COLUMBIA COUNTY, Ga. () – Columbia County held workshops Thursday for community members to be able to have a say in what they want the future of their town to look like.

The workshop was held at the Columbia County Exhibition Center.

The Foundations for the Future Comprehensive Plan will focus on recreation, sustainable growth in the community and more.

They will look for feedback on not only traffic and housing but other things they might not have thought of as well.

Scott Sterling, Planning Services Division Director for Columbia County, said “The fact that we have 165,000 people out there that can give a different perspective perhaps, that’ll help us figure out what exactly those goals and objectives need to be in the next 5 to 10 years that we can work on.” 

The community planning team for the Comprehensive Plan is Houseal Lavigne and members of the team were in attendance at the workshop.

Co-Founder, John Houseal, said Columbia County has to keep up with the rapid growth that is happening.

“Columbia County is a remarkable place, a very unique place, so how do you grow and be a better version of who you are but not something else and the comprehensive plan begins to lay the foundation on how to do that,” said Houseal.

They have already completed survey one with over 500 responses and are now on survey two.

The project will last for about 15 months ending close to February of 2026.

The next phase will be the community reacting to concepts and ideas that are put together based on the public input.

“We might have an open house and we’ll say ‘here are some of the ideas we have for new residential neighborhoods, where do they go; these are our thoughts on how to preserve environmental open space; repairing river corridors; connect these bike routes, what do you think about these ideas,’” Houseal said.

If you wish to have a say in the Comprehensive Plan you can find the link to the survey here.