A proposed 48-acre residential annexation on Peachtree City’s eastern border received a unanimous “no” vote from the planning commission Monday night.
Hyde Investment Group wants to annex the property for a 21-home subdivision with minimum lot sizes of two acres. The site is located east of Peachtree City United Methodist Church along the city’s eastern limits and south of Ga. Highway 54 east.
The commission’s vote is one of recommendation only. The City Council has the final vote on all annexation proposals, but it won’t get the request until January, when three current members will be gone.
The Hyde property, currently located in unincorporated Fayette County, is split by Camp Creek. Due to floodplain and buffers the site has 11 acres of undevelopable land.
A lack of access to the site was a key concern of planning commissioners. Hyde was proposing to replace an existing cart path section off Carriage Lane in the existing Hyde Park subdivision with a road. That concept alone drew several criticisms by neighbors who attended Monday’s meeting to urge a “no” vote.
“I am amazed to learn tonight that he wants to do a job on his own customers, who in good faith bought that land adjacent to the cart path, and turn it into a highway,” said resident Don Dickinson.
Other concerns from neighbors included an increase in traffic and that zoning wasn’t similar to lots zoned estate residential, a district that requires a minimum lot size of three acres.
Some neighbors were also concerned that if the annexation were to be approved, it would have a domino effect on undeveloped property the site borders in unincorporated Fayette County.
The tract is currently zoned as agricultural-residential in unincorporated Fayette County.
Hyde representative Mike Lorber said the plan called for an extension of Stagecoach Road, with two separate roads to serve the site.
Hyde is proposing to build homes with an average sale price of about $800,000 each on lots of 2 acres or more. The company projected each home would generate about $10,000 in taxes each year and the subdivision would add 67 residents to the city’s population.
Lorber said the city’s land use plan supports low density single family homes developed along the city’s eastern border where the Hyde parcel is located. The low density proposal also fits with the city’s “step down” zoning for the area, he added.
Along with the commission’s vote against the annexation, city planning staff also recommended denial of the annexation.
City Planner David Rast noted that if the city used Camp Creek as its boundary, only one-third of the proposed site would be located in Peachtree City, with the other two-thirds on the Fayette County side of the creek.
Lorber said there are other lots in the city which have property on the eastern side of Camp Creek. He also argued that the existing city limits are arbitrary based on the property the city could acquire when it was initially incorporated 50 years ago.
Rast noted that Stagecoach Road would need to be upgraded before the city should consider any potential annexation in the area.
Rast also noted that there are about 168 undeveloped acres left in the Smokerise Estates subdivision in roughly the same price range as Hyde is proposing.
Lorber said that Smokerise features one-acre lots and that some residents might prefer to be on two to three-acre lots.
The vote against the annexation was unanimous with Theo Scott, Larry Sussberg, Patrick Staples and Lynda Wojcik voting to deny the request. Planning commissioner Joe Frazar was absent.
Rast recommended the city work with the county, not just at the staff and planning commission level but also at the elected official level, to try and determine how the area bordering Peachtree City will be developed.
