The First Grant

By the fall of of 2001, we had awakened a rural community with the idea of guiding our own destiny.  That was a broad idea that had been discussed at our coffee talk gatherings.  Each group, depending on the size of land holdings in the group, had differing ideas on what should happen.  The groups were united that we did not want to follow the pattern of Alpharetta, Cobb County, Clayton County or any of the areas the same distance as South Fulton from the center of Atlanta.  Urban sprawl generally had a bad name among the majority of the land owners in this area. 

Remember the larger landowners had already agreed to the idea of a new vision, provided it increased the value of the land.  Larger landowners, in this case anyone with 180 acres or more, normally participate in sprawl development because that is traditionally the only way to capitalize on rural land near an urban area. While the large land owner group owned 50% of the land, they represented 7% of the total land owners. This is the equation that generally leads to zoning battles and lawsuits. We had to find a way to bring these two groups that generally have opposing goals together for one vision yielding what each was most interested in. 

We needed a focused vision, a plan that visually showed the vision and then regulations to assure the vision would become reality.  Our dues and donations could not support the kind of planning support we needed. 

With the help and support of the Nature Conservancy, we applied for grants. Because the Chattahoochee Hill Country Alliance was younger than two years old, we did not have the track record to qualify for most grants and thus the Nature Conservancy, understanding the importance of our unique approach, agreed to be our sponsor. 

In October, 2001, a $78,000 (the equivalent of $125,000 in todays dollars) grant was awarded by the Fulton County Office of Economic Development to The Nature Conservancy and the Chattahoochee Hill Country Alliance.  Funds for land planning, creating design standards, engineering and further community outreach were part of this award. This grant by a development authority, to a community sponsored by an environmental organization was the beginning of the broad base support that was brought together to create a vision of balance. A vision most people in government and professional developers thought naive. 

Along with writing the grants, we developed a RFP (request for proposal) to lead a community wide public effort among landowners and interested parties to develop a vision and plan for this 40,000 acres of Fulton County.  To our surprise, we received interest from national as well as local planning organizations. 

Now it gets interesting.  Do I still have your attention or are these posts too much detail?