The Roadside Enhancement and Beautification Council (REBC) reviews the GATEway Grant applications and makes their recommendations to the Georgia DOT Commissioner. The REBC is comprised of the following representatives:

• Outdoor Advertising Association of Georgia
• Sierra Club, Garden Club of Georgia
• Georgia Wildlife Federation
• Georgia Conservancy
• UGA College of Environment and Design
• House and Senate Transportation Committee Chairpersons
• Georgia DOT Deputy Commissioner

After You Are Awarded a Grant

Once awarded a grant, grant recipients must furnish both electronic and hard-copy, working-drawing versions of landscape design documents and their written perpetual maintenance plans for their awarded projects to their Department District Office for a Special Encroachment Permit application. Grantees must submit their documents the the GDOT District Access Management Supervisor to start the Special Encroachment Permit process within eight (8) months of the date of award.

Four original, signed Memoranda of Agreement must be submitted to the Landscape Architecture Section after your Special Encroachment Permit is approved. These will be routed for appropriate GDOT signatures authorizing the use of funds for your project. When this authorization is complete, you will receive a letter from GDOT explaining how your invoices can be submitted for reimbursal.

Disbursement of Grant Funds

The Grantee has a maximum of thirty (30) months to complete the project from the date of the signed Agreement. Planting should be scheduled during the optimal time for the proposed plant material listed in policy 6755-9 - Landscaping on the Right of Way.

Once construction begins, invoices can be submitted to the Landscape Architecture Section by the grant recipient on a quarterly basis. An Invoice Cover Letter will be provided. Ti can be sent in with receipts documenting how the funds were spent must accompany your request for reimbursal of funds.

Project Rating Criteria Sheets will be used by Georgia DOT and the Roadside Enhancement and Beautification Council (REBC) to review and judge all GATEway Grant Applications.

NOTE: Use the Project Rating Criteria sheet as a guide when responding to the requirements of the grant application.

GATEway Grants That Are Not Considered

• Applications with multiple site locations (locations on different routes and/or different mile posts). Please include only one site location per application.
• Previous grant recipients who have not obtained a Special Encroachment Permit for their previous GATEway Grant project and whose projects have not been installed.

Funds That Cannot Be Used

• Hardscape items such as paving, benches, fences, flagpoles, signage, lighting, and fountains shall not be funded by this grant. Funding on a project shall be confined to softscape items such as landscape plant material and its installation, mulch, and sod.
• Maintenance, design, administration, highway construction, office furnishings and fixtures, entertainment, lobbying, equipment, or mitigation.
• Planting at private developments, individual businesses, or in front of advertising signs that solely benefits and brings attention only to those businesses, developments, or signs.
• Annual plant material (seasonal color).
• Median landscaping.

NOTE: Reimbursal, if approved for irrigation is limited to 10 percent of the total grant request.  The maximum fund allottment per local government entity each year shall be $50,000.