Friday, June 20, 2003
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Friday, June 20, 2003 |
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ARC rep: Coweta will double in size by 2030 By JOHN THOMPSON You only think Coweta County is crowded now. In a presentation before the Coweta County Commission Tuesday afternoon, Atlanta Regional Commission chairman Chick Krautler said Coweta County's population is projected to double by 2030. That means that more than 200,000 will call the county home in the next few years, and they're going to be driving on the county's already crowded highways. Krautler was in Coweta Tuesday to suggest the county join ARC's metropolitan planning organization. He made it clear that he was not asking the county to join the ARC. Rather, he said the county needs to be a full-fledged participant in the commission's transportation planning. "We already do technical analysis for your transportation projects because you're in the 13-county non-attainment zone for air quality," he said. But the 2000 census now qualifies Coweta as an urban Atlanta county. By being part of the group's transportation planning, the county is eligible for urban transportation funds. While Krautler said the county would gain the use of the ARC staff for transportation planning, some of the commissioners were not too sure about the benefit of signing up with the group. "I'm just afraid we're going to get left behind the big counties like Fulton and Gwinnett. We're nothing like them," said Commission Chairman Leigh Schlumper. Krautler said there was no "weighting" of factors for bigger counties and Coweta County would have a staff person to help them get projects from the DOT. The commissioners decided to mull Krautler's offer and get back to him at a later date.
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