Planning Milton’s Future — One Acronym At A Time

By Annie Piekarczyk / Beacon Media

There is a lot of planning going on in the city of Milton.

And a lot of acronyms nobody understands that go with it.

Milton has recently attached Supplemental Plans to the Partial Plan Update of Milton’s 2008-2009 Comprehensive Plan. The Supplemental Plan will serve as a bridge between the adopted Focus Fulton 2025 Plan and the new plan underway. It will also be a bridge between the documents created under the precious state planning regulations as well as those to be prepared under the current regulations.

The list of supplemental plans is an explicit list of plans incorporating documents that focus on special areas, situations or issues of importance to the community such as the Crabapple Crossroads Plan (2003), the Birmingham Crossroads Plan and Development Standards (2004), maintaining rural character in Northwest Fulton County (2001), the Milton Trails Plan (2007), and the Milton Transportation Plan (2009). The Partial Plan Update is an interim plan and will serve as the City’s Comprehensive Plan until the Community Agenda is completed, accepted and adopted.

In 2007, the preparation of Milton’s first Comprehensive Plan was initiated. The state planning regulation required three basic sections of the Comprehensive Plan: Community Assessment, Community Participation Plan and a Community Agenda. The Community Participation Program and the Community Assessment portions of the Plan are both completed.

In 2008, the ARC and DCA authorized Milton to proceed with the final phase of the plan, Community Agenda, after learning the CPP and Community Assessment portions were in accordance with state regulations. Milton proceeded but then discovered the deadline for the plan’s submittal was November 30, 2008 instead of November 30, 2011. The DCA and ARC then directed Milton to complete a Partial Plan Update under the approaching deadline. DCA and ARC said a Partial Update was in the best interest of better regional coordination and inter-jurisdictional cooperation.

Now if the city could just plan for more revenue to stave off the coming financial Armageddon that looms in its future, things would be looking up.