., to discuss the Dutchtown Activity Center, in the Community Meeting room of the County Administration Building at 140 Henry Parkway, in McDonough, said county planner Stacey Jordan. A second hearing is tentatively scheduled for September, Jordan said.

The Aug. 12 hearing will be held during the board's regular meeting, and will be open to the public, said Cheri Hobson-Matthews, the county's planning and zoning director. It will provide an opportunity for the ZAB members to "get up to speed" on the master-planning process, said Hobson-Matthews.

"It's important we educate our Zoning Advisory Board members, because this is a new concept for the entire county," she said. "That was the reason we wanted to do two meetings."

The activity center plan will be introduced to the ZAB in August, continued Hobson-Matthews, and the board is expected to vote on it in September. "[During] the Aug. 12 meeting, they will not render a decision," she said. "It is for informational, listening, and educational purposes only."

Hobson-Matthews said the county has not made a decision on conceptual plans. Public comment will be gathered at the hearing. "It's really going to be a time for people to speak and to go on the record, to air their concerns, and for the Zoning Board to understand what we're trying to do, and how this Dutchtown area Master Plan implements the Comprehensive Plan, and the activity center concept," said Jordan.

The hearing follows the May meeting held at Dutchtown High School, which informed property owners how they would be affected by the proposed development. The county sent out notification to all the owners of parcels within the proposed activity center, said Jordan. "We had a list of parcels ... within the designated boundaries," continued Jordan. "Many parcels had more than one owner, or some parcels were owned by companies or banks, so it's very difficult to say how many people [voted.] It hardly matters, because there was one vote per parcel. If there were multiple owners, they simply had to get together and decide who would cast that vote."

Jordan said very few votes were received. "The vast majority of them had not voted," he said. "We had 27 people who voted 'no,' and 40 people who voted 'yes.' What the ordinance says is, the owners of 51 percent of the parcels representing 51 percent of the acreage would have to vote 'yes' in order to begin the master-planning process without taking it to the zoning board. We didn't get that ... We obviously didn't reach it."

Jordan defined the activity center type of development under consideration in the Dutchtown community as a blend of various types of projects. "An activity center is just an area of concentrated activity," he said. "It's meant to be an area with a mixture of uses, not just residential, not just commercial or civic ... The Dutchtown activity center already has approximately 17 percent civic uses, because of the school complex. The rest of it, quite frankly, is residential, or agricultural, or vacant at this time ... For the type of activity center that Dutchtown is, we're looking for approximately 15 percent to be non-residential uses."

For more information on the boundaries of proposed development areas, property owners can go to www.hcpz.org/dutchtown.