A public hearing on a rezoning proposal that would locate a 62,000 sq. ft. Marriott Residence Inn in the largely vacant Kedron Office Park was tabled by a 3-1 vote at the Nov. 10 meeting of the Peachtree City Planning Commission. Citing the need for additional research, commissioners will hear the proposal again at the December meeting.
Issues surfaced by commissioners include concerns such as traffic at the North Peachtree Parkway location near Ga. Highway 74 and whether there might be more suitable locations in the city for the hotel. Neighbors from nearby subdivisions voiced opposition to the rezoning proposal that would place the proposed four-story hotel in the office park.
Senior Planner David Rast in an Oct. 10 letter said Apsilon Hotels Development and Management Co. submitted a rezoning application on a 14.5-acre tract located at 100 World Drive. The site includes a minimum distance of 265 feet from the nearest subdivision, Kedron Hills.
Rast said the conceptual site plan, approved in December 2005, identified 126,000 sq. ft. of office space in four buildings and 467 parking spaces.
“While the overall site has been developed in accordance with this plan, only one office building has been constructed to date,” Rast said. “The other building sites are ‘pad ready.’”
Clayton State University currently uses space in the completed building.
Rast said current zoning shows the property with an Office/Institutional (OI) designation. The proposed rezoning to Limited Use Commercial (LUC) is more appropriate for the site, Rast added.
“LUC is more site-specific and wouldn’t require a text amendment in OI zoning,” Rast said. “So it wouldn’t open up other areas of OI that might not be suitable for hotels.”
Rast said Apsilon is proposing to develop hotels and a banquet/conference center to be constructed on the existing pads. One of the hotels, a Marriott Residence Inn, is proposed at four stories and would include 110 rooms. The hotel would total 62,000 sq. ft.
Apsilon CEO Raj Patel said the Residence Inn fills a current need for extended-stay, corporate accommodations due to the presence of the film and television industries operating in Fayetteville and Senoia.
A number of neighbors addressed commissioners when the public hearing was opened. Russ Corn, spokesman for the Kedron Hills subdivision situated nearest the hotel site and separated by a 265-foot city-owned greenbelt, brought a number of issues to commissioners.
Echoing the concerns of other speakers, Corn said his subdivision was “adamantly against rezoning for hotels and conference centers.”
Corn said the proposal does not serve the Kedron Village area and nearby subdivisions.
“They are asking you to rezone against the wishes of the population of the village,” Corn said. “The hotel would support the movie industry but not the village.”
Corn cited privacy and safety issues involved in having what he called an extended-stay hotel positioned within 300 feet of several of the Kedron Hills homes, referencing “all those (hotel) windows looking right into Kedron Hills, looking at our children playing in their yards. They could walk straight out of the hotel into our yards. We don’t know who these people are and it frightens us. (Neighbors) will be afraid of letting their children play in the yard.”
Other speakers referenced alcohol at the hotel and light and sound pollution that could come from the site. Still others referenced traffic congestion, particularly along Peachtree Parkway as it extends to the south.
Commissioners at the conclusion of the comments and questions voted 3-1 to table the issue until the December meeting so that more research on issues such as traffic and the suitability of the location could be accomplished. Voting to table the issue until the next meeting were commissioners Lynda Wojcik, Aaron Daily and new Commissioner Phil Prebor. Commissioner Frank Desadio voted opposed, saying after the meeting that he would have voted against the rezoning proposal.
Patel during the meeting said he would be willing to revisit the idea of the banquet/conference center, saying that he would be willing to have a smaller center adjacent to the Residence Inn. Patel added that he would only entertain the idea of a second hotel on the site if market conditions warranted.
