TCC, DDA Meet for Joint Work Session

The city of Toccoa’s facade grant program is one of the main points of discussion at a work session between Toccoa City Commissioners and the city’s Downtown Development Authority.

That work session took place Tuesday.

Recently, the Toccoa DDA approved a series of changes to the city’s facade grant program policies.

The facade grant program provides funding to assist Main Street property owners with the renovation of their building facades.

City officials said the recently approved changes clearly define that only one grant can be received per facade and clearly define that a facade is the side of a building that faces a public street, as opposed to the previous rules which officials said were less clear as to what a facade was when it came to grant eligibility, especially when it came to buildings with multiple businesses along the facade.

Toccoa DDA Member Clay Fisher said the goal was to more clearly define how the facade grants were distributed.

“What we are trying to is have a more understandable, defined expectation,” said Fisher. “We have taken what it says and changed it to what the intent is,” said Fisher.

Multiple commissioners said they are in favor of the changes and making the policy clearer.

However, Toccoa Vice-Mayor Jeanette Jamieson pointed out that changing the rules now is something the city needs to do carefully.

“You are changing the criteria in mid-stream,” said Jamieson. “It is safe for the city commissioners to assume that if they are tabled, they are tabled under the old criteria and will be considered under the old criteria.”

The DDA said that any applications that were officially considered and tabled by the board will be considered by the old rules.

However, if an official application was not filed and is not before the DDA, the new facade grant rules will apply.

Also on Tuesday, Toccoa Main Street Director Connie Tabor updated city commissioners on Phase One of a citywide historic preservation resources survey.

City officials said it is a city-wide survey of all of the historic resources that the city has and Phase One covers the historic downtown area.

Tabor said Phase One should be done around August and discussions are underway on how to consider proceeding with the next phase, which would cover another area of the city.

Other ideas discussed by the DDA and the city commission include downtown beautification projects, a smart phone app for downtown Toccoa, continued Schaefer Center renovations, among other things.