In a decision that will have a significant fiscal impact on future Peachtree City budgets, Georgia’s highest court has upheld the 2007 annexation that added 782 acres, and just under 1,100 potential new homes, to the city’s northwestern limits.
City resident David Worley, who filed the lawsuit challenging the annexation, said he was disappointed that the Supreme Court overturned the decision of the Court of Appeals.
Worley said he initially filed the lawsuit because of the density of the development, which will be located west of Ga. Highway 74 northward towards Old Senoia Road. After a short time, however, Worley also became concerned that in the current economy the city was put in a bad position of having to service the additional development.
“My view was that the annexation is something the city can’t afford at this point,” Worley said, adding that he is considering the possibility of filing a motion for the court to reconsider its opinion.
The Georgia Supreme Court ruled that a second annexation in 2008 of adjacent property cured Worley’s complaint that the initial annexation created “an island of unincorporated land” which is forbidden under Georgia law.
Because the second annexation absorbed the 35-acre unincorporated island as part of the city, Worley’s complaint is technically moot and therefore must be dismissed by the Georgia Court of Appeals, the Supreme Court determined.
The court’s opinion, published Nov. 21, noted that the original trial judge, Brian J. Amero of the Flint Judicial Circuit, properly dismissed the case as being moot in April 2009.
“The city’s 2008 annexation of the unincorporated island by the time the trial court issued its ruling cured the deficiency that existed at the time Worley sought injunctive relief, thereby making moot the question of whether the deficient annexation in 2007 was void,” the Supreme Court wrote in its opinion.
“… The trial court in the case at bar, faced with a ‘cured’ annexation, did not err when it determined that Worley’s quest for injunctive relief was moot. Accordingly, the Court of Appeals erred when it reversed the judgment of the trial court.”
Prior to the annexation, the land was zoned in the county for residential development with minimum lot sizes of two acres. But the City Council approved putting 1,075 homes on the 782 acres, which more than doubled the density on the site. In fact, it may have tripled the density allowed by the county, depending on how much of the land is undevelopable and therefore not included in the net density calculations.
In exchange for the annexation and zoning, developers John Wieland Homes and Levitt and Sons had pledged to complete the extension of MacDuff Parkway from its terminus to Hwy. 74 North at the intersection with north Kedron Drive. That project was expected to cost about $10 million because it required construction of a bridge over the CSX railroad.
The extension of MacDuff, however, has been on hold as the housing crisis and economic malaise halted new residential construction projects here and across the country.
Since the annexation, developer Levitt and Sons, which had promised 650 homes for “active adults” 55 and over, has gone under. But developer Scarborough Properties has stepped up and pledged to back Levitt’s share of the plan by bringing in a national builder for the “active adult” subdivision, to include a number of amenities for those residents that were pledged by Levitt and Sons.
Ironically, the three City Council members who voted in favor of the massive 782 acre addition to the city’s west side — Mayor Harold Logsdon, Cyndi Plunkett and Steve Boone — are no longer in office.
Logsdon did not seek a second term as mayor, Plunkett was defeated by Don Haddix in the mayoral race and Steve Boone lost his reelection bid.
The two council members who opposed the annexation in May 2007 were Stuart Kourajian and Judi-ann Rutherford. Kourajian did not seek a second term, and Rutherford resigned her seat before her term was completed.
