October 11, 2021–8:28 p.m.

STAFF REPORTS

The Rome City Commission has placed a couple of options for extending the downtown open container ordinance onto first reading.

The recommendation from the Rome Downtown Development Authority has two possible options.

The first would extend the current guidelines until the end of the year.

The second would be an unlimited extension.

A public hearing and vote by the commission will come during their next meeting in less than two weeks.

Another topic of discussion during Monday night’s Rome City Commission meeting was housing.

Rome’s Special Committee on Housing has voted unanimously to recommend that the 23 houses located at the former Northwest Georgia Regional Hospital property continue to be used as residences.

Last month, the State of Georgia accepted an offer from the Rome-Floyd County Development Authority to purchase the 132-acre site in West Rome in the amount of $2.25 million dollars for economic development.

Rome City Commissioner Wendy Davis explained the recommendation from the housing committee.

“There recommendation is that those houses should be utilized for people to live in,” she said.  “They would like the development authority to sell those houses.  The discussion was that those 23 houses could probably be sold for $100,000 each, which would cover the cost of what the development authority paid to the state to get the entire property.”

Rome Mayor Craig McDaniel said he would take the recommendation to the development authority which will meet this Thursday at 10 a.m. in the Manis Business Center.