Residents not heard on Plan Hamilton
Plan Hamilton is supposed to be a five-year plan to guide development, zoning and infrastructure in unincorporated Hamilton County. Unfortunately after three years of planning with input from thousands of unincorporated county residents at over 34 meetings, the public’s version was never adopted.
(IN THE NEWS: Plan Hamilton vote deferred by County Commission)
Top priorities expressed at those meetings include slowing down growth until infrastructure can support demands, stopping high-density projects in rural areas where infrastructure can’t support them and lowering density and lot size in remaining rural areas.
Instead, residents were given a highly controversial version influenced by special interest groups including homebuilders’ and Realtors associations. Over 90% of unincorporated county residents did not support this version. In my opinion there was a obvious breakdown in the democratic process. It was no surprise when the Regional Planning Commission, heavily laden with homebuilders, realtors, architects and engineers, voted to adopt the special interest version.