Planning map shows Metro Atlanta in Hall County

GAINESVILLE - Flowery Branch Mayor Mike Miller Tuesday said he could not go along with updated urban area boundaries approved in a resolution adopted at the Gainesville/Hall County Metropolitan Planning Organization’s Policy Committee meeting held at the Hall County Government Center.

Miller would not go along with the federally required map revisions because he said a large part of his town, the Sterling on the Lake Subdivision, is now within Atlanta Regional Commission boundaries.

“According to the 2010 adjusted urbanized area they have now moved our urbanized area down into Buford while the Atlanta Regional Commission has moved up take in Sterling on the Lake, which is approximately a quarter of the City of Flowery Branch population,” Miller said. “I don’t understand why they’re dividing our city between two urbanized areas and why they’re lumping in Sterling on the Lake with the Atlanta Regional Commission, but you’re leaving Buford, part of which is in Gwinnett County, with the Gainesville area.”

Miller said he wants to ask the ARC where road funding is coming from in what he called a boundary map based on backward logic. Miller told fellow policy committee members that Flowery Branch maintains and pays for the streets in Sterling on the Lake.

“If they’re going to claim some transportation there then they need to start funding some of the road maintenance,” Miller added. “What’s concerning to me is that the Atlanta Regional Commission is really Metropolitan Atlanta and you’ve got that moving into Hall County now. According to the map they’re showing us moving into Buford; the Gainesville/Hall County Metropolitan moving into Gwinnett County.”

BRINGING PROJECTS BACK

The transportation planners voted to re-program preliminary engineering funding on two major local projects.

Committee Chairman, Gainesville Mayor Danny Dunagan, said members agreed to amend their Transportation Improvement Program because the projects did not meet a seven year federal deadline to get started.

"We did have to vote for the money again because it had been over seven years and the time had lapsed," Dunagan said. "We had to go through the process again to apply for the funds from the federal government."

The Committee approved state DOT request for a total of $850,000 in federal and state funds for the Clarks Bridge project and for the Exit 14 Interchange on Interstate 985 between Oakwood and Flowery Branch.

"Clarks Bridge Road is going to be let this summer and will get started pretty quickly after the bid letting," the Mayor said."Exit 14 could be seven to 10 years, but this will do the design and environmental work for Exit 14 so we can get it started."