•Blueprints Partners

•How the Blueprints Process Works

•Blueprints Projects Chronology

•Blueprints Principles
for Public Participation

Georgia is home to an abundance of natural and cultural resources. Our development patterns over the last 50 years present a very real threat to these resources and to quality of life as a whole. Sprawling, decentralized development, where people must depend on automobiles, is expensive for local governments to serve and has a staggering effect on the environment. Vehicle emissions create toxic air pollution. Storm water runoff from asphalt poisons rivers and streams. Thousands of acres of farms, woodlands, and open space are lost to wasteful, non-sustainable forms of development.

Click on the watershed map below to learn more about individual Blueprints projects (or use the list to the right of the map).

The Blueprints for Successful Communities Partnership

The Georgia Conservancy partnered with the Urban Land Institute and the Greater Atlanta Home Builders Association to host its first Blueprints for Successful Communities symposium in late 1995. Joining the three original partners are the Atlanta Neighborhood Development Partnership, American Institute of Architects, American Society of Landscape Architects - Georgia Chapter, Association County Commissioners of Georgia, American Council of Engineering Companies of Georgia, Institute of Transportation Engineers, Georgia Institute of Technology, Georgia Municipal Association, Georgia Planning Association, Homebuilders Association of Georgia, U.S. Green Building Council and the Southface Energy Institute, bringing the total number of partners to 15. This diverse group understands the link between land use, economic stability, and healthy air, water, and natural areas.

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How the Blueprints Process Works

The key to the success of any Blueprints community planning process is the continuous and vigorous involvement of all local stakeholders. A local advocacy organization or a group of local officials generally sponsors the initiative and helps build support within the community. Planning efforts that bring together coalitions of diverse interests and are committed to citizen participation in decision-making are the most successful in obtaining the necessary buy-in to move forward to implement the goals and strategies developed through the process.

Step One: The Blueprints process is modified to fit the varying circumstances in each community. The first step in the process, however, is usually an invitation to the Blueprints program from within the local community. Once Blueprints staff and local community leaders determine that Blueprints is the right planning tool for the community, a set of local community stakeholders is assembled and agrees to work within the Blueprints Principles:

• Maintain and enhance quality of life for residents of the community
• Employ regional strategies for transportation, land use, and economic growth
• Consider the effect of the built environment on the natural environment as well as history and culture
• Employ efficient land uses

Step Two: Blueprints staff assembles the local stakeholders and facilitates issue-identification for the community. Local property owners, elected officials, business persons, and other leaders tell the Blueprint staff what is important to them and to their particular community.

Step Three: Blueprints staff and other professionals, specialists, and researchers educate participants on planning alternatives, current research, and case studies from other communities.

Step Four: Blueprints staff facilitates agreement between participants on the best planning strategies for the community.

Step Five: Communities might elect to hold an educational symposium, workshop, or other implementation mechanism at the end of the Blueprints process.

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Communities listed below have been through the Blueprints for Successful Communities process. Information about these workshops is available from the Georgia Conservancy.

1997-2008 Blueprints Communities

•Covington, Newton County
Created development alternatives for five major undeveloped areas that could accommodate projected growth while maintaining the town’s quality of life, improving its appearance and using existing infrastructure

•Senoia, Coweta County
Evaluated the impact of rapid population growth and a proposed commuter rail station in this historic railroad town. Recommended ways Senoia could manage growth to preserve town character and enhance quality of life.

•Lakewood Heights, City of Atlanta
Focused on revitalizing an inner city neighborhood through economic development, improving appearance, and fostering neighborhood pride.

•Home Park, City of Atlanta
Worked to create a master plan that protects Home Park’s physical and community assets, and solidified a neighborhood organizational structure.

•Athens, Clarke County
Tested components of the consolidated government’s recently adopted Concept Plan on three areas of the city, and presented options for urban design and future development configurations.

•University Parkway, Barrow, Oconee Counties
Addressed issues surrounding the proposed Athens-Atlanta commuter rail line and the University Parkway. Concentrated on finding ways to conserve the area’s rural character while bracing for projected growth.

•University Parkway, Gwinnett County
Studies how to fit rail stations within older urban and low density suburban development in Dacula, Lawrenceville, and Lilburn.

•Middle Chattahoochee Watershed
Addressed planning issues on a watershed basis from West Point Lake south to Lake Walter F. George. Organized stakeholder committee to coordinate planning efforts throughout the watershed and made recommendations for promoting economic development based on existing natural and cultural resources.

•Ocmulgee River Corridor, Macon/Bibb Counties
In the process of designing and implementing approaches to education and interpretation that will promote the natural and cultural heritage of the Ocmulgee River. The committee plans to offer implementation strategies for protection of the Ocmulgee River resources, and promote economic development that incorporates the natural, cultural, and historic resources of the Ocmulgee River corridor.

•City of Conyers, Rockdale County
Addressed greenfield and greyfield site options and identified a framework for redevelopment in the larger surrounding commercial area of the Highway 20/138 corridor.

•Sandfly Community, Savannah
Worked with the small coastal community of Sandfly, one of the oldest African-American settlements in Georgia, in an effort to maintain the community’s unique character in the face of commercial development.

• Berkely Park, City of Atlanta
Assisted in the development of a vision for the neighborhood and identified potential strategies to mitigate the impacts of growth in the area while maximizing the benefits of private and public investment.

• Moultrie- Colquitt County
Currently working with the City of Moultrie and Colquitt County to identify tools to protect a strong rural agricultural community in a way that is economically viable, exercises stewardship of natural resources, and promotes progress of new and existing businesses.

•LaVista Road, DeKalb County
Recommended methods by which neighborhoods along the north DeKalb section of LaVista Road could establish pedestrian connections to and from destinations within the planning area, address incompatible infill development, strengthen the commercial core and preserve parks and greenspaces.

•Pittsburgh, City of Atlanta
Partnered with the Atlanta Neighborhood Development Partnership to identify ways to stabilize and improve one of Atlanta's oldest in-town neighborhoods, such as by redeveloping vacant property, creating neighborhood retail nodes and leveraging funding opportunities.

•Toccoa, Stephens County
Worked with stakeholders to focus on approaches to housing, economic development, transportation and cultural/natural resource protection through alternatives to conventional zoning.

•Piedmont Heights, City of Atlanta
Identified methods for protecting the single-family neighborhood core while planning for compacct, pedestrian-friendly development on the fringes with a focus on maintaining workforce housing and increasing connectivity.

•Westside, City of Atlanta
Building off of BeltLine planning, this studio reframed the transportation and transit discussion, developed templates for corridor redevelopment, addressed greenspace connectivity and looked at infill redevelopment opportunities around transit and brownfields in an area spanning 37 neighborhoods.

•Collier Village, City of Atlanta
One of the smallest study areas to date, this Blueprints focused on a four-block area at the intersection of two congested roadways. “Collier Village” is an aspirational name for an underutilized commercial area on the brink of major redevelopment. Major issues addressed include: pedestrian safety, connectivity, environmental concerns, and zoning, land use and urban design.

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