City OKs annexation for unincorporated islands and Hwy.54 property

The Peachtree City Council approved two annexation requests Dec. 20 that City Manager Jon Rorie said helps clean up the city’s borders.

The first annexation is nearly 42 acres in the county that is bordered by Tyrone on the north and Peachtree City on the south.

Senior Planner Robin Cailloux in a Dec. 3 letter to the city’s Planning Commission explained that the City Council has been considering various annexation scenarios since the 2014 Annexation Study conducted by staff.

“At their Nov. 15 regular meeting, the City Council initiated the process of annexing and zoning the unincorporated islands between the northwest boundary of Peachtree City and the southwest boundary of the Town of Tyrone,” Cailloux said.

She said the annexation area does not have public road frontage.

The properties currently carry an A-R (agricultural residential) zoning in the county. She said staff recommended the zoning be changed to LUR when the annexation occurs.

“The LUR-14 zoning district (Cresswind) has a gross density of 1.65 units per acre; and by incorporating this acreage into the LUR-14 district, the gross density of the entire area will remain the same,” Cailloux said. “If the property is developed at this density, it would add an additional 83 single family homes to the Wilksmoor Village. It should be noted that this is the maximum number of units permitted, and that a development plan for fewer than 83 lots would be permitted under the LUR-14 district.”

Cailloux noted that leaving the property with an A-R zoning adjacent to a planned community could result in negative effects between the incompatible uses.

The second annexation request approved includes the Peachtree East Shopping Center, the Peachtree Court and Governors Square retail and office areas and a 50-acre undeveloped parcel for residential use.

Senior Planner Robin Cailloux said the revised application by applicant Brent Holdings changes the requested zoning district of the 50-acre undeveloped property at the end of Governor’s Square from LUR (Limited Use Residential to allow 94 dwelling units) to R-43, which has a 1-acre minimum lot size. No other changes in the original application were changed.

“The original annexation application was approved by the Planning Commission at the Aug. 27 regular meeting. The County Board of Commissioners officially voted to object to the annexation at their Aug. 23 meeting. The Ga. Department of Community Affairs began on Sept. 5 to assemble an Arbitration Panel per the State’s mandatory Arbitration Process. Even after an approved extension in the timeline by all parties, the DCA sent an email on Oct. 22 stating that they were unable to satisfy the statutory requirements and could not provide enough panelists for the arbitration panel,” Cailloux said.

Rather than moving forward through the judicial system with a potentially protracted case, the applicant amended their application as submitted, Cailloux said.

Cailloux said the annexation utilizes the 60 percent method of annexation.

The 60 percent method allows for petitioners representing owners of at least 60 percent of the property in the area to be annexed and at least 60 percent of the resident electors in the area to be annexed to sign a petition to have their property annexed into an adjacent city, according to the Ga. Municipal Association.

Cailloux said the commercially-developed properties would not change as a part of the annexation request. The Peachtree East shopping center (Publix and Steinmart), the Governor’s Walk shopping center, and other individual commercial businesses in the annexation territory were not requesting any changes to their current development configurations. There are no active applications or known plans to develop the undeveloped commercial lots along Peachtree Court, she said.