Peachtree City's reputation for stringent land-use and traffic

control regulations underwent some tough testing at last week's

meeting of the Peachtree City Planning Commission.

Jim Williams, city director of development services, and

acting city engineer Troy Besseche steered the commission

through decisions on cellular towers and a dilemma at Booth Middle School.

Cell phones require very tall, and not very pretty, towers

to handle the radio frequencies that make the phones work. But

nobody wants to be near the towers, said Jim Williams, city director

of development services. It's a situation that requires

exhaustive study of availability of sites, of locations which won't disturb

the aesthetics of a neighborhood, and of whether the towers will

become "obsolete" as technology moves forward, he added.

At Booth Middle, school board facilities supervisors are trying

to separate bus and car traffic, but the school site does not lend

itself to a solution that will meet school safety needs and the city's

requests for compliance with police recommendations. The

school board's original plan included relocation of the bus driveway

to the south end of the property, with another curb cut and median

break into Peachtree Parkway. That won't work, Police Chief

James Murray told the commission, because of hazards that will be

created by buses entering and exiting, and traffic making U-turns

in the new median break.

Mike Satterfield, school facilities director, told The

Citizen Thursday that the school's engineering firm "cannot comply

with what we were told on Tuesday morning by Besseche ... it

seemed to us to be totally different from what the planning commission

had discussed the night before."

Satterfield said he left the planning commission meeting

with the understanding that the existing three-lane driveway would

not be disturbed. After installing a concrete median of 25-30 feet

just south of the present driveway, then the board contractors would

install a new 28-foot bus driveway. That's not what Besseche

said, according to Satterfield: the school board must tear up the

southernmost lane to create a separation barrier, then build a bus

driveway. It's just impractical, Satterfield said.

"Until we can approach the planning commission again for

another driveway," he added, "we will just tie back into the

same drive. But the construction we've done so far creates better bus

parking, no kids walking between buses or out in the weather,

and enough drive that a broken-down bus will not block all the others."

The planning commission approved one cell tower, at

Dividend Drive and Ga. Highway 74 south; denied one on

Crabapple Lane at the Fayette County Water System site, and deleted from

the agenda another proposed tower at the Fayette County Animal

Shelter on Hwy. 74 south. Williams said the animal shelter site is

too small, "and I don't know yet where we might put another one, but

I know we need more service in that area."

Landscape plans for Siemens Electromechanical

Components in Westpark and for Gardner Denver Machinery on Gardner

Drive were approved. A landscape plan for the Perlman Medical Building

at Prime Point and Petrol Point was moved to a later meeting

for consideration.

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