The ACC Commission finalized the TSPLOST 2026 project list this week, which now includes $7 million for a new greenway along the Middle Oconee River.
Commissioners also discussed the 2045 future land use map and a proposal for a unified leasing policy, two items that have long been under consideration.
Contents
TSPLOST 2026
Future land use map
Unified leasing policy
TSPLOST 2026
This May, voters across Athens will have the chance to decide whether a 1% sales tax that provides funding for transportation projects should continue.
Voters first approved Athens’ Transportation Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax in 2017. Since then, TSPLOST has funded things like sidewalks, the Firefly Trail, pavement maintenance, transit operations, the Whitehall Road roundabout, improvements at the airport and more.
If approved by voters, TSPLOST 2026 would provide $239 million for transportation over six years. $105 million of that will fund pavement maintenance and transit operations, the two largest projects on the list. While this won’t be enough to expand transit routes or fully prevent Athens’ roadways from deteriorating, it will keep these costly projects from being funded with property tax dollars (which would require a significant tax increase).
TSPLOST 2026 also allocates $15.7 million for Athens Transit to replace its aging bus fleet, $11 million for a multiuse path and other complete streets improvements on the east side and almost $10 million for an intersection overhaul at Main Street in Winterville.
The remaining funds would go towards smaller projects scattered around Athens, including bridge and stormwater infrastructure repairs, protected bike lanes along College Station Road, pedestrian safety along Barnett Shoals Road, a multiuse path along parts of Timothy Road, intersection improvements at Kathwood Drive and Newton Bridge Road and finally a “Milledge Makeover” plan which could include a multiuse path along Milledge Avenue.
Typically, TSPLOST programs last for five years, but this time commissioners decided on a six-year plan to provide money for some additional priorities. For example, members of the advocacy group Friends of the Greenway and Electric Bike Group Athens had been urging commissioners to include funding for the planned Middle Oconee River Greenway trail in this TSPLOST. After expanding TSPLOST 2026 to six years, commissioners allocated $7 million to the new greenway, which will run along the back of the Forest Heights Neighborhood from Ben Burton Park to Beech Haven.
Commissioner Stephanie Johnson briefly interrupted her colleagues as they were in the process of approving the TSPLOST project list to urge them to include more funding for sidewalks and other pedestrian improvements along Atlanta Highway, Quailwood Drive and Fowler Mill Road. Johnson suggested cutting funding for the greenway in order to pay for it.
“I love the greenway,” Johnson said. “But everybody in Athens-Clarke County needs the basics. They need sidewalks. They need to be able to walk in their community safely. They need streetlights. They need crosswalks. There are many areas in district 6 that don’t have them.”
This last minute request came too late to be adequately considered and was not supported by any other commissioner.
Commissioners then re-started their voting process and approved the final TSPLOST 2026 list unanimously, as drafted by Commissioner Patrick Davenport.
Commissioner Melissa Link proposed one other change to the list, which was to cut $237,000 for bus shelters at Peter Street and Gresham Avenue in order to fund traffic calming in east Athens. Link explained that the bus shelters already had an available source of revenue through the east downtown tax allocation district. Commissioners unanimously supported her suggestion.
Future land use map
After more than a year of work, the 2045 future land map for Athens-Clarke County is finally headed for a commission vote on February 3. This will be the first update in 25 years, but not much is changing. The new map proposed by the ACC Planning Department and Future Land Use Steering Committee changes the categories of only 6% of the county’s land, not including superficial name changes or similar reclassifications.
Even so, this is a significant decision that will guide the county for decades to come, as ACC Planning Director Bruce Lonnee explained to commissioners at Tuesday’s meeting.
“This is one of those gateway decisions,” Planning Director Bruce Lonnee told commissioners. “It opens the door for us to start working on a number of other things that you’re asking staff to do that are super important. This [map] helps to provide additional basis for those decisions. Without an updated future land use map, we’re kind of playing with old ideas.”
The map was made somewhat conservatively on purpose, in part to make it easier for commissioners to accept. But Link says she plans to make some changes to it.
“I know the charge of the committee was to try and maintain the status quo as much as possible, but I feel we have an opportunity here to try and undo some of the damage from the past,” Link said. “I will definitely be asking for amendments.”
Commissioners Fisher and Wright said that they had hoped to see the county’s delivery plan for water and sewer services before they voted on the future land use map, because they wanted to be sure that areas where growth is planned had adequate infrastructure to support it. While the service delivery plan isn’t quite ready yet, ACC Manager Robert Cowell, Jr. reassured them that the plans were developed together and were well-coordinated.
It’s important to note that the future land use map does not change the underlying zoning of any of Athens’ neighborhoods. Each zoning change will still need to be approved by the mayor and commission individually.
You can see the full presentation on the future land use map here, including a high resolution image of the new map.
UPDATE 2/3/26: The ACC Commission has decided to delay voting on the future land use map until April.
Unified leasing policy
Commissioners are also considering a policy that would change how much they charge nonprofits and other groups that rent government property. This policy has been in the works for years, ever since former Commissioner Mariah Parker noticed that white-led nonprofits often received more favorable rental terms than did Black-led nonprofits. Previous rental rates had been developed through negotiations with each nonprofit individually, without a unified policy.
The local government’s new leasing policy has gone through several iterations in an attempt to make it more fair across the board. But each time the commission has tried to pass it, it’s been met with strong opposition during public comment, mostly from the nonprofits which had previously received extremely generous rental terms.
The current version of the policy, as drafted by the commission’s Government Operations Committee, grants nonprofits reductions on rent if they can show they provide “substantial public benefit.” Organizations that meet six of 13 criteria will have their rent cut in half. Organizations that meet nine of the criteria will only need to pay $1 of rent per year.
The idea behind this new policy is to maintain extremely generous rental terms for certain nonprofits that can prove, in an objective way, that they deserve it based on the benefits they provide to the community. All other organizations will receive standardized rental rates and conditions, based on the square footage of the space being rented.
You can view the full leasing policy here.
UPDATE 2/3/26: The ACC Commission unanimously voted to accept the new leasing policy.
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