Peachtree City

officials will soon be patrolling only where Pathway Communities and its

predecessors have gone before.

The City Council

has agreed to accept responsibility for overseeing the architectural control

process which Pathway has written into its residential deed covenants.

Pathway officials recently notified the city they will stop providing

this service Nov. 1, although it will continue to provide the service

for its industrial and commercial properties.

Jim Williams,

the city's director of developmental services, said it is important for

the city to step in and agree to enforce the restrictions, which cover

numerous subdivisions in the city. He suggested that such matters be handled

in-house unless there is some sort of controversy over a plan in which

case that plan could be brought to a special board for a hearing.

"This

process has gone so well for the city over the years that we feel we don't

need to let it go, even for a couple of weeks," Williams said.

The city wants

to begin the tasks without adding new personnel, Williams added, although

he admitted, "We don't know in the long run what the load will be."

Scott Bradshaw,

who is responsible for the covenant enforcement in the Smokerise subdivision,

said the job isn't easy.

"At least

every other day I have to say no to somebody," Bradshaw said. He

added that he hopes the city would agree to take over the covenant enforcement

responsibilities of all developers in the city.

Council agreed

to enter a legal agreement with Pathway that assigns the deed covenant

restriction responsibilities to the city. Council also voted to begin

drawing up a city ordinance which could be adopted so those standards

could be applied to non-Pathway subdivisions in the future.

City Attorney

Rick Lindsey said that could take a while because it can be difficult

for cities to rule on aesthetically-related matters such as these.

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