After a foolish lending frenzy and a recession-enabled pause on real estate development for five years, the gates have now reopened.
The housing market in Fayette County has tightened and home values are climbing. Real estate developers are taking notice.
Our local governments are beginning to see increasing numbers of annexation and rezoning requests. Most of these requests are asking for much more dense housing numbers.
While we have official land use plans that call for acceptable numbers of houses to be constructed on our virgin lands, you are about to witness a bold defiance of those designs and the logic behind creating them.
A developer cannot be faulted for seeking to maximize profit on an investment, but the local elected officials can be harshly judged for not following the official plans and neglecting the broader concerns surrounding infrastructure depletion and the rise of negative indicators.
Deliberate upon these developer requests with both eyes wide open. Mistakes in the development industry generally take a minimum of 20 years or so to correct, assuming the market allows it happen.
I sincerely hope our elected officials can recall what has made Fayette County one of the strongest quality of life communities in the nation. There is a need to protect our strengths and improve on our weaknesses.
Currently, our transportation infrastructure within the county is adequate. A couple of areas in Peachtree City and Fayetteville are severely strained. There is no funding available for constructing additional road capacity.
Most of the new development will occur in the central and southern parts of the county and will generate more traffic which will naturally flow to our already congested arterial sections.
Any local government moving to approve housing development beyond what exists in the official plans needs to be able to justify the increased impact on our infrastructure and show how those impacts will be mitigated in future years.
The current piecemeal approach of evaluating one property at a time in lieu of examining a logical master plan method is what crippled the other counties in metro Atlanta. We should not repeat their mistakes.
Pay attention, citizens of Fayette County, please.
Steve Brown, commissioner
Fayette Board of Commissioners
Peachtree City, Ga.
