Developers

for Home Depot in Peachtree City lost the first

round in their bid to build a 137,184-sq. ft.

retail outlet on Ga. Highway 54 West.

After

hours of presentations, public comment and

discussion, the Peachtree City Planning

Commission voted four to one to deny approval of

the project's site plan. The project will most

likely go to City Council on appeal for the next

round of hearings.

About

130 citizens, many of them Planterra Ridge

subdivision homeowners, crammed into the city's

council chambers Monday night to oppose the

project. A petition containing 800 signatures was

presented to the commission by Randy Williams of

Planterra Ridge. "We do not feel that Home

Depot meets the quality of life... nor do they

have our best interest at heart... we implore you

not to build in Peachtree City," Williams

said.

traffic plan presented by Ed Ellis and prepared

City to provide criteria for judging new

developments, was poorly received by the

audience. According to developer Doug McMurren of

RAM, the company handling the Home Depot project,

their response "kind of ugly... it was not

fair the way he was treated," McMurren

commented.

Louis

Chalmers, the traffic consultant for Home Depot,

said that retiming the traffic signals at the

intersection of hwys. 54 and 74 and prohibiting

left turns onto Huddleston Road from the west

bound lanes on Hwy. 54 would ultimately improve

traffic flow through the intersection.

Planterra

residents were also up in arms over the proposed

traffic signal at the Home Depot entrance which

would be aligned with the entrance to their

development.

Approval

of the proposed highway and road improvements are

a condition of the project going forward. While

Ellis conceded that some of the proposals could

be done without Department of Transportation OK,

others are contingent on the region meeting the

standards of the Clean Air Act.

Before

voting, Commissioner Jim Finney said, "It

would be an easy thing to approve this and move

on, but it's not the right thing... it's not

right for the quality of lifestyle we have here.

There are problems (with the plan); it doesn't

work."

Commissioner

Robert Ames voted for denial based on the brief

amount of time given to the commission to review

the new traffic information. Finney added that it

should be denied based on "a dozen different

reasons... it would endanger the public health,

safety and welfare."

Chairman

Wes Saunders preferred to table the plan until

some of the debated items could be worked out. He

cast the single vote against denial.

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