By Helen McCoy

Staff Writer

Local and state officials met Thursday with four community stakeholders at city hall about the Highway 92 project in order to clarify and better explain details of the plan.

All it took was a rendering of what the project could look like.

It was almost an epiphany.

Not the big map — the one with so many lines and details to focus on — but a close-up peek that depicted real objects that people could actually identify.

City of Douglasville officials, along with representatives of the Georgia Department of Transportation, Croy Engineering, U.S. Rep. David Scott’s office and four members of the community met to further hash out and make clearer the information the community stakeholders would soon be asked to deliver.

Laura Rish, a National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) team member with GDOT, explained the environmental process phase, one of three phases to be successfully undertaken before the Highway 92 project is completed.

The Highway 92 project is in this phase, where public support and input is critical, she said.

The environmental process is required by law. NEPA, signed into law in 1970, mandates that consideration must be given to the needs of the public, and the impact of the project to the public as well as to the environment, Rish said. Assessments are done on its effect ecologically, cultural resources (historic architecture and archeology), impact on air and noise, and impact on the community.

Rish said it was at this stage the project was stalled before. GDOT sent its assessments to the Federal Highway Authority for approval, but FHWA was not satisfied with the response from the public.

“FHWA will not sign off if there is a lot of public controversy about a project,” Rish said, adding that GDOT works very hard to satisfy the public. “It’s your roads, you have to drive on them.”

City Manager Bill Osborne agreed. “FHWA was not convinced that the community was behind it before. We find that the community is supportive, but has questions, what are we talking about, and how is it going to affect specific areas - the Latino business community, Brown Street, Fulghum Drive,” he said.

Osborne said FHWA is also concerned about how new business development and the expected new residential area is going to impact the community, but added, “Right now, our primary concern is that the people who live and have businesses near the area have input.”

While questions arose as to noise and other issues, some answers became more apparent by looking at the drawing.

Meanwhile, stakeholders learned more about how to get the word out and what it will take to get significant input from the community.

Their goal is to try to get 90 percent participation from people in their designated areas, whether the input is positive or negative, and to get people to attend the public hearings when they are set.

Everyone stressed the importance of spreading the word.

Jeff Noles, director of development services for the City of Douglasville, held up the drawing of what the new thoroughfare could look like, and drew excitement from those attending the planning session.

“This road is going to change Douglasville forever. Douglasville will never be the same,” one stakeholder said, after viewing the design,