In years past, Decatur had previously had two LCI districts. Now we only have one great big one. In fact, we are one great big one.

What’s an LCI district, you ask?

The Livable Centers Initiative is a program of the Atlanta Regional Commission that encourages local jurisdictions to link transportation improvements with community development in order to create more sustainable communities (yes, in fact, that sentence is straight from the ARC website). The LCI program, which has been around for about twelve years, disburses funds to cities, counties and communities around the region to plan for activity centers, town centers and transportation corridors to bring, according to the ARC, “a new level of livability to the region.” To date, ARC has allocated more than $141 million in planning and transportation funds to 96 distinct areas in the Atlanta region.

My favorite Decatur LCI was a planned mixed-use development for that little area around the Avondale MARTA station, in 2002. I went to all the charettes and meetings (they had cookies). The resulting plan was pretty, and it had a pocket park, which was my favorite part. You can read all about it here, on the City’s website. I think my park was supposed to go about where a big kudzu patch still is, nine years later. Planning is such fun. It’s the implementation that will bite you in the . . . pocket park.

Now, rather than pursuing additional optional districts, the City of Decatur received the Atlanta Regional Commission’s approval to make the entire city a single LCI district, making a larger area of the city eligible for LCI grants for transportation related projects such as intersection improvements, bicycle lanes, streetscape improvements, etc. The approved LCI ten-year update will soon be available on the City’s website. Maybe this will make implementation as much fun as planning!