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2004 Georgia Attorney General Reports and Opinions 1 (2004)

handle is hein.sag/sagga0001 and id is 1 raw text is: PTnfrmu of f THURBERT E. BAKER 40 CAPITOL SOUARE SW ATTORNEY GENERAL ATLANTA, GA M03344300 OFFICIAL OPINION 2004-1 To: Governor January 14, 2004 Re: A county or municipality may participate as a member for limited purposes in the Atlanta Regional Commission under federal laws and regulations governing metropolitan planning organizations while remaining a member of a regional development center other than the Atlanta Regional Commission. You have requested my opinion on provisions of federal law which appear in some instances to conflict with certain Georgia laws concerning required transportation planning activities to retain eligibility for federal highway assistance funds. The Twenty-Second Decennial Census (2000) resulted in population density information that placed portions of eight new counties within the current ten-county Atlanta Urbanized Area: Barrow, Bartow, Coweta, Forsyth, Newton, Paulding, Spalding, and Walton. The following example can be used to illustrate the issues involved. Walton County' is a member of the Northeast Georgia Regional Development Center. Under the 2000 census, portions of Walton County have been added to the Atlanta Urbanized Area (AUZA) and its associated federal Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO). The Atlanta Regional Commission is designated by state law as the MPO for the AUZA and also serves as the regional development center (RDC) for its area. State law, however, precludes a county from being in two different RDCs. O.C.G.A. § 50-8-32. The principal question, then, is whether Walton County, for certain limited federal transportation planning purposes, can be a member of the Atlanta Regional Commission while simultaneously remaining a member of the Northeast Georgia RDC. I conclude that under the current circumstances, Walton County can properly remain in the Northeast Georgia RDC while participating in the Atlanta Regional Commission in a limited fashion as a part of the federal MPO. Georgia has enacted a specific set of laws in order to comply with federal transportation planning requirements. More specifically, 23 U.S.C. § 134(b)(1) requires, in pertinent part, that a metropolitan planning organization shall be designated for each urbanized area with a population of more than 50,000 individuals ... in accordance with procedures established by applicable State or local law. For this purpose, O.C.G.A. §§ 50-8-80 through 50 8 103 created metropolitan area planning and development commissions and specifically designated each such commission as the official planning agency for comprehensive transportation studies required by 23 U.S.C. Sections 101, 134 and others. O.C.G.A. § 50 8 93. It should be noted, however, that the area defined in O.C.G.A. § 50-8-80(1) is not synonymous with the area defined in the federal references set forth in O.C.G.A. § 50 8 93(d). Planning and development commissions are implemented at the call of the chairman of the county commission of the most populous county in the designated area. O.C.G.A. § 50 8 82. The area that may be covered pursuant to O.C.G.A. § 50-8-80(1) is the standard metropolitan statistical area (SMSA) resulting from the most recent census, subject to changes made by the state Board of Community Affairs. Further, no area, county, or municipality shall be designated into the SMSA without the affirmative vote of such area, county, or municipality or its governing body. Id. The Department of Community Affairs (DCA) has not utilized the SMSA as the designated area for the Atlanta Regional Commission (the Atlanta SMSA today even includes a county in Alabama). Instead, DCA has reduced the size of the included area to that of the federally designated AUZA, thus establishing ARC as both a planning and development commission and the designated MPO for the AUZA. Further, the ARC has, for its designated full membership area, taken on the responsibility of an RDC pursuant to O.C.G.A § 50-8-83.

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