Don Haddix
02-18-2008, 12:48 PM
State law requires elected officials attend a Newly Elected Officials two day training course.
I attended mine on February 16-17 in Athens at UGA.
The presenters had effective presentation skills and there was some good information.
One area dealt with growth, development and redevelopment and covered some realities important to PTC. In quick summary here are the key points drawn:
Commercial spending is declining. Adding to this from other research sources over the last few years it has declined 15% nationally and Georgia has the second largest decline (according to some reports because we have extensively over built commercial).
Cities that have experienced successful commerical development/redevelopment has done so with Village/Downtown shop creation. They have actively moved away from Mall/Big Box/Super Shopping Centers. This also is in harmony with national realities and studies showing these large shopping features actually have negative impacts on economy, traffic and crime.
Adding more retail space when there is empty retail space does not make sense to any of us.
Same with residential for those with home inventories.Another purpose of this training was to allow different municipality leaders to come together to talk and share. In this regard I was able to:
Meet with some of our neighbor and regional new elects. They were elected to:
Stop or restrain commercial development as able.
Move from open ended growth to Smart Growth.
Move away from Big Box and Super Centers to Village and Downtown redevelopment.
Meet with other muncipalities also struggling with growth and nature of development. Not suprisingly they were elected for the same reasons as has occured in our neighborhood and regional municipalities.
Determine this is major concern in the majority of Georgia, not just PTC.So, what I took away from it is many areas are experiencing the same frustrations we have had in PTC, overall, and on the commercial development share the common goals I have. We will be remaining in touch with each other.
I attended mine on February 16-17 in Athens at UGA.
The presenters had effective presentation skills and there was some good information.
One area dealt with growth, development and redevelopment and covered some realities important to PTC. In quick summary here are the key points drawn:
Commercial spending is declining. Adding to this from other research sources over the last few years it has declined 15% nationally and Georgia has the second largest decline (according to some reports because we have extensively over built commercial).
Cities that have experienced successful commerical development/redevelopment has done so with Village/Downtown shop creation. They have actively moved away from Mall/Big Box/Super Shopping Centers. This also is in harmony with national realities and studies showing these large shopping features actually have negative impacts on economy, traffic and crime.
Adding more retail space when there is empty retail space does not make sense to any of us.
Same with residential for those with home inventories.Another purpose of this training was to allow different municipality leaders to come together to talk and share. In this regard I was able to:
Meet with some of our neighbor and regional new elects. They were elected to:
Stop or restrain commercial development as able.
Move from open ended growth to Smart Growth.
Move away from Big Box and Super Centers to Village and Downtown redevelopment.
Meet with other muncipalities also struggling with growth and nature of development. Not suprisingly they were elected for the same reasons as has occured in our neighborhood and regional municipalities.
Determine this is major concern in the majority of Georgia, not just PTC.So, what I took away from it is many areas are experiencing the same frustrations we have had in PTC, overall, and on the commercial development share the common goals I have. We will be remaining in touch with each other.