The two

newest members of the Peachtree City Planning Commission,

Rich Schumacher and Robert Ames, were welcomed aboard

Monday night at their first meeting but had little time

to sit back and get comfortable.

A sizeable

crowd was on hand to see the latest round in the battle

between developers looking to create a retail center on

Ga. Highway 54 west and the local residents who do not

want anything added to what they already consider a

traffic nightmare.

The

Planning Commission tabled RAM Development's conceptual

site plan for the first phase of what is planned for the

Huddleston property, a 139,000-square-foot Home Depot

plus two outparcels. The second phase would contain a

Wal-mart superstore.

Attorney

Doug Dillard, representing the developer, urged the

Planning Commission to either approve the plan or deny

it, so that the applicant can appeal to the City Council

if it so chooses.

But

commission vice chairman Willis Granger said that the

application was not clear about what the first phase of

the project would entail.

"The

application is not correct," he said as he made the

motion to table.

Wes

Saunders, elected chairman of the commission at the

beginning of Monday's meeting, asked if tabling the

project required the applicant's approval, and city

planner David Rast said it did not.

Rast said

that the plan was significantly better than what it was a

few weeks ago, but city staff still cannot recommend it

one way or the other yet.

As

expected, the main sticking point was the stipulation

that a traffic study be done and its results have an

impact on the approval or denial of the project. Dillard

said that a traffic study would be done and made

available to the city, but not before approval and its

results cannot, by law, be the basis for denial.

Reading

through portions of the city's ordinance covering site

plan approval, Dillard said that his client's project met

the requirements of the ordinance and the eight

conditions outlined by city staff in its memo to the

Planning Commission are not specifically covered in the

ordinance.

The traffic

ordinance, passed by the City Council at its Oct. 7

meeting, cannot be applied retroactive to this project

because it had already been submitted, Dillard said.

Commissioner

Jim Finney charged that Dillard, while saying he wanted

to cooperate, was merely laying out a long list of things

he thought the city must do. "Compromise goes both

ways," he said as the audience applauded.