By CAL BEVERLY
Publisher

Well, surprise: The West Village Annexation Task Force has “voted” 10-to-5 to recommend annexing the 900-plus acres on Peachtree City’s west border.

Three of the votes came from the developers and property owners and our “denser-is-better” mayor.

Additionally, some of the votes recorded as “yes” were votes that favored some form of annexation but not the final 1,700-unit plan presented to the study group.
How many citizens actually support creating a 5,100-plus population village on the city’s west side? How many Fayette residents like the idea of any annexation at all?

At least in Peachtree City, Mayor Bob Lenox and a majority of City Council seem to be ignoring polling data that shows the overwhelming majority of their constituents opposes such dense development.

To get a feel for what Fayette residents think about cities’ annexing undeveloped land to allow for denser development, we are providing a public opinion ballot on the front page of this issue and on our website. Please include your name and address and phone number for the ballot to be counted. We won’t disclose your identity to any outside organization, but the information is required for the ballot to be counted.

Although neither the Peachtree City Council nor the Fayetteville Council has permitted a referendum on annexations, you can vote anyway, using the ballot in The Citizen. We will tabulate the results and publish a running tally in The Citizen and The Daily Citizen Online.

(For the complete minutes from the task force meetings, browse The Daily Citizen Online at http://www.thecitizennews.com.)

Mayor Bob Lenox and Fayette Board of Education Chairman Debbie Condon disagreed with my assessment last week that the annexation would produce the need for three more new schools. Condon, who is leaving the school board at the end of this year, said only one more new school would be needed to serve the more than 5,000 new residents of the West Village.

Her math may be why voters have turned down the last two SPLOST referenda. At the Peachtree City standard measurement of just over three persons per residential unit, 1,700 homes will mean a minimum of 5,100 new city dwellers. About one-third of that number will be children, most of them school-age.
Let’s be very conservative and say that only one-fourth will be school kids. That’s still at least 1,275 added students for the annexed area within three to five years.
Now let’s don’t forget 399 apartments and 200-plus starter homes in Cedarcroft next to the annexed area. Very conservatively, that will produce 250 new children.
We’re at 1,500 and counting — just for dwelling units not yet built and using very conservative estimates.

Using the school system’s own current figures, we see that there are two elementary schools serving that area: Kedron, with 813 kids and nine trailers already in use, and Peachtree City Elementary, with 421 kids and four trailers.
It currently takes two elementary schools with 13 trailers to serve 1,234 kids in that area. Hard test question: How many schools — without trailers — will be needed to serve an additional 1,500 children?

Well, maybe many of the new kids will be middle school age or higher. Okay, fair question.

Suppose one-half of that number will be going into middle or high schools. That’s 750 kids.

Serving that area are Booth Middle School and McIntosh High School. Booth has 1,074 students with 13 trailers on a cramped campus, most of any school in the system. McIntosh has 1,407 with six trailers. Where are the new kids going to go?
But, according to Lenox, that’s the school board’s problem. Cities exist, the mayor asserts, to pack in the people.

Here’s a sampling of anti-annexation sentiments from the most recent task force meeting:
Task Force member Phyllis Aguayo: “I believe that annexation under the conditions presented to us would have negative impacts on our infrastructure, increase traffic, put an undue burden on our schools, compromise the integrity of our watershed, and threaten our water supply and air quality."

From Task Force member Dennis Chase: “It is my conclusion, based on my many years of experience analyzing hundreds of development projects, that the level of negative impact on the environment from placing at least an additional 1,000 residences on an area that is especially vulnerable to developmental degradation will be enormous. The amount of hard surface from the increase in number of residences, the streets necessary to support those homes and the simple fact that there will be many thousands more people living in close proximity to such a fragile natural resource will lead to significant environmental degradation,” Chase wrote.

“At a time when we are facing increasing pressures on the quality of our surface and ground water, the need for this annexation must be, absolutely and without question has to be, the best action. That is very clearly not the case here, and therefore, annexation must be rejected. There are many less damaging alternatives available to us on this property and most can be accomplished without the significant negative impact that annexation will impose on the environment,” Chase wrote.
“Simply from an environmental perspective, the plan that Pathway recently placed before the Fayette County Board of Commissioners stands heads and shoulders above the plan that is currently under consideration. Fayette County as a whole would be better served with that plan or some similar version,” Chase wrote.
“The need to take such an annexation action and produce an environmental nightmare is simply not justifiable and clearly not supported by most of the citizens of Peachtree City and probably even fewer of the Fayette County citizens at large. Politicians can listen to their citizens or not, but when those citizens are ignored, distrust, dislike and disbelief in our system are some of the end products,” Chase concluded.

From Task Force member Willis Granger: “It is my opinion that the task force process is flawed for the following reasons: Selection process — placing two of the major developers with vested interests as voting members of the task force. They should have been advisors. In due respect to the mayor, I do not believe he should have served as chairman of the group.”

Of the charrette process, Granger said, “In my opinion Mr. Baker and Mr. Theodore of Wood & Partners were unduly influenced by three members of the task force: Mr. Lenox, Mr. Fields and Mr. Peterson — because they spent the most time with them ... Density was the issue with most members of the task force and they evidently fail to recognize that since they came back with a plan to increase the density from the baseline of 1,500 units to 1,700 units. It is my belief they never considered any concept with less than 1,500 units.”

From Task Force member George Kadel, who wrote: “Sentiment in the county appears to be strongly against increasing density (note recent poll reported in the Atlanta Journal Metro Section, where all counties are increasingly opposed to increased density, with the poll results in Fayette County at 72 percent). Are we listening? It is argued, Creating our own plan allows us to be proactive with regard to what we as citizens want. Are we speaking for the 72 percent who have indicated concern?”

About new students, Kadel wrote, “With respect to schools, so important to Fayette County and its excellent scholastic standing, SPLOST was recently turned down. All must agree that the vote is a strong indicator of problems ahead. If the city is a party to the West Village increase in density, will the voters be even more unhappy, as they see the city go out of its way to increase density?” he wrote.

“Finally, and to repeat, why does Peachtree City want to take on the almost certain problems which will develop relating to the traffic and environment, let alone the added congestion, supervision, personnel involvement, on a concept that, in the view of many people, provides no benefit to Peachtree City?” Kadel concluded.

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