Land use in the crosshairs evaluating conservation subdivision use in Athens-Clarke County /

by 1969- Shelton, Stephanie Malissa

In post-war America, cities rapidly expanded into undeveloped areas creating a sprawl of low-density development. This resulted in a landscape with degraded natural resources that discourages social interaction. In recent years, environmental planners have tried to strike a balance between growth and natural resource conservation. Conservation subdivision (CSD) ordinances are one of the tools that have seen increasing use nationally. For the past decade, Athens-Clarke County (A-CC), GA, has been struggling to address poor land-use resulting in the adoption of a conservation subdivision ordinance. Developments proposed under this ordinance have been heavily criticized by both the public and private sectors. By evaluating these developments against criteria derived from the A-CC Comprehensive Plan, this research determined the ordinance to be inconsistent with community-derived goals. Using the same criteria, changes proposed to the ordinance in the recent re-drafting process are evaluated and determined to be more consistent with these goals.