[Editor’s note: The following e-mail was also addressed to members of the West Village Annexation Task Force by Robert Brown, a resident of Peachtree City.]

Task Force members, I would have liked to have been able to attend today’s meeting of the task force to express some of my concerns with the current west side plan and the task force process; however, business has called me out of town. Please consider the following thoughts as you deliberate.

At the beginning of the annexation task force process, you were presented with a proposal from the landowners and developers. You were also presented with a city staff’s estimate of the number of units that could be expected to be built under county zoning. I thought the final result would be somewhere in between.
As you worked through the process, you were presented options between the extremes. Where are those options now?

So-called experts were hired to help develop a plan. The plan seems to have more units than the plan brought forth by the developers.

Based on what little I have seen of this new plan, it would make a nice village, but not in this location. There are significant issues concerning schools, traffic, density, and others with this plan.

Schools:
This plan can be expected to generate 1550-1600 students, more than twice the number we would expect under county zoning. What is the benefit to the school system of annexation? A poor school site next to the railroad. The school system still has to build the school and buy land and fund construction for at least one more school for the additional students. Who is going to pay for this? The taxpaying citizens of Fayette County, of course.
The mayor’s comment that it is the school system’s job to build schools for the students that show is an abdication of responsibility. It may be their job, but that doesn’t mean we should make their job harder by increasing the density so drastically. Every time higher density is approved, the build out number goes up and the cost to the school system goes up.

Traffic:
This is easy. Higher density means more cars on the road at peak hours. It doesn’t matter how pedestrian-friendly the West Village is, people still have to go to work. The West Village will likely be like most of Peachtree City in that respect: the residents will work elsewhere.
MacDuff Parkway (I still have a hard time with that name) was originally envisioned as a major collector road similar to Peachtree Parkway. It was not to be a bypass for the Ga. highways 54-74 intersection, but could serve the needs of all the west side residents traveling either north or south from their village.
Now it has so many traffic calming devices, it will be more like a neighborhood street. Residents in the south of the village will certainly go out the south end of MacDuff to get to Hwy. 74 North rather than traverse MacDuff; that is, until Hwy. 54 becomes so clogged that traffic doesn’t move at all.
Planterra Way may have more traffic than MacDuff after the TDK extension is built and the traffic light at Home Depot is put in.

Density:
The other issue the mayor has brought up about the rate of growth also fails under scrutiny. Fayette County has been growing at a rate that will not continue as high density (that being a relative term) land in Peachtree City and Fayetteville is used up. Fayette County will continue to grow, but the rate has already slowed. The build-out number for Peachtree City and the county is what keeps changing. If we don’t want the county to become overcrowded, we need stop rezoning to higher density.

The bottom line:
Ask yourselves what the benefit is there for the citizens of Peachtree City to annex and rezone at significantly higher density than would be approved by the county?
I think you will agree that there is no benefit to the citizens, only higher costs for schools, more traffic, and more crowded facilities.

The only people who stand to benefit are the few landowners on the west side and the developers. For every else, it is only pain.

If your only alternatives are this plan and no annexation, then the decision should no annexation. Thank you.

Bob Brown
Peachtree City

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