When it comes to future growth in Athens and Limestone County, it is not a question of if, but when. Ask any city official and they will tell you that the number of people who call Limestone County home is not only increasing but will continue to do so.

Mayor Ronnie Marks said during a State of the City address in January that Athens is expected to grow by several thousand in population within the next few years. 

Multiple new businesses and housing units are going up throughout the county, another indicator that the area is growing.

Since all this growth seems like a sure thing, what will city officials do to prepare ahead of time? How will the city support thousands of new residents? 

The answer is put together a comprehensive master plan, one which takes into account what the city can expect in terms of growth and what areas must be expanded or improved in order to accommodate.

 

Planning ahead

According to City Engineer Michael Griffin, who works alongside the Athens Planning Commission, a new master plan is currently in the works.

“We know we need to address the growth in a new, comprehensive master plan,” Griffin said. “Over the last four or five months, we have selected a firm that will handle the zoning, annexation and other items we are approving within the Athens corporate limits.”

Griffin updated the City Council about the new master plan during its Jan. 25 meeting. Town Planning & Urban Design Collaborative LLC was selected to help the city with the project, and a representative from the company was also on hand at the meeting to give the Council a presentation on their task.

“The plan lays out what is economically feasible and what we should be approving as a city,” Griffin said. “We will follow this plan pretty closely.”

Griffin said meetings involving multiple city departments were planned to start by the end of February in order to begin putting the new master plan together. He said input will be gathered not just by city officials and department heads, but from other citizens as well.

The new master plan is expected to take about a year to complete.

“We already have funding approval for the plan,” Griffin said. “Everyone realizes its importance. Cities usually do this every five to 10 years. The reason we are working with a third party is because processionals looking from the outside can see shortfalls we might not.”

Griffin said all departments will review the new master plan once it is complete, and if it is discovered that any of them is doing something counter to what is deemed necessary, they will “adjust and adapt.”

Growing pains

The City of Athens knows it is going through some growing pains. That is a big reason why Athens added a new city planner and planning staff member.

Director of Public Works James Rich introduced Matt Davidson to the City Council during the group’s meeting Jan. 11.

Rich said Davidson comes from Sanford, Florida, a city with a population of 80,000 just north of Orlando. Rich said Sanford has experienced a lot of rapid growth, similar to what Athens has, over the last few years with more expected in the near future.

“He has been on the planning committee there for about 15 years,” Rich said. “He has a degree in environmental planning from the University of Central Florida.”

Rich also introduced Lakeisha Johnson, who will be a planning staff member. Rich said Johnson has a master’s degree in urban planning from Alabama A&M University and had been working in administration in Decatur prior to being hired in Athens.

“She has been in public administration for several years,” Rich said. “She will be a staff planner that supports the efforts of the city. We are looking forward to them joining our staff and helping us out. Our staff needs it.”

“These are critical positions, as fast as we are growing,” said Mayor Ronnie Marks during that meeting. “We welcome them and look forward to working with them.”

Rich said at the time that the new staff members were already working to help update the city’s upcoming comprehensive master plan.

Griffin said his department will also likely be growing soon in order to “help make sure our infrastructure is in place.”

“The whole of Public Works is growing,” he said. “We need to grow the staff and, to borrow a military term, find some ‘force multipliers’ to figure out how to do more with less.”

Griffin said with the challenge of Athens’ new growth comes opportunity. Growth means more people, but also new businesses and services coming to the area.

He said he likes getting into the thick of things and doesn’t mind having a busy day in order to make sure things “go right.”

“When I moved here from Gulf Shores, I expected a lot of growth,” he said. “I think one day Huntsville will be the new center of Alabama, and I think other people see the same thing.”

Griffin said the City needs to take a good stock of its assets versus liabilities. By liabilities, he means providing the necessary infrastructure and utilities to residents.

“We need to make sure we have adequate funding from property or sales tax to balance out the maintenance and replacement of these when the time comes,” he said. “We need to make sure we have the staff to cover that.”

Keeping the lights on

Blair Davis has been with Athens Utilities for 34 years and has been the electric department’s manager since 2017. 

He said his department is averaging a 3% growth rate, and the majority of customers being added are east of Interstate 65, in the direction of Madison and Huntsville.

“We are constantly updating our work plan and reevaluating once a year,” he said. “We are looking at new development and have added substations over the past several years to help with added growth in homes and business. We have added five large industrial customers since 2013 … with plans to build another one on the west side of town.”

Davis said he does not foresee his department’s growth slowing down, but he also thinks it should be able to handle this new growth.

“We try to be a bit proactive in upgrades and new construction to help take care of any future growth,” he said. “We’ve got infrastructure in place. It’s hard to look ahead where all the new development may be, but we always reevaluate once a year if there are any changes we need to make.”