Fayetteville developer says his plans for a

152-home subdivision at New Hope Road and Ga.

Highway 314 will work under guidelines

recommended by the city Planning Commission after

all.

Earlier,

he had said that City Council approval of the

commission's recommendation would kill the plan.

"We

recalculated all of our acreage, and we're able

to do it easily" meeting the Planning

Commission's recommendation, developer Bob

Rolader told council during a work session last

week. "The truth is we had an R-30 PUD all

along and just didn't know it."

The

Planning Commission recommended that Rolader's

proposed 127-acre subdivision, Argonne Forest, be

annexed into the city and its zoning category be

R-30, which requires minimum lot sizes of 30,000

square feet, roughly three quarters of an acre.

Rolader

had asked the Planning Commission to approve R-22

zoning, which would allow lots as small as a half

acre, but the group recommended R-30 instead.

After that vote, the developer said the cost of

land in the area is so high that he would have to

drop his plans if the City Council agreed with

the commission. But last week after looking

closer, he determined that his average lot size

is over 30,000 square feet, he said.

But

that doesn't mean the project is completely out

of the woods. Rolader is now asking City Council

to approve the plan as R-30, in hopes of

receiving a PUD (planned unit development)

designation that would allow him to use an

average lot size rather than a minimum lot size.

That

would mean that some lots will be as small as

22,500 square feet, barely over a half acre,

while others would be as large as an acre or

slightly more.

PUD

designation is a planning device that allows

developers more leeway than straight zoning, so

they can put green space and other amenities into

subdivisions with varying lot sizes, as long as

the average lot size meets the zoning

requirement.

Rolader

proposes to put one-acre lots around the

perimeter of Argonne Forest, where they will back

up to other subdivisions with one-acre minimums,

and smaller lots in the interior of the

neighborhood.

Minimum

home prices would be $225,000, he said.

Residents

of neighboring subdivisions so far have voiced no

objections to the plan.

If

council approves the annexation and zoning,

Rolader will have to go back to the Planning

Commission with detailed development plans to

seek approval for a PUD.

In

looking over the plans Monday, council members

said they would like the project better if the

portion of the neighborhood on the south side of

New Hope Road has two entrances, and if an

entrance into the northern part, directly across

from the Pavilion, is routed to discourage

traffic from racing through the neighborhood.

They

also called for a 25-foot buffer along New Hope

Road, owned by the neighborhood association, to

prevent "double frontage" lots from

developing along the road. Council currently is

dealing with complaints from another neighborhood

where similar lots, facing both an exterior road

and an interior neighborhood street, can't have

fences for their back yards due to a prohibition

in city ordinances.

City

Council conducted a formal first reading of the

annexation and rezoning request Monday, and is

scheduled to vote on the matter during its July

meeting. Ordinarily, that would be July 5, but

that meeting is cancelled due to the July 4

holiday.

The

next meeting will be July 12, 7 p.m. at City

Hall.

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