County hosts town hall for input on the upcoming Comprehensive Plan

Shortly after the most recent Houston County Commissioner’s meeting last Tuesday, county officials and members of the Middle Georgia Regional Commission (MGRC) hosted a town hall on the 2027 Comprehensive Plan for the cities of Centerville and Warner Robins. 

Middle Georgia Regional Commission Director of Planning and Public Administration, Greg Boike described a Comprehensive Plan as a policy document.

Every city and county in the state is required to have a Comprehensive Plan and it must be updated every five years. 

“The last [comprehensive plan] was completed in 2021 and formally adopted in Feb. 2022. This one, we’ll be working on throughout 2026 and hopefully get it fully adopted in 2027 at the latest,” Boike said. 

According to Boike, a Comprehensive Plan for your community allows you to prioritize what your needs are as a collective. It also helps to identify funding sources and programs hoping to support these works. 

“More and more we see state or federal agencies are considering grant funding for a community, they want to see that the projects are being included in your local comprehensive plan,” he said. “That can also help in shaping future growth decisions, planning and zoning land use decisions and other strategic planning matters that might come before one of your local governments.” 

The town hall gave attendees a chance to speak on what they think the goals are for the community. The MGRC provided an interactive way of seeing what the public thought. One question they posed was “what words do you associate with Houston County?.” 

The most popular answer was “growing.”

 Another question asked was “why did you choose to live and work in Houston County?” Popular answers included quality of life, proximity to work and the quality of schools, safety, low crime rate and cost of living. 

“Sounds like Houston County is a great place to live for quality of life and places to go to work which I guess answers a lot of questions on why people want to live and work here,” Boike said. 

With quality of life being a very popular answer, the attendees rated it as a 5.5 out of 7. 

One citizen said she lives on the north end of the county and said that area does need some attention. She pointed out that business opportunities and places for recreation are lacking in that area. 

Another citizen shared that the county really needs more accessible public transportation options. Another agreed and said the county is very “car centric.” 

“It feels like we don’t think about how people get places until we let something build up,” a citizen said. “It feels like everything is an afterthought especially out in the county.” 

Boike said those things are something a lot of communities struggle with. 

“Hopefully that is something we can start to address throughout this planning process by thinking about the growth as it’s happening,” he said.  

Quality of life concerns were also shared in the town hall. The most popular answers included crime, road safety and traffic, the lack of greenspace, entertainment, and transportation alternatives. 

“Your feedback is really important to this process. Our role is to write what the community wants, not to write our own ideas or what we want,” Boike said. “The more that we can hear from folks in the process of developing the plan, the more important that is going to be because that helps us do our jobs better.” 

If you would like to give your own feedback on what you’d like to see in the upcoming Comprehensive Plan reach out to the Middle Georgia Regional Commission at (478) 751-6160 or visit their website: www.middlegeorgiarc.org/