Wednesday, August 23, 2000

Is Fayetteville opening the floodgates again? The city of Fayetteville is contemplating annexing 873 acres. Thousands of acres of agricultural-residential zoned land abut this 873 acres. All of this acreage could petition for annexation if the 873 acres is taken into the city.

Of course, it was stated at one of Fayetteville’s Planning and Zoning meetings that the city would never annex A-R zoned acreage due to the fact that the city doesn’t have any compatible zoning. Excuse me, but that is exactly what they are considering doing now.

Of the 873 acres, 263 acres are presently zoned Agricultural-Residential. The developer has petitioned the city to annex and zone the entire parcel R-30 PUD (30,000 square-foot lot) with the exception of 18.5 acres at the corner of Ga. Highway 54 and Huiet Drive. On this parcel, the developer is requesting 16 acres to be zoned Office-Institutional and 2.5 acres to be zoned Commercial.

Of the 263 acres zoned A-R, the developer is offering 215.5 acres for a park but that still leaves 47.5 acres of A-R property to be annexed, zoned and developed R-30 PUD. R-30 in Fayetteville is a 30,000 square-foot lot compared to a minimum five-acre lot (217,800 square feet) in the county.

Therefore considering only the 47.5 acres, if that property was developed as zoned in the county, only eight homes could be built. If annexed into the city and zoned R-30, the density could be increased to 60 homes.

That sounds like an increase in density to me. And this is only the beginning. What is going to happen to the thousands of acres that abut this property?
Now is the time to just say no to the annexation before the floodgates are opened.

Nancy Charnock
Fayetteville

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