In spite of recent approval

of a shopping center in the heart of the area, future land uses around

the Redwine Road/Ga. Highway 74 intersection should remain primarily low-density

residential, Fayette County Planning Commission members say.

"Preservation of the existing

land use intent" is the main thrust of changes to the land use plan

being considered by the commission, Chairman Fred Bowen said.

But additional office and institutional

uses are being contemplated in the plan, to provide a "step down"

from the approved shopping center to residential properties surrounding

it.

Planning commissioners will

have a public hearing March 1 to consider whether to recommend the changes

to the County Commission.

"We had what we thought

was a sound land use plan," said Bowen during a work session last

week to review the proposed changes. "We revisited that land use

plan a little more than a year ago and reasserted our belief that it was

an adequate land use plan," he added.

That plan called for no additional

commercial development in the area.

But the County Commission's

approval last month of community commercial zoning for 21.8 acres of retail

space bordered by 5.8 acres of offices on the south side of Hwy. 74 directly

across from the Starr's Mill school complex changes things, Bowen said.

"That ... requires that

we need, as good stewards of the public trust, to look at the area again

to see if the land use plan for that area needs to be modified,"

he said.

The Plantation Centre shopping

center, to be developed by Starr's Mill LLC, a Macon-based firm, will

have about 120,000 square feet of shops and restaurants, including a grocery

store in the 50,000-sq. ft. range.

Developers donated an additional

52 acres to Fayette County for green space, and that property will serve

as a buffer between the shopping center and the Brechin Park neighborhood

next door, planners say.

Office uses abut the planned

center along Hwy. 74, and senior planner Pete Frisina suggested that the

land use plan also anticipate future offices on the north side of 74 along

Redwine Road, and on the Peillor property, a small triangle of land at

the front of the school complex. The group also discussed applying the

residential style overlay standards that are in place on the Ga. Highway

54 corridor to any office development around Starr's Mill.

"We find this [shopping

center] is self-contained and well bounded by these boundaries,"

Frisina told the Planning Commission last week.

With the offices and the green

space surrounding the shopping center, there will be no need for commercial

development to spread along the highway, Frisina said.

The only other change he suggested

is to increase the expected density of residential development on seven

parcels along the west side of Redwine Road just north of the intersection.

The current land use plan calls

for two- to five-acre lots for the parcels, but land next door, inside

the Peachtree City limits, is zoned for quarter-acre lots, and a plan

is in place for about a 250-home subdivision to be named Wilshire Place.

Frisina suggested a plan calling for one- to two-acre lots for the parcels

next to Peachtree City.

Two- to five-acre home lots

for a large parcel just north of the school complex on the east side of

Redwine would continue to be anticipated under the proposed changes.

An overall density of one home

every two to five acres is the target for the entire area under the current

land use plan.

If the changes are approved,

the plan will reflect conservation/green space uses on the 52 acres donated

to the county.

The group decided to go ahead

and put the changes on the March 1 agenda, rather than having any additional

work sessions on them. There was little discussion.

"I'm comfortable with

what they've done," commission member Bob Harbison said of the planning

staff's recommendations. "I think it is incumbent on us to take this

up in a timely fashion, because it is a very timely issue in our community,"

said Bowen.

Also on the March 1 agenda

will be a request for commercial zoning for the Peilor property in front

of the school complex. That request does not fit with the current plan,

which calls for residential uses on the land, or the suggested office/institutional

use under the proposed new plan.