Planning Commission 2025 Recap

Reflection on 2025

 

2025 was an interesting year at the planning commission. Overall residential construction activity remains lower than what our average year has been in the recent decade. However, commercial activity has been up and continues to be strong. One of the most exciting projects we have been a part of is the What Could BG Be? effort led by Warren County and Innovation Engine, that resulted in over 1,000,000 data points from citizens in the community. The results are fascinating and we are incorporating this input into our planning efforts.

 

Transportation planning as well as bicycle and pedestrian advocacy & education also took a big leap this year. We were fortunate to partner with Gresham Smith to compete our Metropolitan Transportation Plan (MTP), which is our long-range planning document that helps guide future transportation decisions. Our BikeWalkBG staff also partnered with the city and county public schools to expand a bicycle education program for 4^th graders. It has been a tremendous success we hope to continue. It is amazing how many kids have never ridden a bicycle before.

 

Staff also worked on the subdivision regulations in response to the flooding in some of our karst sensitive areas. By raising elevation requirements for mechanical systems and roadways, our future neighborhoods will help avoid some of the issues found in the recent flooding events. The city and county are working on remedies for existing neighborhoods as well as a study of the groundwater basins and systems to better understand the dynamics of the flooding events. Staff created a Karst Ground Water Basins GIS map from various sources to help illustrate the complexities.

 

Other projects we have been paying attention to and assisting with are the long-range planning efforts of the city and county parks departments, our public school systems, and utility companies. Efforts have been made by city and county leadership, the Chamber of Commerce, and others to better coordinate infrastructure planning. These efforts will also be incorporated into our planning efforts.

 

2026 and Beyond

 

Looking forward to this year and beyond staff will continue to be busy with several projects. We will be proposing a text amendment to our Zoning Ordinance that will address changes to state manufactured home regulations, data centers, solar farms, and other changes.

 

Staff has already began compiling the initial data and community preferences in preparation of a new BG 2050 Comprehensive Plan. The first phase will be compiling and analyzing statistics and community preferences from What Could BG Be? and ultimately forming a draft vision and goals and objectives for the anticipated plan kickoff in July. There will be lots more opportunity for public input as the plan develops from now through the final plan by the end of 2027. This new comprehensive plan will set a new strategy for land use and development for the next 20 plus years. Thanks for reading and stay tuned!

 

Check out how Warren County is growing and where our numbers landed in the 4th quarter 2025. The table and graph below provide our activity for 2025 and over the last decade.