City meeting attendees share ideas about public interests

About 200 people attended a town hall meeting last night to gather public opinion about the City of Athens Comprehensive Plan.

Those who attended broke into five different interest areas: housing and neighborhoods; uptown and economic development; arts, culture and history; transportation and public facilities and environment and open space. The groups went through the benchmarks and goals of each interest area and added their suggestions and corrections.

People were having really great discussions. We're going to get lots of good stuff and get a sense of where people's priorities are

said June Holley, one of the organizers of the meeting.

Interest-area groups stated priorities for the city such as sidewalk repair, better street lighting, and transitional housing. Other key interests were increasing garden space, utilizing local art in city development, changing zoning to fast track variances for new businesses and improving public transportation.

The City of Athens' Comprehensive Plan is already a finished document and the feedback from the town hall meeting will go to the Comprehensive Plan Advisory Commission, said Paul Logue, the Athens City planner. The commission will then look at how the plan is implemented and make necessary changes, Logue added.

The sidewalks need to be fixed to help the community said David Hartinger, an Athens resident. I wanted to share my opinion.

Another town meeting is planned for March 12 to get additional feedback and to work to implement the comprehensive plan.

I think that people had great ideas and it's good to make sure that the people who have been putting together the indicators and everything are on target with what the public wants said Chris Fahl, a city councilwoman and chairwoman of the comprehensive plan advisory commission.