COVINGTON, Ga. - In conjunction with the Georgia Conservancy, the City of Covington Planning and Zoning Department is conducting a Housing and Land Use Study and seeks input from residents. The study is aimed at finding suitable housing locations, determining preferences and architectural designs, ensuring levels of affordability, and addressing potential impacts to surrounding communities along major corridors in the city.

Specifically, the study will conduct land use assessments along the following corridors:  Highway 278, Highway 142, Highway 36, Jackson Highway, Turner Lake Road, Washington Street and Brown Bridge Road.

The housing sector is an important part of Covington’s community fabric and economy and policy makers work hard to ensure communities are protected. The Covington City Council feels so strongly about the need for input in Covington’s housing options and well planned development, that they placed a recent moratorium on new multi-family housing projects in order to obtain public input and to develop a strategic plan to address housing choice and housing needs throughout the city.  

 “This is an opportunity for citizens to have their voice heard and give us some valuable input concerning housing,” said Covington Mayor Steve Horton. “We need to know people’s feelings and wants about housing size, place, type and price and we have a simple, quick survey for citizens to share their desires with us.”

Citizens are encouraged to participate in the survey by visiting the city’s website and social media pages, or simply by visiting https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/Q8F62ZJ. Paper surveys are available at City Hall and residents will receive information in their utility bills and through other methods on alternate ways to participate.

“The City of Covington’s Comprehensive Plan was updated in 2018 with the assistance of the Northeast Georgia Regional Commission.  It is now time to update our five year short-term work program to review and reflect the vision of Covington and to document where we want our community to go over the next 20 years,” Horton said.

To help facilitate this study, the city has created a Technical Advisory Committee consisting of several City of Covington employees. The committee also includes manager of the Clark’s Grove Development Randy Vinson, Director of the Covington Housing Authority Shamica Tucker, former Covington Mayor Kim Carter, Electric Cities of Georgia Economic Development Manager Mill Graves and Covington citizen and industry consultant Jerry Silvio.

For more input on the Study, or to participate, contact Mary Darby, Director of Planning & Zoning at 770-385-2179, or via email at mdarby@cityofcovington.org.