Harry Johnston

County to Benefit from Day’s Experience

BY HARRY JOHNSTON

Brantley Day is the county’s new community development director. He replaces Geoff Morton, who recently was named county manager. Brantley comes to the county from the city of Woodstock, where he served in a similar role, and the city of Holly Springs prior to that.

It’s a big job, second only to the county manager, in its scope. Brantley will manage the county’s road work, engineering, development permitting, building inspection, and planning and zoning. These are all areas of strategic importance to the seventh-largest and second-fastest growing county in Georgia. There’s much to be done, and we have high expectations.

We must continue to build on our recent momentum to improve roads. The state has stepped up to help with highways, and we’ve focused on keeping up local roads. But, it’s an ongoing and growing challenge. We’re working on a major update to the county’s Comprehensive Transportation Plan (CTP), which will guide the county’s road work for the next 25 years.

Immediately following the CTP update, we’ll start the process to update the county’s overall comprehensive plan. It’s best known for its land-use component, which is the guide for managing the county’s growth and development for the coming 25 years. This plan is the primary template against which rezoning requests are measured and decided. Absolutely nothing is more critical to our county’s future than an effective plan to shape and reasonably restrain our growth, to make Cherokee County even greater.

However, for a land use plan to be effective, the cities have

to be part of it. We’ve seen the damage that comes from the cities and the county working at cross-purposes. Coming from Cherokee’s largest city, Brantley is in a unique position to help us create a true countywide plan that we all can adhere to. We also will look to Brantley’s expertise for many other projects. For example, the county needs to finish a short-term rental ordinance to get control over the currently unregulated rental of residential properties for large parties and events. We also need to figure out how to manage the proliferation of self-storage units. And, we need to continue to find ways to encourage low-impact residential development by local builders, versus mass development by national companies. On another note, county staff need to determine what, if anything, we can do to keep housing affordable for police, firefighters, Brantley Day is Cherokee County’s new starting teachers and other essential workers community development director. who find it tough to buy a $350,000 home or pay $1,500 per month for rent. This means we need to decide whether to increase the development impact fee charged on new homes and other construction significantly, or not. We know we can rely on Brantley as we tackle these issues, and many more. Welcome, Brantley! Harry Johnston is chairman of the Cherokee County Board of Commissioners. He's a retired CPA and accounting manager, and a former district commissioner.