By: Katie Popp
On June 24, the City of Woodstock along with partners at Georgia Tech and POND & Company hosted a virtual site visit as part of the Georgia Smart Communities Challenge.
By: Katie Popp
On June 24, the City of Woodstock along with partners at Georgia Tech and POND & Company hosted a virtual site visit as part of the Georgia Smart Communities Challenge. Since the start of the one-year project period in September 2019, Woodstock has been creating a master plan and Smart Corridor Study to support the planning of future smart solutions for the city. This project is led by Katie O’Connor, Senior City Planner, with support from colleagues at the City of Woodstock and Ramachandra Sivakumar (Siva) from the Georgia Tech Center for Spatial Planning Analytics and Visualization (CSPAV).
To kick off the virtual site visit, top city officials from the City of Woodstock participated in panel-style discussions to illustrate the complex issues the city faces as population and development continue to grow and expand.
“With more people comes challenges. We are geographically constrained. We can’t just reimagine the downtown area overnight,” said Councilman Ake, who was accompanied on the panel by Jeff Moon, City Manager, and Coty Thigpen, Assistant City Manager. The group discussed the possibilities of addressing these issues with smart technologies and how the Georgia Smart project embodies Woodstock’s dedication to innovative and forward-thinking strategies.
Following the panel discussion, guests on the video call had the opportunity to virtually experience the charm and unique character of Woodstock’s Downtown District through a series of narrated video walking tours. Several key city employees deemed the Woodstock “Brain Trust”, shared insight into how downtown Woodstock evolved into what it is today and why smart technology will support continued prosperity and growth in the area. The project team also revealed and discussed the possibilities of several smart technologies that would be fit for the long-term goals of the city. Brantley Day, Director of Community Development for the City of Woodstock, explained that focusing on the planning process instead of jumping into implementation of smart city technology will help the city move towards accomplishing these goals.
“Rather than starting with a solution, we are using this planning process to identify and understand the problems so we can apply appropriate solutions which directly address them,” Day explained. “This is one way we want to ensure a return on investment for our citizens.” The masterplan will be completed by September 2020 and will include several potential smart technologies that could be implemented as pilot projects in the near future.