The Fayette

County Board of Education plans to place its next new elementary school

off Crabapple Lane in north Peachtree City near Tyrone.

School officials

are negotiating with property owners of four parcels in the area of Crabapple

Lane and Ga. Highway 74. Three of the parcels are needed for the project,

but the board is unsure for now which three will be used, although it's

possible all four tracts could be bought, said Mike Satterfield, facilities

director for the school system.

The school

will have six more classrooms than Kedron Elementary, but is otherwise

the same layout, Satterfield said. The idea is that the school will draw

from Kedron, eliminating the portable classrooms currently in use there,

and also Tyrone Elementary and Burch Elementary.

Satterfield

presented two different site plans to the Peachtree City Planning Commission

at its regular meeting Monday night. He said the board would want to begin

construction as soon as possible in the hopes of having the school open

for the beginning of the 2003-2004 school year.

The revelation

means the board has decided against the immediate use of donated land

off MacDuff Parkway that it has also considered for an elementary school.

That location may still be used for a school in the near future, Satterfield

said.

"It may

be two or three years before we can build that one," Satterfield

said.

Officials had

been looking in the Tyrone area off Dogwood Road but were unable to find

a suitable location, Satterfield added.

The commission

discussed the matter as a workshop item since the city's development moratorium

prevents approval of new conceptual site plans without an appeal being

granted by the City Council.

School officials'

first choice would be to use the plan that includes a parcel at the junction

of Hwy. 74 and Crabapple Lane, according to a letter Satterfield presented

to city officials. The parcel is currently owned by Pathway Communities,

but if it doesn't become part of the school site, several planning commissioners

worried the owner could seek a commercial rezoning because the argument

could be made that having a school next to the property would keep it

from being used for the current residential zoning.

The school

board should vote on the matter at an upcoming meeting, Satterfield added.

This will be

the third and final elementary school built with funds from a bond issue

that was approved by local voters last year.