Final Draft of Vinings Vision Plan Coming Soon

The final draft of the Vinings Vision Plan could be posted for public comment by May 4, according to Cobb County Planning Division staff.

“(The plan) will be up on the website for 30 days,” said Mandy Elliot, Cobb County’s historic preservation planner. “So please, please look for it. Once it’s there we will certainly get the word out to the Vinings Homeowners Association so they cans pread the word. We really want you feedback and your questions to make sure it is OK before we go before the board.”

Once the plan is posted to the Planning Division website, Kalling said she and Dana Johnson, director of the Planning Divison will make a preliminary presentation to the Board of Commissioners May 22 to update them on the project. Then in June the plan will go before the Planning Commission for approval and ultimately back to the Commissioners who will decide whether to make it part of the county's master plan.

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Glenn Dyke, Vinings Homeowners Association president, reiterated to members of the homeowners association how important it is to comment on the plan once it is posted.

“Once that’s done, the Vinings Community Conservation Alliance that Cal (Dortch) is going to run is going to take ownership of that plan,” he said. “We as an organization, the homeowners association, are going to assist them. But they’re going to be involved in promoting the implementation of that plan and reaching out to the community and caucusing those elements of the plan that should be implemented first and setting the timeline to do that.”

The Vinings Vision Plan is a strategic vision for Vinings’ future that addresses land use, transportation, community character and improvement. Members of the community met several times over the course of 2011 to create the plan.

 presented existing conditions in Vinings and asked members of the community to examine its strengths and weaknesses.  identified eight common themes from the input given at the first meeting. Vinings residents also participated in a design workshop where they offered solutions in keeping with the themes.  county staff presented draft maps and solutions based on the design workshop and collected feedback from the community.

A fourth meeting was held in March 2012 to go over the final draft document. Some of the highlights from the plan include creating a Vinings historic trail, creating more green space and redrawing the lanes at the intersection of Paces Ferry and New Paces Ferry roads to create a stacking lane for left-turning traffic.

What was left out of the plan was a proposal to make Paces Ferry and New Paces Ferry roads one-way pairs.

“Our most negative response was the one-way pairs concept, which was an idea we proposed to help relieve the intersection at Paces Ferry and Paces Mill,” Elliott said at the March meeting. “We had almost 62 percent disapproval rating from that and we heard you. That is no longer on the table and we are not considering that any further.”