As quickly as Donald Brandenburg

could utter the words, "What do I need to do to proceed with de-annexation?"

the idea of Peachtree City incorporating nearly 200 acres of county land

along Ebenezer Road was dead.

Brandenburg was making his

second appearance in as many weeks to the City Council Jan. 15, having

been convinced by Mayor Steve Brown to table his Jan. 5 request for de-annexation.

Brown wanted to look into the

possibility of incorporating the acreage earmarked for the proposed Platinum

Ridge neighborhood, rather than de-annexing about 48 acres that lie across

Camp Creek within the city proper. But developer Rod Wright of Peach State

Development wanted to stick to his original project.

Wright's Plantium Shade

neighborhood would include nearly 40 houses on five-acre minimum lots,

as required by county zoning ordinance, and be serviced by septic tanks.

Among Brown's concerns

was preserving the Camp Creek watershed, but a number of large homes within

the city limits built years ago are already on septic systems, it was

noted.

City Attorney Ted Meeker told

Brandenburg to meet with him after the meeting and he would set the paperwork

in motion for the de-annexation.

The land in question has one

owner - Pathway Communities - and the process will be much simpler,

Meeker said. A moratorium on new annexations within the city would have

forced the issue into several months of legal wranglings if Wright had

chosen to follow Brown's lead.

Brown made little comment.

In other business last week,

the council approved a rezoning of nearly 10 acres of land on Crabapple

Road across from the new elementary school from Agricultural Reserve to

R-43 Residential.

Owner Arthur Cole, who has

lived in a single house on the tract for years, wants to subdivide it

into eight separate lots, several of them to be built on by family members.

In December, the city's

Planning Commission had issues with the project before finally granting

approval of the site plan.

They noted that Cole's

rezoning request was the first for residential rezonings that anyone could

remember in "some time." That raised concerns about emergency

service response times, even though a city fire station is just down the

road, and with overcrowding classrooms, though Crabapple Lane Elementary

across the road opened this fall at half capacity.

The only issue raised by the

city council involved a proposal by Cole to access the homesites via private

driveways, and not city streets. Satisfied the driveways would be up to

code and strong enough to handle fire engines and the like, the rezoning

was granted.

According to city planners,

Cole's property was the last sizeable chunk of undeveloped land in

the north end of Peachtree City.