Greater Hidden Hills community residents and business owners have until March 25 to review and suggest changes to the second draft report of the Greater Hidden Hills Overlay District.

The 267-page report details how an overlay district could turn the four-square-mile area into a live, work and play district with investment potential. The report is available at www.co.dekalb.ga.us/planning/pdf/overlay/hiddenHillsStudy.pdf.

Residents have been working on the Greater Hidden Hills Overlay Study since December 2007.

The second draft of the report was completed March 11 with updated foreclosure information, census data, history, concept plan and the overlay district’s goals and strategies.

Jan Costello, coordinator of the Overlay Committee, says the 15 neighborhoods making up the overlay district are home to aging infrastructures, rampant foreclosures, declining housing stock, and other economic troubles.

“We are surrounded by commercial districts that are not only eyesores, they are dead,” she said. “We have a lot of commercial buildings that are not used. We see the overlay as being an economic tool that other communities have used to revitalize commercial districts.”

The Greater Hidden Hills area is bounded by Redan Road, Panola Road, Covington Highway and South Hairston Road. It has more than 5,000 homes, the closed Hidden Hills golf course and multiple businesses dominated by fast food restaurants and grocery stores.

To help fund the study, Costello said the planning department submitted an application March 6 for an Atlanta Regional Commission Community Choices Grant.

“If we receive the grant, the ARC will help us in the drafting of the overlay zoning code,” she said.

The ARC is expected to award the grants by the end of the month.

Costello said residents want businesses that offer professional services, high-end sit-down restaurants within walking distances, and that they have the income to support those services.

“When you look at the demographic section of the report you will see that the average education in our greater area is higher than the county norm and there is enough income there to support higher qualities of business,” she said. “You might stop at the Starbucks on the way to the grocery store or the print shop on your way back and pick up something for your business. There would be a synergy there.”

With an overlay district, Costello said the community could set design requirements for new buildings and control the types of businesses that come to area, and be on the lookout for too much duplication.

She said that limiting duplication will help businesses grow.

“That makes it better for the business that are there,” she said. “Suddenly they don’t have to compete with five more auto parts stores or five more beauty shops.”

Pauline Dailey, the Hidden Hills Civic Association’s president, says she envisions a variety of shops and neighbors who own their own homes and care for them.

“We want an area with people making sure this is a safe place for our children and that we have more activities for our children,” said Dailey, a decade-long resident of Hidden Hills.

For more information, contact Jan Costello at hhcamail@yahoo.com or 770-815-0105.