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State system profile
Georgia's Regional Commissions
- What
- A statewide network of 12 multi-county planning and development bodies, each officially titled a “Regional Commission”
- Where
- The whole of Georgia — every county and every municipality belongs to exactly one commission
- Created
- 2008 (House Bill 1216); the 12 commissions took effect in 2009, replacing 16 older Regional Development Centers
- Statute
- Georgia Planning Act, O.C.G.A. Title 50, Chapter 8 — the commissions are created under § 50-8-32
- Membership
- Mandatory: local governments are required by law to belong
Georgia is the clearest example in the country of a state whose regional bodies are actually called “Regional Commissions.” Rather than a scattered patchwork, the state is carved into 12 contiguous regions, each served by a single commission, and together they blanket all 159 counties. For anyone searching for “regional commissions” in a concrete, present-day sense, this is what the term most literally describes.
The 12 commissions
Each commission takes in a cluster of neighbouring counties and is run from a regional headquarters. The list below follows the state's official region numbering.
| Region | Regional Commission | Headquarters |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Northwest Georgia Regional Commission | Rome |
| 2 | Georgia Mountains Regional Commission | Gainesville |
| 3 | Atlanta Regional Commission | Atlanta |
| 4 | Three Rivers Regional Commission | Griffin |
| 5 | Northeast Georgia Regional Commission | Athens |
| 6 | Middle Georgia Regional Commission | Macon |
| 7 | Central Savannah River Area Regional Commission | Augusta |
| 8 | River Valley Regional Commission | Columbus |
| 9 | Heart of Georgia Altamaha Regional Commission | Eastman |
| 10 | Southwest Georgia Regional Commission | Camilla |
| 11 | Southern Georgia Regional Commission | Valdosta |
| 12 | Coastal Regional Commission | Darien |
Where the system came from
Georgia has coordinated planning at a regional scale for decades. Before 2008 the work was carried out by 16 Regional Development Centers, a system that had grown up piecemeal over the previous generation. A 2008 reform — House Bill 1216, passed during that year's legislative session — consolidated those 16 centers into 12 larger Regional Commissions, renamed them, and adjusted how their governing boards are composed. The new commissions began operating in 2009. The change was as much about tidying a fragmented map as about renaming: fewer, larger regions, with a common statutory framework applying to all of them.
How they are governed
Each Regional Commission is directed by a council drawn largely from its member governments — typically the elected leaders of the counties and cities in the region, sitting alongside a smaller number of non-government and state-appointed members. That board sets the regional agenda and oversees a professional staff of planners and program administrators. Because membership is mandatory, no local government in Georgia sits outside the system; every county and city is, by law, part of its commission.
What they do
The commissions are general-purpose regional bodies rather than single-issue agencies. Their common functions include:
- Regional and local comprehensive planning, and review of plans for consistency across the region;
- Economic and community development, including help preparing and administering grants;
- Aging and human-services programs, which several commissions deliver as the regional agency on ageing;
- Workforce development and related labour-market programs;
- Geographic information, mapping, and data services; and
- Technical assistance to small local governments that cannot afford specialist staff of their own.
The exact mix varies from region to region — a heavily urban commission and a rural one face very different problems — but the statutory template, and the “Regional Commission” name, are shared across all 12.
How they relate to the other bodies on this site
Georgia's Regional Commissions are state bodies, quite separate from the federal regional commissions such as the Appalachian Regional Commission — even though part of northern Georgia falls inside the Appalachian region, so a Georgia county can be served by a state Regional Commission and lie within a federal commission's territory at the same time. In the broader vocabulary of councils of governments and regional planning, Georgia's commissions occupy the same niche that a “council of governments” or “area development district” fills in other states; Georgia simply chose the label “Regional Commission” for all of them.