It's

not enough to have a new Regional Transportation

Plan aimed at reducing air quality problems in

metro Atlanta, according to Atlanta Regional

Commission officials.

Hand

in glove with the transportation plan is a new

Regional Development Plan for the ten-county

metropolitan area, including Fayette.

ARC's

Board of Directors approved the development plan

in May, but recently has released

"consumer-friendly" literature about

the plan and will sponsor a series of workshops

for local government officials to familiarize

them with it.

Fourteen

newly revised policies within the plan are

"intended to serve as a guide for future

regional growth," according to a

just-released color booklet on the plan.

"It

is a big, big change in the direction we've been

going," said Julie Ralston, ARC's public

information director. "We're talking about

concentrating growth in the town centers and

other `smart growth' techniques."

Understanding

the reasons for the changes is a matter of

"doing the math," according to the

literature. Development in the Atlanta region

consumed 132,920 acres from 1990 to 1995, it

states. Population increased by 324,700 in the

same time period, for a consumption rate of .409

acres per person, the booklet says.

That's

equivalent to the land area in Douglas County.

If

land consumption and population growth continue

at the same rate, by 2020 an additional 526,464

acres will have been developed, covering an

equivalent of Gwinnett, Rockdale and DeKalb

counties combined.

To

turn the tide toward fewer acres consumed for

each new resident, ARC is recommending higher

density development in city centers and more

green space overall.

Mixed-use

development will help cut down on the use of

automobiles in everyday living, according to the

plan.

"This

really coincides with what the governor is

pushing," said Ralston. Gov. Roy Barnes has

called for preservation of more green space

throughout the state, especially in the Atlanta

region.

Ralston

said the idea is to create neighborhoods

"where kids could walk on the sidewalk or

ride a bike on the sidewalk to school, where

people shop at the corner grocery. We're talking

about live, work and play places where you don't

have to drive so far."

Workshops

entitled Community Choices will kick off in

January, she said, aimed at promoting the new

development concepts at the local government

level. "These will also involve the

public," said Ralston.

"It's

a way to make these policies come alive at the

grass roots level," she added.

<!--

-----------