Whitewater Creek developer

Robert Brooks wants to add to the community.

Fayette County's Planning Commission

will consider Brooks' request for zoning to add 63 homes, 20 acres of

open space and 30 acres of green space to the upscale south Fayette subdivision.

He is seeking a change from

A-R zoning, which requires that each building lot be five acres or more,

to PUD-PRD (Planned Unit Development-Planned Residential Development),

for 127.5 acres on Redwine Road, Bernhard Road and Troon Drive, on the

northern edge of the subdivision.

The commission meets at 7 p.m.

at the County Administrative Complex. Its recommendations will go to the

County Commission for a final decision March 22.

Planning commissioners also

will have a public hearing on proposed amendments to the county land use

plan for the area around Ga. Highway 74 south and Redwine Road. Their

agenda also includes a request for commercial zoning that would not be

compatible with those proposed changes.

Recent approval by the County

Commission of a shopping center in the heart of the area prompted a review

of the plan, and planning commissioners have said they still envision

low-density residential development for the area.

"Preservation of the existing

land use intent" is the main thrust of changes, Chairman Fred Bowen

said during a recent work session.

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.

"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.

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. Its approval changes things, Bowen

said.

Developers of the shopping

center 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 Pailer property, a small triangle of land at

the front of the school complex.

Owner Charles Pailer is asking

that the zoning of the five-acre parcel be changed to C-H (highway commercial).

Pailer wants to build a small shopping center, not offices, and that request

also will be discussed Thursday.

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.

Also on the agenda is a request

from owners Nancy Cooper and Mitchell Edwin Cooke for C-H zoning for 6.18

acres on Ga. Highway 85 south, for a self-storage facility.