City of Norcross Selected for ARC’s Community Choices Program

The city will soon get some extra help from the Atlanta Regional Commission’s (ARC) Community Choices program, with the goal of spurring economic development in the area.

The idea is to take existing development goals from Norcross’s LCI or Comprehensive Plan, then get development experts to put together a menu of potential tools to help implement them. The program is considered a technical assistance grant; Expertise is awarded to the city, not any cash.

Stephen Causby, a program specialist with the ARC, was the recent City Council work policy session to bring the news and request a meeting with city staff and key stakeholders. “We like to sit down and listen to the community,” he said. 

Six of 14 applicants were chosen in the competitive application. “This stood out as a unique and interesting project,” Causby later said.Union City, Fairburn, Hampton, Cobb and Alpharetta were also chosen. 

Community Development Director Chris McCrary said getting into the program has been a long-time goal of the city planning department.

Causby said they would look at other “peer communities” to identify some best practices and also try to hone in on untapped resources at the county and state level when purring together the “menu” of tools that would help the city reach its goals.

He said it might be as simple as having an economic scorecard for a particular area or finding a grant façade program. “We’ll just try to incentivize economic growth,” he said.