Milton Planners Ready to Discuss $100,000 Grant with ARC

Now that the city of Milton has heard it will receive a $100,000 grant to study the GA 9 Activity Center, planners are awaiting a meeting with the Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) before hiring any consultants.

Michele McIntosh-Ross, planner for Milton, said the ARC awards Livable Communities Initiative (LCI) grants to communities that want to create a redevelopment plan for specific areas of the city.

Back in the late 1990s, Fulton County was developing a plan for the highway corridor. McIntosh-Ross said Milton applied for a grant in 2008, and again at the end of last year. This last grant was approved.

"We just want some professionals to take a loot at the corridor and make some recommendations for land use and zoning and design," she said.

Transportation, including making the area walkable, is considered integral to any plan.

"The resulting effect is anticipated to formulate strategies to develop walkable, mixed-use nodes along the corridor with multimodal transportation options that link within the study and with neighboring communities," according to the ARC's release.

The city is looking at possibly lowering the GA 9 speed limit to 35 mph so more design elements can be used.

"We just want to take a detailed look at it so we know which direction to go," McIntosh-Ross said.

The next step is to discuss the grant with the ARC.

"The folks at ARC will meet with us and talk about what their thoughts were after reading the proposal. They'll have some recommendations for possible changes," she said.

Once city planners have met with ARC staff, the scope of the proposal to send out to consultants will be written.

The LCI program is funded with federal transportation dollars. Once communities have completed their plans, they are eligible for a larger pot of federal funding to build the transportation projects required to see their plans realized, according to the ARC.

TheARC reports that since the first LCI grants were awarded in 2000, more than 84,000 residential units, 20 million square feet of commercial space and 35 million square feet of office space are either planned, under construction or complete in these areas. Region-wide, 67 percent of all office space built since 2000 has been built within LCI areas. And, LCI areas have attracted 8.5 percent of all new residential units and 21 percent of all new commercial development built in the region.