PORT WENTWORTH, Ga. (WSAV) – Probable growth coming to Port Wentworth as the city lifted its industrial rezoning mortarium after a year, now allowing for new developments.

But city officials say they know people are worried about over-industrialization, and they believe a newly passed ordinance addresses that.

“The growth has been very uncontrolled for many decades out here,” says Steve Davis, Port Wentworth city manager, “and now we’ll be able to develop clear standards, and – at the end of the day it’s so the public can read and understand what’s coming, and the developers will know what they can and cannot do prior to even making the application.”

What it essentially does is create a uniform standard for developers.

“Now there are going to be clear guidelines for the amount of units, going to clear guidelines on the buffers, the side setbacks, and the setbacks in general,” says Davis.

He tells News 3 that there were not clear guidelines for developers in the past.

“The zoning ordinance has been a hodgepodge for over the last 30 or 40 years and they updated it as it went little by little,” he says, “this is the first major overhaul that we’ve done and basically rewrote the entire system.”

Although there are already areas that have been zoned prior to the moratorium, the new standards will still apply to all developments moving forward.

“There are zoned industrial areas that will be developed, and all we can do at this point is to make sure when they’re built, it’s so they’re built professionally, they protect the residents around them, they’re aesthetically pleasing, that they don’t cut off the connectivity for the residents for the rest of the community.”

Davis says the two major areas that will see construction are the area north of I-95 and downtown, but more for re-development purposes.

The ordinance is now in effect.