The North Carolina developer

trying since early August to sell Peachtree City on a 125,000-square-foot

Target store and expansion of the Kedron Village center filed suit against

the city on Friday.

The legal action comes as no

surprise. Attorneys for Faison Enterprises are seeking a "declaratory

judgment" in Fayette Superior Court that would clarify their client's

rights to develop the project and proceed with a 265,000 square-foot addition.

Despite an endorsement from

staff, the Planning Commission voted unanimously to deny Faison's

site plan in an exhausting four-hour meeting last month. At least one

commissioner then laid the blame for the mess at the feet of city staff,

who he accused of selling out to the interest of developers.

Two weeks ago, attorneys for

Faison sent a letter to City Council asking to be removed from Thursday

night's agenda, when they were expected to appeal the denial, but

Faison representatives also reserved the right to return to the council

"after litigation has been finalized."

As originally designed by the

city years ago, the main access point for the 125,000-square foot Target

store would be via the intersection of Georgian Park and Regents Park,

two local roads that provide the only access to more than 250 homes overlooking

Lake Kedron's north shore: Cottage Grove, Albemarle, Sutton's

Cove, Larkin's Landing and The Point.

Members of the Lake Kedron

Homeowners Association who live off Regents Park have been asking for

weeks to sit down with Faison to air their concerns, mainly traffic issues,

and find an agreeable solution, said group chairman Tim Wedemyer, but

neither the developer nor city staff seem willing to compromise.

Indeed, the suit asks the court

to declare:

- That Faison has a vested

right to develop the property using the Regents Park-Georgian Park access

road;

- That Peachtree City's

"big box" ordinance does not apply to the Target store proposed

for the Kedron Village expansion because Target will own the building

and the ordinance specifically refers to retail "leases";

- That the plaintiffs

have the vested right to develop the property under the city's General-Commercial

zoning category despite the "big box" ordinance because the

zoning and tentative future use of the property had already been approved

On Monday, City Manager Bernard

McMullen said city staff had yet to receive a formal copy of the lawsuit

and refused to comment, other than to acknowledge it had been filed.

Peachtree City Holdings, Inc.,

the land-management subsidiary of Pathway Communities and the city's

largest property owner, is a co-plaintiff in the suit filed in Fayette

County Superior Court.

Pathway was known as Peachtree

City Development Corporation (PCDC) until the mid-1990s, when the city

started to approach "build-out."

In fact, it was PCDC that laid

out the original plans for Kedron Village in the late 1980s and designed

and built the Georgian Park access road that runs behind the site.

According to city planning

records, it was always understood that future phases of the retail center

would have access to Georgian Park at Regents Park. Faison contends that

it is just following a city plan that's been on the books for years.

Wedemyer and the others who

live nearby admit they knew about the retail expansion plans when they

bought in the area, but none had any idea that the shopping center would

expand to become a regional draw.

In addition to the Target store,

the Faison project includes four unnamed "major" tenants of

20,000 to 30,000 square feet, comparable to the average tenant at Fayette

Pavilion.

Another 35,000 square feet

of smaller shops, restaurants, and offices would round out the development,

which would be arranged in a semi-circle layout similar to The Avenue.

It would also require nearly

1,200 additional parking spaces.

Though he made the fight against

"big box" retailers a key issue in his 2001 mayoral campaign,

Mayor Steve Brown has been decidedly ambivilant about the prospect of

Target coming to town, citing a 2000 letter written by then-mayor Bob

Lenox to a developer assuring them that the location would be exempt from

the new ordinance because it had already been zoned and approved years

prior.

And privately, city officials

have expressed doubt that the "big box" ordinance would hold

up in court, if formally challenged by a developer.

Faison's action isn't

a threat to the ordinance itself, but rather a request to clarify Target's

exemption status, a welcome relief for Wedemyer and his neighbors who

never wanted to endanger the law itself.

"Our position now is that

the city has laws on the books and it's up to government to uphold

those laws when passed," said Wedemyer. "We view this as a very

important piece of legislation that the city should fight to uphold. There

are thousands of citizens in the northern end of Peachtree City who expect

the city to defend all its laws, and especially this one, with as much

vigor and enthusiasm as can be mustered."

Wedemyer cited a position paper

written by City Attorney Ted Meeker to City Manager McMullen in which

Meeker concludes the proposal is beyond the scope of the original plans

for the Kedron site, as well as a memo from Police Chief James Murray

expressing his sentiment that the center would increase traffic counts

in the residential neighborhoods and affect the crime rate.

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