Nearly a dozen residents provided input to Demorest’s leaders during a town hall meeting Monday, Jan. 27, painting an initial premise for the future of the city.
Much of the feedback gathered from constituents will serve as a foundation for the city’s creation of minimum development standards and aspects of zoning, which have gone unaddressed for the last 15 years.
With over a decade of public sector experience, Jessie Owensby, acting as owner and consultant with Civic Enhancement Strategies, received $10,000 for her role in conducting the town hall and future assessment of data and input collected during the process.
Owensby is also the city of Cornelia’s Community and Economic Development Director.
“Now that (Demorest) is getting more residents moving in and people – some of whom want development and some don’t – now you kind of have to come together and say, ‘Okay, what is Demorest about? What we are looking for? Where are we going from here? Do we want to preserve what we have and not grow anymore? Do we think a little bit of growth is okay, and if so, where would that growth be? Or do we just want to blow up and knock everybody out the water?,'” Owensby said.
During the open forum, residents touched on various issues involving parking, zoning and historical district boundaries. Councilman Shawn Allen noted an additional need for a park committee after questions regarding Demorest Springs Park were raised.
“Hopefully, out of this process, we can get some kind of input of what direction we should go,” Allen said. “Does the restoration of (the park) need to be a higher priority? What about the ball field? … It’s been used as a dog park. We’ve never designated that field to be used for anything. Is that part of the process that we need to designate that, officially, as a dog park?”
Resident Jo Berg called the parking situation in downtown Demorest “hindering,” as she tried to call for something – if anything – to be done about it.
“People are just plain lazy,” she said. “They don’t want to have to walk a half-a-block to get to downtown Demorest…what are your plans for parking?”
Allen said the city will look to find solutions to parking after input is gathered by residents in the coming months, indicating that issue is on their radar.
Need for revenue
Without directly acknowledging the need for additional revenue, city officials said the meetings were an opportunity to hear from the public on their desires about what an ideal Demorest would look like. In the past, city officials have pointed to the need for more commercial business within city limits to boost the tax digest and remove the burden – seen in hiked water rates and a recent 1 mill increase in taxes – from homeowners.
Still, with geographical boundaries spanning just over two miles, room for such business is limited.
“I don’t think any portion of these meetings are looking at whether or not there needs to be more residential or more commercial,” Demorest Mayor Jerry Harkness said. “It’s just looking at what citizens want, and opening the door for citizens to tell us at this point.”
Demorest City Manager Mark Musselwhite noted that hundreds of acres are open for future development along GA 365/Demorest-Mt. Airy Highway. City officials had been pursuing an expansion of sewer infrastructure along that corridor – but a permanent conservation property, owned by the late Carol O’Dell Lovell, along that route thwarted the process that had been planned since 2017.
“That would’ve opened up (GA) 365 with sewer,” Musselwhite said. “…the only place we can have (commercial development) is along 365. We’ve got to have sewer. That is the key out there.”
Next steps
During the final phase of the meeting, residents made their way to various stations at City Hall, identifying weaknesses, strengths and opportunities throughout the city for officials to assess over the next month.
City officials will hold another town hall event at 5:30 p.m. on Feb. 11 at Demorest City Hall, where residents will again have the opportunity to share their vision for the future. Input gathered from the two town halls will then be reviewed by officials during a planning retreat on March 8, according to Owensby.
That data will then shape the city’s long-term plan for parking, growth/development and other issues across the board regarding the future of Demorest.
“I’m going to take all of this data, analyze it, take the survey, analyze it, compile it all into a report…then I’ll tell (council): ‘This is what your community says they want,'” Owensby said. “The people who show up at these meetings are basically deciding (Demorest’s) strategic plan.”
