After repeatedly stating that

they didn't want it, members of the Fayette County Board of Commissioners

voted Thursday night to allow a commercial development across from the

Starr's Mill school complex because they said they simply had no choice.

Starr's Mill LLC had requested

rezoning of about 28 acres for various retail and office uses on a tract

on Ga. Highway 74 South just outside the city limits of Peachtree City.

The developers announced plans to donate an additional 50 acres to the

county to use as it sees fit.

Planning Commission members

and the Planning Department staff had recommended denial, saying the project

doesn't fit with the land use plan.

The land use plan calls for

that area to have low-density residential development homes on two to

five acres. But commissioners who reluctantly voted in favor of the rezoning

argued that the surrounding area has already gone too far to turn back.

"This is not A-R (agricultural-residential)

anymore," said Vice Chairman Greg Dunn, noting that the school complex,

a nearby planned unit development and other one-acre-lot subdivisions

had already changed the area.

He added that there is now

"an issue of fairness and equity" with regard to the current

applicants, and he could not see where the commission would be justified

in denying the request based on the surroundings.

"I don't want this development

here, either," he said. "But something's going there, folks,

and it's not going to be a farm, and it's not going to be five-acre lots."

There were a number of opposing

residents from nearby Brechin Park, which, ironically, is the planned

unit development cited by the commissioners as a reversal of the land

use plan.

While he stressed that he was

doing so "with great reluctance," Chairman Harold Bost said

he also supported the application for most of the same reasons as Dunn.

Bost said that in past years he voted against Brechin Park and The Chimneys,

another subdivision next door, but now that they are there it changes

the situation.

Dunn said he ran for his commission

seat because of previous decisions like this in other areas, but in the

Starr's Mill area the damage is already done. "We just have to make

sure it doesn't happen again."

Commissioner Linda Wells made

a motion to deny the request and it was seconded for discussion purposes.

But after the discussion, her motion failed 4-1.

In addition to the developers,

who brought a number of experts to address such issues as land use, soil,

wastewater and architecture, comments in favor of the plan were made by

local environmental scientist Dennis Chase as well as a nearby land owner,

who said the ratio of residential to commercial development is too high

and this project would help the tax base while reducing traffic from the

area to retail centers farther north.

Dennis Payton, a member of

the Peachtree City Planning Commission, addressed the board and said the

city was opposed to the request because a similar project has recently

been approved a few hundred feet up the highway inside the city limits.

He said that approval was given

partially due to the county's land use plan, which calls for no other

commercial development in that part of the unincorporated county.