The Fayetteville City Council's

consideration of the proposed Southside master plan, which has actually

taken two years so far, leads a list of city topics in the news during

2002.

The council reached a consensus

at its Dec. 19 meeting to move forward with the 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.

A task force formed to study

the plan in detail met four times during the fall and worked with an Atlanta

consulting firm to come up with the current design.

The plan 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.

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