Naming The Area
The 40,000 acre area in the southern tip of Fulton County was sometimes referred to as rural Palmetto, but that didn’t seem to fit the vision we were starting to dream into reality. The land preservation effort we were mounting had little to do with Palmetto other than the mailing address. The address tag also added confusion thus there was a desire to define the difference between the historic town of Palmetto and the rural farmland between Palmetto and the Chattahoochee River. South Fulton was another common reference but that referred to a much larger area.
If there was something news worthy, the area was generally referred to as Rico because a reporter could always find someone to quote at Smith’s Grocery. The most souther area was sometimes referred to as Goodes in reference to the mostly vanished community at the intersection of Hutcheson Ferry Rd, Rico and Atlanta Newnan where the sign remains and is lovingly maintained by Maria & Dave Hanson who own the land and the one remaining building from a bygone era. The northern part of the area was referred to as Campbell in reference to the remnants of the village of Campbell which served as the county seat on the banks of the Chattahoochee River. The skeleton of the streets remain with a few buildings still standing.
The varied names referred to parts of the 40,000 acres, but none seemed the proper tag for the whole area or the newly formed alliance. Was there a name? Labeling the area loomed large in our minds, but also seemed too complicated to think about. Little thought had been given to the an actual name but there was general agreement that we could improve on the historic handles that referred to parts but not the whole. South Fulton was too broad and Rico not encompassing enough.
Documents were prepared to be signed at the second large landowner meeting and “No Name Alliance” which was on the drat documents did not seem like a good option. Thus, a name was the first thing on that second meeting agenda of the group.
We had a white board exercise to help us think about a name that could also define the area. Some of the points listed were:
The Chattahoochee River runs 30 miles along one of our edges.
The hills throughout the countryside provides a landscape that is more rolling than most people think the land south of Atlanta is. People who venture south of I-20 are generally heading to the east cost of the state around Savanah traveling south on I-75 and I-16 where the land is indeed flat.
The fact that this area, so close the the city, is still country is unique for Atlanta and most urban centers.
I found an image that captured clusters of development in nature which is the direction we felt solved the desired balance between saving the land and increasing land value. I attached a copy of that image to the whiteboard to help frame the discussion regarding the brand we wanted to depict with a name. After playing with several combinations of words during the meeting, we landed on Chattahoochee Hill Country.
When the city was formed years later, the name of the city was changed to Chattahoochee Hills. The larger, 65,000 acre, four county area is still defined by the Chattahoochee Hill Country name including the 98 mile proposed trail system conceived by the PATH foundation. But the inclusion of four counties and the PATH study is a story for later. For reference on size, 65,000 acres equals half of the land inside I-285 surrounding metro Atlanta. Serenbe is the first development within that area and under the new overlay where development triggers regulation requiring 70% of the land to remain in agriculture zoning without housing development. This is the zoning overlay that was adopted June 2002.