Hidden Hills residents are one step closer to getting their overlay district after a June 27 meeting with the Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC).

The meeting at the Lou Walker Senior Center in Lithonia, follows a 267-page overlay district plan that residents presented to the ARC in April.

More than 30 residents attended the meeting to support their case for the district, which will give them control over the kinds of businesses that settle in their community and the look of their commercial areas.

ARC planners Stephen Causby and Ashley Rivera are helping residents write the overlay code for the area through the year-long Community Choices program.

Jan Costello, a Hidden Hills resident and Overlay Committee coordinator, said they want to transform the four-square-mile area into a live, work and play community with investment potential.

“What we are seeing is vibrant streetscape signage and design that will make people want to go the shopping areas,” she said. “The shopping areas will also be concentrated, so you’ll have living areas in the same area.”

The 15 neighborhoods making up the proposed Hidden Hills Overlay District are home to aging infrastructures, rampant foreclosures and declining housing stock.

The area is bounded by Redan Road, Panola Road, Covington Highway and South Hairston Road. It has more than 5,000 homes and includes the abandoned Hidden Hills golf course and a proliferation of fast food restaurants and grocery stores.

In an overlay district, the community can set design requirements for new buildings, control the types of businesses that come to the area, and minimize duplications.

Before the meeting, neighborhood respresentatives took the ARC planners on a tour of the area. Costello said the planners needed to see the area they are working in.

“We wanted them to see the really tragic use of land in our area,” she said.

During the meeting, Kellie Bronlow, ARC’s local government services development chief, described the scope of the ARC’s involvement and residents discussed the types of businesses, signage, streetscapes, building heights, architectural design, and pathways they would like to see.

Costello said residents are excited to see the district begin to take shape. She also said the plan should be written by next spring and be ready for adoption by the DeKalb Board of Commissioners.

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