County's residents weigh in on future

Columbia County residents will soon get the chance to join the debate about the future.

Residents are being invited to attend three upcoming workshops concerning the county's Growth Management Plan Update 2025.

"They are going to be discussing what we call the community assessment, where we have come from and also the future projections," said Robin Bechtel, a senior planner for Columbia County.

"We'll take this opportunity for the public to raise any other type of issues based on this data.''

The first two meetings will be at 6 p.m. June 23 - one at Harlem High School off Appling Harlem Highway, the other at the county's Board of Education building at 6430 Pollards Pond Road.

An Evans-Martinez community workshop will be held at 6 p.m. June 28 at the Evans Government Complex.

Bechtel said the meetings are required by the state and will give officials a good idea of what types of development residents want.

"The state requires us to update it every 10 years,'' she said. "Because we're growing so quickly, we update it every five years.''

In part, the purpose of the growth management plan, she said, is to set parameters for future development and where it should go.

"It's a tool not only to say this is the type of growth that we want to see, but also this is how we want to implement it,'' she said.

Members of the county's Growth Management Plan Steering Committee will be at the workshops to answer questions.

The final plan is set to be presented to the public in an open house in the fall. The plan must then be adopted and approved by February.

Growth Management Plan Workshops

Harlem community: 6 p.m. June 23 at Harlem High School, at 1170 Appling-Harlem Highway

Appling-Leah community: 6 p.m. June 23 at the Board of Education building, at 6430 Pollards Pond Road

Evans-Martinez community: 6 p.m. June 28 at the Evans Government Complex