Smart Growth Actions for a Livable Region

Our Action Agenda - How Our County Leaders Can Make Our Communities More Livable

Protect Our Health: Provide travel choices that reduce air pollution and traffic.

Make Our Streets Safer: Provide sidewalks, bike lanes and slow traffic in residential areas.

Protect Our Streams and Parks: Restrict development near streams and create more parks.

Protect Our Trees: Require developers to protect and replant trees whenever land is developed.

Protect Our Pocketbooks: Require developers - not taxpayers - to pay the full cost of roads and schools for their development.

Involve Us: Include citizens in neighborhood advisory committees for land use and transportation decisions.

Protect Our Health
Pollution from cars and trucks is making people sick. Children with asthma are more likely to go to the hospital on high pollution days. High levels of air pollution also leads to problems for people with other cardiac and respiratory problems, people who exercise or work out of doors, the elderly and pregnant women. Atlanta has the most polluted air in the southeast, most because f pollution fro cars and trucks. In fact, our driving habits are the source for half ozone air pollution, the main problem in the region. Our experience with the Olympics, wen congestion and pollution were actually reduced from normal levels, shows that we can solve the transportation-air pollution problem Currently, most people in the Atlanta region are forced to drive to reach their destinations. The resulting reliance on automobiles and our sprawling land use pattern leads to Atlantans driving more than people in any other major city on Earth. Local and state agencies need to provide people with safe and affordable alternatives to the automobile. Vanpooling, express buses and commuter rail are cost effective alternatives for commuting. Shuttle service around activity centers can reduce lunch time traffic and give people who did not drive to work transportation in the local area. Local and state governments send almost 1 billion dollars every year on roads in the Atlanta region. Reallocating just ten percent of this would give most people in the region a safe alternative to driving.

Make Our Streets Safer
Adults and children need safe places to walk and cycle. Providing sidewalks and bike lanes can reduce the need for many short car trips. Sidewalks raise the value of property nearby. In residential areas they increase the sense of neighborhood which is so important to our quality of life. All new roads and road widenings (except for limited access thoroughfares) should include sidewalks and bike lanes. Providing sidewalks in commercial areas and near parks and schools should be a priority for local governments. Along with providing safe places to walk and bike we need to slow the traffic down in residential areas. Street design standards should encourage responsible driving with changes such as narrowing roads at intersections, providing round-a-bouts and installing speed humps.

Protect Streams and Parks
Every stream provides drinking water for someone downstream. Streams also provide recreation and habitat for wildlife. As important as they are, most streams in the Atlanta region are polluted and dying. We can protect streams by keeping development out of wetlands and away from streamsides. Each jurisdiction should set minimum set backs for buildings and parking lots, with the land along streams left natural. Jurisdictions should also provide incentives for property owners to set aside land along streams as parks or preserves. Strict enforcement of soil erosion laws would go a long way toward achieving healthy streams. Local governments also need to plan for the future by buying land now for ballfields and other recreation facilities. These parks should be connected together in a regional system that provides habitat for animals and recreation for people.

Protect Our Trees
Metro Atlanta is loosing trees at an alarming pace, over forty acre every day. Our trees and forests are part of what makes Atlanta a wonderful place to live. Trees also clean the air of pollution, cool the atmosphere and reduce storm water pollution. We must protect our trees if we want to retain the quality of life which attracts people to the region. Smart development minimizes asphalt by putting parking in decks and offices in multi-story buildings. Trees can be protected in residential development by building two story homes, reducing set backs to reduce driveway length and minimizing lawns. Each jurisdiction needs to set standards for tree protection and replacement in all commercial and residential development. Every county needs an arborist on staff to review development plans to make sure trees are protected. And we should provide incentives for developers and land owners to protect hardwood forests especially along streams.

Protect Our Pocketbooks
Sprawling growth is expensive. Every mile of new water line, road expansion, or new classroom costs money. The existing land owners pay for these improvements which provide for the new development. A fairer system puts the costs on the people who profit from the development. Developers should be required to pay impact fees for the cost of the new infrastructure their developments will require. Local governments currently have the authority to impose impact fees on developers but few take advantage. Each local jurisdiction should enact a comprehensive impact fee ordinance. The state enabling legislation needs to be expanded to include the costs of schools as well as other infrastructure. It is time to stop subsidizing sprawl.

Improve planning
Everywhere we travel in Metropolitan Atlanta we see signs of poor planning. Gridlock occurs on streets that were recently widened because the local zoning board allowed new development to overwhelm the infrastructure. Students are put in trailers because the school boards can't keep up with the subdivisions being built. Air pollution continues in spite of cleaner cars because there are so many more people driving each car further every year. We can do better in the future by considering the long term impact of each major development. What will be the development's impact on traffic, neighbors, schools and pollution? We must answer these and other questions before we allow more development. And developers should be charged impact fees to pay for the infrastructure improvements they will require.

Involve citizens in planning
Every rezoning action or road widening impacts the quality of life of people who live nearby. The residents and other property owners in an area have the right to know what is going on in their neighborhood and they have the right to some say in what happens. Each jurisdiction should divide up their community into neighborhood districts. All rezonings and development issues should be presented at meetings in the district for discussion before being taken to the planning commission or county commission. These neighborhood councils can make recommendations on proposed development activities. They also become the foundation for citizen involvement in changes to the land use plan, park plan and other planning activities. This provides the opportunity to resolve problems early. The neighborhood councils need staff support and adequate information to make informed decisions.