The MTRDC:

    The McIntosh Trail Regional Development Center is one of the 17 RDCs in Georgia.  Our primary responsibilities include assisting our local governments and the State Department of Community Affairs in its broader planning, economic development and GIS efforts.  In so doing, the RDC offers technical assistance to those municipalities without personnel of their own, or to provide oversight for those efforts reaching beyond the borders of single communities.  Among the work performed by the RDC:
 
• Assistance with grant writing/loan applications
• Land use planning
• Development/management of computer mapping systems & GIS
• Assistance with Comprehensive Plans and Solid Waste Management Plans
• Assistance with rural transportation programs
• Development of ordinances, by-laws, and regulations.
• Employment and area profiles
• Specified project research and analyses
• Storehouse for data (demographic, environmental, employment, etc.)

    In addition to these efforts, the RDC will support local governments as new and more projects develop.  Each RDC is designed to maintain a sense of familiarity with its communities, while also being knowledgeable of, and participating in, State activities.
 
 

Georgia RDC Background:

    In 1989, the State of Georgia adopted the Georgia State Planning Act in an effort to promote a greater coordination of growth strategies and community and economic development.  The intent of the legislation was to encourage more comprehensive and long-term planning within all of the State’s governments, yielding a more effective and efficient provision of community facilities and services.

    From this legislation, two key elements were created.  The first element was the structure for the State of Georgia’s “bottom-to-top” planning process, calling for Comprehensive Plans to be constructed first at the local level, then at the regional level, and finally at the State level.  From these Comprehensive Plans would be gathered detailed inventories and analyses of primary data used to provide government services and shape government policy.  In directing three tiers of these analyses, more effective communication and cooperation between local governments could be designed to address those shared or common issues.

    The second key element created by the Georgia State Planning Act was the creation of Regional Development Centers (RDC’s).  With the Act’s adoption, seventeen agencies were created (or recreated) as Regional Development Centers, providing planning and technical assistance to designated local governments.  Membership with the RDC’s is automatic for governments within the region,  while a nominated Board of Directors is responsible for establishing RDC policy and directive as provided or authorized by law. (The organizational structure is provided for in Code Section 50-8-34 of the Georgia Laws.)  Board membership for an RDC is comprised of the following representatives from each county:
 

• One county commissioner
• One mayor or council member from the largest city
• One minority representative
• One private sector representative

    An additional representative from each county with a population of 25,000, or greater, is also included, plus a non-voting representative appointed by the Georgia Department of Community Affairs.