The Fayetteville City Council

has reached a consensus to move forward with the Southside master plan

after reviewing a report that council members feel is a great improvement

over what could potentially happen on that side of town under current

conditions.

"Compared to what is currently

zoned there, these are great improvements," said Councilman Larry

Dell as he listed some of the various items included in the plan drawn

up by Atlanta consulting firm Urban Collage. Those items include a reduction

in the number of residential units in the area, the formation of a commercial

node at the intersection of Jimmie Mayfield Boulevard and the Ga. Highway

92 connector, and numerous street interconnections and pedestrian paths,

as well as improvements to Perry Creek and considerable amounts of green

space around it.

"If we take no action,

what can happen here in the next 25 years?" said Councilman Glenn

Brewer, adding that a master plan such as this can allow the city to have

some control over what can be developed.

Brewer said that he understands

the feelings of people who have repeatedly talked about Fayetteville's

small-town atmosphere, having come to the city himself for the first time

way back in 1946.

"I was completely against

this plan two years ago," said Councilman Walt White. "I would

have voted against it two months ago."

But his concerns about residential

density and containment of commercial development have been answered to

a significant degree, he added.

The discussion at last Thursday's

council meeting comes on the heels of the fourth and final meeting of

the Southside master plan task force, a group that met for about two months

with Urban Collage representatives in an attempt to find out what all

interested parties landowners, developers and existing residents want

in the area and come up with a solution that benefits everyone.

The task force has faced some

difficult challenges, Mayor Kenneth Steele said, as the Southside master

plan has been discussed for some two years now. "It has not been

rushed," he said.

There was no vote taken at

the last task force meeting. What was sought was a consensus among the

members concerning the report and recommendations Urban Collage gathered

from the task force's input. "I think we have [a consensus],"

Steele said, adding that it is not possible to fully address every issue

at the task force level.

Changes in the city's zoning

ordinance during the past few years have helped the south side of Fayetteville

immensely, Steele said, beginning with an attempt by Wal-Mart in the mid-1990s

to locate a supercenter at Pine Trail, on the north end of town near where

the Uptown Square shopping center currently sits. That led to the development

of Fayette Pavilion, and a series of zoning changes that restrict further

"big box" development, Steele said.

"Wal-Mart could have located

on the south side under the zoning at that time," said Steele. "Now

you cannot have any big-box retail on the south side."

Steele said that the recommended

establishment of commercial nodes in such locations as the corner of Hwy.

92 and Jimmie Mayfield is preferable to long strips of commercial development

such as those already in existence on Hwy. 85 north. These are complemented

in the Southside plan by open space, ample buffers and step-down zoning,

he added.

The townhouse zoning now available

in the area was split into a couple of locations. Steele noted that the

townhouse area next to Kingswood has been reduced from a possible 120-plus

units to about 48.

The Southside master plan,

in the works for about two years, now consists of 267.2 acres of land

on the south edge of Fayetteville, encompassing portions of Ga. Highway

85, the Ga. Highway 92 connector, Jimmie Mayfield Boulevard and Bradley

Drive. With the exception of a few residences and the Ingles supermarket

on Hwy. 92, this land is still mostly undeveloped.

The site currently includes

97 acres of commercially zoned land and 170.2 acres of residential zoning,

with 21.3 acres of that zoned for townhomes and the rest for single-family

houses. The 53.2-acre Simpson tract is in unincorporated Fayette County,

zoned residential-agricultural.

The task force was formed early

in the fall after a large number of residents in the area came to the

City Council with concerns about proposed development in the area, specifically

from previous Southside master plan proposals. The council tabled all

action relating to the master plan for 60 days, then for an additional

month when last week's final task force meeting became necessary.

The final master plan includes

a land use plan, a conceptual site plan displaying potential development

patterns and a development agreement between the city and the relevant

property owners and developers. It calls for 124.5 total commercial acres,

19 total office and institutional acres, 109.2 total residential acres,

and 14.5 acres of open space.

Commercial property under the

plan is consolidated along Hwy. 85 and at the corner of Hwy. 92 and Jimmie

Mayfield (long-term plans include extending the connector from Jimmie

Mayfield to Jeff Davis Drive), and a small office-institutional node is

suggested at the corner of Jimmie Mayfield and Bradley Drive.

The rest is residential land,

bisected by a 300-foot greenway along Perry Creek north of the Hwy. 92

connector. The plan includes three significant open spaces: a 4.8-acre

parcel on the northwest corner of Bradley and Jimmie Mayfield; a parcel

of 3-plus acres to the west of Jimmie Mayfield at the city limits; and

2-plus acres on either side of Perry Creek north of the Hwy. 92 connector.

The proposed pedestrian paths

literally wrap around the entire Southside master plan, running through

the large greenway along Perry Creek and along the southern edge of the

site, as well as north across Bradley Drive where a portion of the proposed

townhomes would sit. At the westernmost portion of the tract, the proposed

Publix shopping center, which would have an access point on Hwy. 85, is

also accessible via a series of interconnected streets from elsewhere

in the section north of Hwy. 92, giving accessibility between various

residential and commercial sites without venturing onto the highway.

According to the report, 97

acres of commercial land currently exist within the city with the ability

to accommodate about 550,000 square feet of commercial space. Also, the

Fayetteville Towne Center shopping center across Hwy. 85 has set a precedent

that forced the task force to assume the probable county rezoning and

commercial development of the Simpson tract, which would bring the entire

commercial area to about 120 acres and some 650,000 square feet of total

building area, the report stated.

The master plan does not decrease

the total acreage of commercially zoned land, but it relocates commercial

zones to create a node at Jimmie Mayfield and Hwy. 92, "rather than

a sprawling mass of commercial buildings along Jimmie Mayfield and Bradley

Drive," the report said, and the master plan and accompanying development

agreement would allow the city to regulate the size, type and character

of commercial buildings "to create more of a neighborhood/village-oriented

commercial node rather than a regional marketplace."

Representatives Urban Collage

briefly reviewed what was accomplished by the 22-member task force during

four long evening meetings the past two months. They emphasized the four

key objectives outlined in the report: minimizing the impact of commercial

zoning on residential areas; limiting high-density housing to specific

areas; developing a meaningful open space; and encouraging development

north and south of the Hwy. 92 connector to be self-contained with interconnected

streets and paths.

Stan Harvey of Urban Collage

noted that Fayetteville has some of the best controls in place for development

of any municipality in metro Atlanta, and added that establishing specific

parameters at the beginning of the development process, as the task force

set out to do, is very important.

A representative of the Chanticleer

subdivision said that his community is split on the issue of commercial

development on the east side of Jimmie Mayfield. Some want no commercial

activity on that site, while others can live with it and understand why

it is recommended there, he said.

Kent Rose of Concordia Properties,

one of the potential developers of the Southside master plan, said that

this is the first time he has been involved in a process like what the

task force undertook. He expressed his understanding that everyone involved

must give up something to work out the necessary compromise, and that

includes an estimated 25-percent loss of residential density for his company.

But he added that he saw a number of strengths in the proposed plan.

A representative of the Kingswood

subdivision noted several positive points, such as the work done around

Perry Creek, the 60-40 impervious surface ratio, the proposed bikepaths

and general park-like atmosphere. The community is concerned about the

townhouse zoning, although pleased with the reduced number of units, noting

that it is a four-zone step-down from their adjacent homes. He said that

having R-22 zoning with half-acre lots next door would still be a two-zone

step, but that would be more acceptable.

Other subdivision residents

share concerns about commercial development on the eastern edge of the

site. A Wyngate representative said that her community would "ideally"

like to not see any there, "but we understand that it's not an ideal

world." She said that she would like to see residential development

between Wyngate and any commercial site (Steele noted that such a development

is already in the works), and that there not be any vehicular access between

the two subdivisions if that happens.

Under the proposed master plan,

Chanticleer and Wyngate would be separated from the commercial node by

a tract that John Wieland Homes is now proposing for half-acre residential

lots. That plan is currently before the city's Planning and Zoning Commission.

Another resident spoke about

the possibility of changes being made during the development process and

what can be done to prevent that. Dell suggested that he take a look at

the development agreements for the Village master plan next to Fayette

County High School, saying that in those plans, everything is tied down

and every detail is concrete.

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