The Hall County Government is holding public input hearings to make changes to the Unified Development Code (UDC) and the Comprehensive Plan.

A meeting was held Tuesday in South Hall, there is one planned for Thursday night at the Hall County Government Center from 6-8 p.m., and there is one in North Hall next Tuesday.

There is also a public feedback form which can be found here. Thoughts can be shared through June 15.

On Thursday, Director of Planning and Zoning Katie Ahmed and Interim County Administrator John Gentry sat down with Access North Georgia to talk about what they are hearing from citizens and what changes could be in store.

"We've actually received about a total of 106 comments and we had 38 people show up for our south Hall meeting," Ahmed said. "We have a lot of focus and emphasis on the data center ordinance."

That ordinance, which Gentry called a "very demanding" ordinance in draft. It introduces a full regulatory framework for data centers, including a new definition for them and size classifications.

Additionally, a Special Use Permit would be required before coming before the Board of Commissioners and a variety of studies including sound, environmental impact, and traffic before moving forward.

"We've got what we believe is a quality ordinance in draft form that we're looking for true feedback on ... to see if that's something that we believe is the direction the board wants to consider," Gentry said. "One of those options the board could consider is a continuation of a moratorium on data centers."

Ahmed broke down the difference between the UDC and the Comprehensive Plan.

She said the UDC are the ordinances that enforce what can occur on a piece of property, and Comprehensive Plans guide staff for the vision the county wants to develop.

There will be a major Comprehensive Plan update in 2027 with the process beginning in July of this year according to Ahmed and Gentry. A minor update is required every five years by the State of Georgia.

The current Comprehensive Plan draft outlines six character areas, broken down into:

• North Hall
• Murrayville/Sardis
• Gainesville Area
• East Hall
• Chestnut Mountain/Candler
• South Hall

The growth in each area by 2050 is significant as outlined in the plan. North Hall could see up to 5,000 new households, Murrayville/Sardis could see up to 5,300, Gainesville could see 16,500, East Hall could see 14,500, Chestnut Mountain could see 18,000, and South Hall could see 15,000.

"We will get updated numbers for that ... it's all based upon census data and trend lines, and so we, we are looking forward to having a lot of feedback for that upcoming project, but currently we're utilizing our comprehensive plan data that was adopted back in 2024," Ahmed said.

Another potential update to the UDC? New zoning categories. RSF, or Residential Single-Family Detached and RTH, or Residential Single-Family Attached for townhomes.

"Currently we don't have a district where you could build residential attached dwellings ... [Planned Residential Developments] have been utilized ... [and they] have a limited amount of oversight, and they require the developer to propose their standards," Ahmed said. "We thought if these are being utilized so often for these smaller lot detached and attached homes, and also a mixture of those, then we need zoning districts that can capture those those standards and regulate those."

Gentry added the public meetings are a great way for citizens to provide feedback.

"The greatest way citizens can provide very specific feedback is to go online to hallcounty.org We've got a ... hot button on the front ... 'provide UDC updated changes.' It'll take you to a form, you can read through each of the ordinances online, understand them, and then click into a form and provide very specific detailed feedback," Gentry said. "Engagement meetings are great, but sometimes there's lost detail in the translation between just a conversation to the feedback, so that is the greatest way for our citizens to really provide very specific content-oriented feedback."

Again, there are two more public meetings and an online form that can be submitted to through June 15.