In what amounts to the beginning of the “drawing board” process, the West Village Annexation Task Force has helped design a sketch of what the 900-plus-acre area could become if it is annexed into Peachtree City.

Now, Mark Baker and Todd Theodore from Wood and Partners will work with developers and city staff to tweak the drawing, which will be presented to the task force within two or three weeks, city planner David Rast said.

“This is not by far the final plan,” Rast said. “It's in the very early conceptual stage.”

The drawing, which represents the largest annexation proposal before the task force, was created by Baker and Theodore after they met with the task force to hear ideas the group would like to see included in the area.

The sketch included a village center bordered by residential subdivisions. Commercial businesses and offices would be located in the center with a large city park nearby, Rast said.

The design also worked in a commuter rail station that could be coming in the near future, along with a new school to serve the area and a cultural arts center. All three buildings would share a parking lot according to the way the sketch was designed.

The collector road for the area was designed to meander through the area on a divided design to help prevent traffic from using it as a bypass to get off Highway 74 onto Highway 54, avoiding that busy intersection, Rast added.

A buffer area of trees was also placed between the railroad track in the area and the proposed location of residential neighborhoods.

Mayor Bob Lenox characterized the session as a good start for the group, but he added that the sketch is “by no means” the final plan. Lenox also said having the developers work with Baker and Theodore is important to the process to make sure the ideas can work from a marketing standpoint.

Jerry Peterson of Pathway Communities and Dan Fields of John Wieland Homes -- representing two of the major landholders in the West Village area -- both said after the meeting that the sketch was a good start to the process.

If the new version of the sketch doesn't come in until two or three weeks, that puts the task force very close to its end of July deadline to provide a recommendation to council, Lenox acknowledged.

Though he hasn't officially extended the deadline, Lenox said he realized the process might not be complete by late July.

“It's more important for us to get it right than to get it wrong to beat the deadline,” Lenox said.

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