Hall County Forward Comprehensive Plan

Details:

  • Hall County

  • Hall County, Georiga

Highlights:

  • County-wide comprehensive plan that addressed the intersections of growth and infrastructure
  • Developed in conjunction with the writing of the new Unified Development Code (UDC)
  • Extensive outreach effort and public engagement

Description:

Hall County’s comprehensive plan, Hall County Forward, is a policy document that guides the long-range vision for growth and development in the unincorporated portions of the county. This plan is intended to balance population, economic, and employment growth with the desire to maintain rural character, greenspace, and natural resources. This plan also addresses the need to coordinate new development with infrastructure capacity.

Hall County completed a major comprehensive plan update in 2017 and a minor update as recently as 2022. However, with the growth that Northeast Georgia
is experiencing, Hall County needed to address their most pressing challenges in a comprehensive manner and across disciplines to provide recommendations that result in actionable guidance.

Below are some of the ways this plan is different than previous plans:

  • A new approach to Character Areas. The previous comprehensive plans divided the county into five character areas. This updated plan features six
    character areas, but instead of having them based on residential densities, they are tailored to the unique identity, opportunities, and issues of those specific areas of the county.

  • A more detailed Future Land Use Strategy. One of the biggest weaknesses of the previous plans was that the five character areas/future land use categories lacked specific descriptions and did not define terms like “very low density” or “moderate density”. This vagueness led to uncertainty in how to implement the comprehensive plan. For each of the six character areas, this plan defines the vision for the area, details the appropriate land uses, provides zoning guidance, and other recommendations essential to achieve the future vision of the character area.

  • Better zoning guidance. Concurrent with this planning process, the County’s Unified Development Code (UDC) was also being developed to better regulate land development county-wide. This plan underscores the role that zoning has in making key land use decisions. A future land use and zoning compatibility table is provided for each area of the county has its own to aid the BOC in its decisions regarding rezonings. In other words, while this plan outlines the vision for each character area, great care was taken to ensure that the most appropriate better zoning guidance. Concurrent with this planning process, the County’s Unified Development Code (UDC) was also being developed to better regulate land development county-wide. This plan underscores the role that zoning has in making key land use decisions. A future land use and zoning compatibility table is provided for each area of the county has its own to aid the BOC in its decisions regarding rezonings. In other words, while this plan outlines the vision for each character area, great care was taken to ensure that the most appropriate

Alongside the County, TSW conducted an enormous outreach effort to inform the plan. TSW developed a series of online surveys and virtual mapping tools to solicit ideas and feedback, participated in meetings with a steering committee made up of three different advisory committees, presented at public meetings, and developed a “Meeting in a Box” tool to empower community members to hold their own meetings on their own time. This process generated thousands of comments related to land use, housing, transportation, infrastructure, and economic development in the county.