Paulding County officials together with the Economic Development Organization, the Paulding School System, and the Chamber recently came together to form a Comprehensive Plan stakeholder steering committee comprised of local residents and business representatives who met for the first of three meetings on March 15 at the Dallas Civic Center.
Officials have been working more than a year on the Comprehensive Plan update for 2017-2027 as Paulding County updates its 10-year Comprehensive Plan along with an economic development study and also a land-use study.
The first required public hearing on the Comprehensive Plan to be adopted by June 2017 was held last October with planning staff from the Northwest Georgia Regional Commission providing an overview of the process.
"The State requires the Comprehensive Plan be updated every 10 years to maintain Qualified Local Government status, and in many ways it’s an opportunity," explained Paulding County Community Development Director Ann Lippmann, "This is an opportunity to review how the population, land, and economy have changed, but more important to plan for the future.”
Staying current with the plan also keeps the door open to the county for funding opportunities, Ms. Lippmann said. Current population numbers are lower than were expected given the downturn in the economy and building industry that occurred during the last 10-year span, she said. But population projections for the state show Georgia growing by as much as 4 million by 2030 and the updated comp plan would begin next year and extend to 2027, Lippmann said.The plan update must include five elements: Community Goals, Needs & Opportunities, Community Work Program, Land Use Element, and Transportation Element.
County planners further determined that an economic development study would be beneficial and contracted with Strategic Planning Group Inc. to produce a county economic profile; an analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats; a strategic direction/action plan; and evaluation and measurement tools useful in growing a strong economy.
And toward that goal Paulding Commissioners at last week’s regularly-scheduled BoC meeting heard from Robert Gray, chairman and president, Strategic Planning Group. Gray addressed the board and outlined the parameters for the study and how the county will be evaluated for future economic development and also will determine workable strategies to implement.
“I always think it’s good to have some outside eyes look at things, so as part of our comp plan we’re doing two outside studies, Lippmann said. One, Mr. Gray is doing the study--with Paulding EDO Director Robert Reynolds--and also we’re working with the Georgia Conservancy to do a land-use study and they’ve taken a lot of data and are basically going to leave us with where good land to develop is and give us recommendations on how it should be developed,” she said.
The Georgia Conservancy study is being done in partnership with Georgia Tech to go beyond a minimum land use study with creative and realistic options for managing land use resources. That information is intended to inform the next stakeholder meeting around the time of the August Chamber Luncheon, with a presentation about a month following that, Lippmann said.
Primary and long-standing ‘threats’ to economic development locally are still viewed as the lack of an Interstate and not enough site-ready locations for new industries to develop, she said.
And Paulding’s lack of site-ready building inventory had also been noted by Reynolds predecessor, Jamie Gilbert, Paulding Economic Development’s first executive director. That hasn’t changed much since Paulding’s EDO was begun, Ms. Lippmann confirmed following last week’s BoC morning session.
More than 70 percent of Paulding County residents still commute to jobs in surrounding counties.
Over the previous 10-year span, county officials have made an effort to move the county out of its bedroom-community status with promotional dollars in the budget focused on several targeted industries including aerospace, healthcare, automotive, renewable energy products, medical equipment, metal fabrication, and the film industry in an effort to diversify from what had historically been primarily just the building industry, which contributed to the slump felt locally when the economy tanked in 2008-09.

PHOTO: Stakeholders met at the Dallas Civic Center in March for the first of three meetings to work on Paulding’s Comprehensive Plan Update. (Photo: submitted, BoC)