The town of Chattahoochee Hills incorporated in 2007 with the aim of helping protect Georgia’s farms and forests. After a new highway cut through the land in the early 2000s, the area seemed suddenly vulnerable to turning into suburban tract homes. “People were freaking out about the idea that this was going to develop like everything else in Atlanta,” said Mayor Tom Reed. The growing metropolis was just 25 miles away, well within commuting distance.

Landowners came together to gain local control of their own zoning. One of the voices in the conversation was the developer of Serenbe, a now famous neighborhood in Chattahoochee Hills. Mayor Reed, who moved there in 2005, referred to it as a tiny urbanist community literally out in the woods. Originally governed by Fulton County pre-incorporation, the project needed a special zoning overlay to create a walkable neighborhood not oriented around parking lots.

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