Toccoa Discussing Downtown Ground Floor Living

The city of Toccoa is looking at an ordinance that would place restrictions on ground floor residences in the historic downtown district in commercial properties.

On Friday, the Toccoa Downtown Development Authority voted unanimously to recommend a draft of an ordinance amendment to the city’s zoning ordinance that would regulate ground floor residential use in the commercial storefronts in historic districts.

Toccoa Main Street Director Connie Tabor said the city commission and Downtown Development Authority discussed looking at such an ordinance earlier this year.

“At that moment, they asked for staff to research what other communities’ provisions were regarding the ground floor residential space,” said Tabor. “Most all of the cities we were able to review did not provide any type of ground floor of residential space in commercial use. There were a few and one of those was Milledgeville.”

Tabor said while Milledgeville does not allow residential use in the front of the building, it does allow some residential use on the ground floor, as well as residential living in other areas of the building.

She said they allow residential in the rear of the building on the ground floor, but the storefront must be used for a commercial or service-oriented business.

According to Tabor, approval by the city’s DDA is just one step in the approval process.

She said other boards must approve it before anything could be implemented.

The next board that will look at it is the Toccoa Planning Commission.