The recent November 7 election was a victory for Peachtree City.
The candidates who campaigned to maintain the traditional award-winning style of land planning got the most votes. The candidates and the political activists behind them who want to radically change the state’s best place to raise a family and retire lost.
Pro-urbanization candidate Tamara Moore finds herself in a runoff, garnering the lower vote tally in the general election. She is not expected to win in the runoff on December 5 and she has done little to help herself.
Plenty coming on Moore’s latest disputatious jeremiad next week.
They wanted to tell us what to think
Of course, the two urbanization candidates refused to answer The Citizen’s questions on government actions to urbanize our community. This gesture is reminiscent of the type of elitist machismo seen in high-minded figures who believe they deserve the peasants’ votes without having to convey any positions.
The political action committee Plan for PTC now has formerly adoring followers wondering if they have been hoodwinked. No one is buying their sales pitch any longer. The real estate developers gave it a good try. They have been exposed. I warned everyone back in 2021 (see: https://thecitizen.com/2021/07/28/plan-for-ptc-pac-funding-candidates-intent-on-remaking-peachtree-city/).
Stephanie Wagner, a professional planner by trade, entered the election arena on the Plan for PTC side for candidates Moore and Vic Painter with a letter to the editor lecturing us on the virtues of building dense, stacked multi-family residential complexes (see: https://thecitizen.com/2023/10/18/candidates-can-keep-us-on-or-off-track-in-our-planned-city/). It was a major turning point in the election.
Wagner’s version of being “on track” is filling in the green spaces and shopping centers with apartment units. Conversely, being “off track” would be continuing with the traditional award-winning village planning system.
In Moore’s accidentally public email response, she told Wagner that she and Painter favored such a vision, and the voters could help them accomplish the mission in Wagner’s letter if they were elected.
In her email correspondence to Wagner, candidate Moore explained that those who support the traditional family-oriented village planning method were “narrow-minded and judgmental” (see: https://thecitizen.com/2023/10/19/candidate-moore-calls-peachtree-city-council-narrow-minded-and-judgmental-says-she-and-candidate-painter-will-save-city-from-big-trouble/).
When Moore, a founding member of Plan for PTC (but never disclosed in her campaign material), began dishing out the arrogant attitude towards a majority of Peachtree City voters and the elected officials who support our traditional land planning, the Plan for PTC groupies started jumping ship. I imagine a lot of those “Plan for PTC” t-shirts wound up in the trash this past week.
A vote for Peachtree City was also a vote against the city’s Planning Director Robin Cailloux. Cailloux has been the chief cheerleader for urbanization. She has incorporated several deceptive practices on local residents regarding planning issues, even hiding data from the Comprehensive Plan Committee which was her responsibility.
She intentionally worked with urban planning consultants to propose stacked multi-family complexes in the Westpark Office complex, the site of the Tennis Center, Drake Field, and many other prominent locations.
Even more alarming, Cailloux had the previous city council backing her madness, including current (but outgoing) Councilmen Mike King and Phil Prebor.
Great expectations
Much to our obdurate mayor’s dismay, there will be a new majority in 2024 who have all campaigned on abandoning the urbanization process and planning.
The three-member majority (most likely four-member after the December 5 runoff) declared their conservative values. They will need to back up their words with deeds.
Can we see a little fiscal conservatism, please? Would it be too much to ask that the city council take a deep dive into the government budget, eliminate nonessential processes and duplication, ask department directors to find waste, reorganize systems, terminate low-performing employees, and laser focus on the citizens’ expectations?
Can we see the continuous tax increases exchanged for competent management practices?
Can we see more respect for the constituents and allow them to speak in public meetings?
Can we see the irresponsible changes to our Comprehensive Plan and ordinances reversed?
Instead of the council members meeting with department directors behind closed doors on a regular basis, can we see those conversations in public?
Will you keep the promise not to annex land for more residential development which over-extends our city services, causing more tax increases?
Can we see a realistic discussion on a viable long-term solution for the Highways 74 and 54 intersection? And, no, the recently approved underfunded project is not a solution.
I do not expect to see Mayor Learnard supporting any of it. I do, however, expect to see our new majority live up to the expectations they presented.
Like cocaine, political power can elevate a person’s internal mental status, causing them to contemplate self-promotion and thoughts of grandeur when they should be concentrating on the plight of the average citizens and avoiding governmental largess.
As we have seen before, the voters always provide the elected officials with an opportunity to prove themselves. Fail on your pledges and the same voters will kick you to the curb.
[Brown is a former mayor of Peachtree City and served two terms on the Fayette County Board of Commissioners. You can read all his columns by clicking on his photo below.]
“Affordable” is a very imprecise term. If PTC isn’t “affordable” nobody will live here. It may not be affordable to many people, but that is true of any city/community/neighborhood. I understand that if you want to live here but it’s just beyond your reach that’s very disappointing, but the citizens have every right to stick with a plan that they like.
Are we supposed to make it “affordable” for everyone on the planet?
Cocaine? You know more about it than I ever will.
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Cocaine? Seriously? Can elevate your enteral mental status? Geez….
I don’t think Peachtree City can still fairly be considered the “state’s best place to raise a family.” It likely WAS that, but when folks can’t afford to live here, they can’t raise their family here. And believe me, I know. I worked two jobs along with my wife working too to purchase a home here. We’re lucky that this was able to get our foot in the door, but there’s no way that (1) we could have afforded to have kids and (2) even if we could, I wouldn’t have gotten to be involved in their life.
I know I’ve said it a few times here, but it really does boil down to a choice. You can be pro-growth and want more affordability (this is where I fall). You can be traditional but recognize that this means excluding other people (this is where you fall). But you can’t reasonably be the latter while claiming the benefits of the former.
If PTC is unaffordable, who is buying homes here? Apparently people like you and me who found a way to live in our city.
The idea that PTC has any responsibility to make homes “affordable” is wrong. It does not.
In fact, we rely on the city to do its legal duties and to manage finances conservatively, which will enhance home values. Done right, PTC will continue to be one of the best places to live without reckless growth or affordability goals.
Needing to work 60 hours/week + a spouse working 40 hours/week and having the budget cut down to barebones isn’t “affordable.” Especially not for a family wanting to raise children.
Beyond that, I think you’ve misunderstood what I wrote. I have no problem if your opinion is that PTC doesn’t need to be affordable. That’s your right to have that opinion, though I personally disagree. The part that I will call out is the folks who claim at the same time that they DO want PTC to be affordable for families with kids AND that they don’t want any new housing (the only way to make PTC affordable outside of a decline in the QOL). That’s what Mr. Brown did in this article.
Hi Blake
Im really curious. What would you consider “affordable”? What does that look like? Really not trying to start anything other than a conversation.
My wife and I started in PTC 20 years ago this week where Monday was my birthday, Tuesday we closed on our house, Wednesday my son ( who is adopted ) came home and Friday we moved in.
No, I understand and I’m not upset to have a conversation.
Georgia median household income (NOT per person) was $67,730. If we use the traditional 30% of income on housing rule, then that’s $20,319 per year or $1,694 per month housing payment. Using Zillow calculator with $20,000 down, 3.125% (my interest rate in 2022), PMI (most FTHB would need it), property tax is ~1.2% of home value (30 mills x 40% assessed x 10% mill-to-percent ratio) and home insurance gives a budget of $275k according to Zillow.
There certainly wasn’t anything in that range when I looked for SFH in 2022. The lowest I saw was $325k or so for SFH, the dream that Steve is claiming exists.
Now again, I’ll say it’s fine to say you want PTC to be for mid-life folks who have gotten some raises and have older kids. But if you choose to take that position, you can’t fairly claim to also be for PTC being a great place to raise the kids in the first place.
Hi Neil,
I posted something, but not sure if it went through. Sometimes I think comments get reviewed by the editor. I’ll check back again in a bit to see if it went through, but just wanted to let you know that I had seen this and was willing to engage in a conversation.
Blake – Neil asks the right questions. What’s “affordable”? It’s not the same for someone who’s been working and saving for decades, vs someone just starting a career.
It’s also the real estate market, supply and demand, that determines home values. Detroit property is “affordable” for many, Buckhead and northern ATL suburbs not so much, but there are legitimate reasons for each being that way.
I believe that if the city has any role in property values, it is only to keep PTC a great place to live, and that will maintain or raise the worth of our homes.
If you want to impact “affordability”, we need to elect politicians who will get our staggering debt and out of control spending back in line. It is the federal government’s massive over-spending that caused a spike in inflation and interest rates. Home prices and mortgage rates spiked as a result.
Well sure it’s not the same for someone who’s been working and saving for decades vs. starting career. But if you want to say PTC is only for folks who have decades of work/savings done, then you can’t ALSO say that it’s for families raising kids. US average age of first child is 27. Even if someone had been working right out of high school, they would at best be right at one decade.
Hi Blake
When I look at the school numbers, schools that serve PTC children over the past 5 years are down less than 1 % with ES +9 and MS – 5 kids. To say differently, even as own city ages, people with children keep moving in.
To your point, we didn’t have my son till I was 38, not by choice, but we had purchased our first house in Clayton County on a golf course.
Realize my perspective on this whole area spans from 75 / 85. I do not think $275k is very doable in PTC, but is in Fayetteville, Sharpsburg or Newnan. I don’t think PTC is at average income nor should every community be held to that.
Since, PTC is not making any more land, how would we lower the price of housing located in PTC without the dense housing proposed by some? How would that be fair to the people who paid the price of housing?
Thanks for the discussion.
blakeh95,
PTC was once the best place to love (I spent my youth 92-2006 there and again as a homeowner from 2020-2022). Years of awful city governing, growth, and subsequent traffic/crime is very apparent from someone who shares my perspective. I think it still has some shine to it, but a majority of the magic is gone…plenty of other communities in metro Atlanta will get you more bang for your buck. Aside from the golf-carts, PTC just doesn’t stand out like it used to and at some point its lost its identity.
I’m hoping that things change for the better over time with this new council preparing to come in, they seem promising. Who knows what next, but it seems like the citizens want something else.