Toccoa HPC To Review Its Design Guidelines

Toccoa’s Historic Preservation Commission will look at updating its rules and regulations.

Last week, the HPC met with Joe Rothwell.

He is the Historic Preservation Planner for the Georgia Mountains Regional Commission.

Rothwell and the HPC talked about the board’s current guidelines and the opportunity to update them.

Toccoa Community Development Director Connie Tabor said that the sides agreed to work together on updating the city’s guidelines for the historic downtown district.

“He (Rothwell) has agreed to assist the Historic Preservation Commission with its review of our existing design guidelines and hopes to tweak those a little bit, maybe show some more current examples with photographs and just take a look and compare Toccoa’s design guidelines to other cities and maybe make some additional changes and revisions to our existing design guidelines over the next nine months,” said Tabor.

The guidelines used by the Historic Preservation Commission for Toccoa’s historic district have not been updated since they were implemented 10 years ago.

Tabor said it is time that the guidelines had a comprehensive review done.

“There are some pictures that are outdated and just some things that have been done,” said Tabor. “Our downtown looks a lot better than it did then, so we want to update that as far as our photographs, update any type of wording that might be misinterpreted. They just want to take a look at every single page in the document and elaborate on it so that it is made clearer for our applicants when they come in to review their COA (Certificatae of Appropriateness) request.”

Rothwell and the HPC will review the guidelines over a series of two-hour work sessions over the coming months.

The Historic Preservation Commission in Toccoa is charged with using the city’s design guidelines to review renovations of properties within the city’s historic district.

That district covers mainly Doyle and Tugalo streets between Alexander and Hill streets, though it also encompasses some of Currahee Street between Sage and Hill streets and some of Savannah Street between Pond and Short streets.