UPDATE: By a 4-to-0 vote, the Peachtree City Council Thursday night said yes to a mixed-use plan that provides 94 dwelling units on just under 50 acres off Hwy. 54 East —
Two years after Peachtree City annexed 30 properties totaling 105 acres bordering the city’s east side, the City Council will consider Thursday night the proposed next step in that project.
The owners and developers want to rezone 77.6 acres to a limited use commercial (LUC) area that will allow a mix of residential and office-retail use. If approved, the city’s original Glenloch Village will grow with an eastern addition.
Towson Village will be 94 single family dwellings on 49.2 acres, or about 1.9 dwelling units per acre. The plan calls for two lot sizes: 41 lots at 70 feet by 120 feet, and 53 lots at 60 feet by 120 feet. The village is a development of Brent Holdings LLC and Ravin Homes.
The commercial section is 36.9 acres mixed uses: retail, office and residential, handled by DeGolian Commercial Realty.
The plan got a unanimous thumbs-down vote from the Planning Commission Aug. 10, but the City Council gets the final say on the request Thursday night at 6:30 p.m. at City Hall.
The city’s planning staff — unlike the volunteer Planning Commission — support the rezoning, with conditions: Maximum building height of three stories, excluding basements; a single park of at least 1.5 acres within the development and centrally located, as shown on the master plan; no more than 12 dwelling units to the acre in the residential-only section; 12 units to the acre in “attached, residential-only building”; “attached, with ground-level commercial or office, 20 units,” ”detached, 10 units.”
“The proposed land use of the mixed-use development steps down in intensity from Highway 54 down to the rear of the property along Camp Creek,” the council’s information packet says. “Beginning along Highway 54, land use starts with commercial along Highway 54, stepping down to mixed- use with upper-story residential lofts surrounding the central park, then to multi-family residential, and finally down to single-family residential neighborhood in the rear. All structures are proposed to be 3 stories maximum (not including basements).”
The staff report says the final development would add 52 high school students, 31 middle school students and 62 elementary school students to McIntosh, Booth and Huddleston schools.
City planning staff recommend approval of the plan in glowing terms:
“Located in between the Kedron and Glenloch ‘villages,’ the requested rezoning offers a unique opportunity for the city to hear and respond to the concerns of its citizens. Most of the existing commercial square footage on the subject properties was built in the 1980s which ages the properties almost 40 years. Rezoning the property would give the applicants the ability to redevelop the aging commercial spaces while also adding additional residential uses to address the concern of a lack of housing types. The two proposed uses effectively work together to propel redevelopment.
“Given the mutually beneficial aspects of developing residential and commercial properties together, the proposed rezoning encourages a tiered approach to integrate residential uses into the commercial uses. … The desired outcome of this rezoning would be a ‘micro-village’ where people could live, work, and shop adding to Peachtree City’s resume of desirable communities,” city planning staff conclude in its report to City Council.
Traffic congestion, Towson Village and the City Center Initiative
This new project, so called Towson Village, will once again add to the traffic issues on Hwy 54 and actually end up costing taxpayers because it’s adding houses, which will not pay enough taxes versus what they cost us in services (like schools). As a former Planning Commission member, I know that the folks on the Planning Commission are looking out for our citizens. That’s why they recommended against it.And, that’s why the City Council approved it anyway.
In a letter to the Citizen (7-29), I laid out in considerable detail why the “City Center” proposal would be detrimental to the city, zeroing in on the already impossible Highway 54 traffic and how this initiative would make it much, much worse. And I asked that a scientifically valid survey of PTC citizens be performed, one that did notjust assume we were going to build more on Hwy 54. Apparently, my letter is being ignored.
Traffic congestion has been identified by Fayette County residents (including PTC) as their second most pressing problem, right after crime. Per ARC’s (Atlanta Regional Commission’s) 2018 survey of metro counties (including their cities), all other issues are relatively unimportant to our citizens.
And, Fayette County residents were less dissatisfied with their own neighborhood than other Metro counties (7 percent versus 16). Likewise, Fayette County citizens were also more satisfied with cultural and artistic opportunities. When asked, only 23 percent of Fayette County residents stated that they would like to move out of the Atlanta metro area entirely versus 26 percent for the area as a whole.
Quality of life is why we all moved to PTC. Generally, PTC and Fayette County folks like things the way they are except crime and traffic.
That survey did not ask but enriching wealthy developers… regardless of the congestion it would cause in PTC… doesn’t appear to be a high priority of anyone surveyed. So why is Mayor Fleisch and the City Council ignoring our real concerns?
Instead, the Mayor has chosen to take a strange route, trying to justify permanentlychanging our way of life on the basis of the pandemic, something which is temporary. Our multiple retail shopping areas that form the center of each Village are not in danger of dying as she so dramatically stated.
In my village, Kedron has a thriving Kroger, a Target, a Ross Dept store, Bed Bath and Beyond, restaurants, and smaller stores. It was doing very well pre-pandemic and will do well after a vaccine is developed next year.
The same can be said for Braelynn Village. Sure, Kmart closed (here and elsewhere). Due to Walmart, Kmart was in trouble nationwide.
Yes, we see that on-line retail has, and will no doubt continue, to impact traditional brick and mortar stores. But post-pandemic, other stores and restaurants will take their place.
I agree we need a redevelopment plan for our city’s future just not the future our current City Council has unilaterally planned for us. The desires of our residents MUST come before the profits of greedy developers. The only way to ensure that happens is to construct and administer an objective survey, rather than one that has as a basic assumption that we are going to construct an unneeded City Center in the most congested intersection in the County.
Please let your City Council and Mayor know your feelings NOW, before we have yet another “unforeseeable” disaster. As I suggested in my earlier opinion article, call or email your city Council representative about how you feel about the options they are presenting along Hwy 54.
Well Jack, when you decide to use the terms “WEALTHY DEVELOPERS” AND GREEDY DEVELOPERS” in the same diatribe, it explains why you are no longer on Planning Commission. In case you were not told, Planning Commission reviews site plans for compliance with the land use plan and current zoning. They are not charged with vetting the economic status of the person submitting the plans.
Come to think of it, that money envy thing may be a real problem and might cause some of the urban warfare outbursts in our major cities.
Stay in your lane Jack.
Well said…
Is this meeting taking place “Thursday” as in tonight, 9/3??