By JOHN MUNFORD
jmunford@TheCitizenNews.com

Perhaps 75,000 square feet will be the magic number for Peachtree City's planned "big box" regulations.

That could turn out to be the size limit for stores entering the city under the general commercial zoning designation. Originally, the limit was proposed to be 90,000 square feet about the size of the largest retail store in town: the Kmart.

Reigning in the number of large retail stores moving to Peachtree City is the main goal of the proposed regulations. But there are only a few places left for massive retail stores to locate here, said Jim Williams, the city's director of developmental services.

And the cat might already be out of the bag in relation to three proposed big box stores: Home Depot, Wal-Mart, and an unnamed 140,000-sq. ft. store that would locate at Kedron Village. Concept plans have been submitted for all three projects, and that could keep them from being subjected to the big box rules.

The proposed big box regulations will be discussed by the Planning Commission at its meeting Monday night. But the final approval rests in the hands of the City Council of Peachtree City.

Peachtree City resident Steve Brown, who lives near the possible location for the Wal-Mart and Home Depot stores, thinks the regulations should apply to them also. Unbridled retail growth, he argued, has serious repercussions.

He pointed to the Pavilion in Fayetteville as one example of how massive retail stores can adversely affect a city. In addition to maintaining a police presence there, that development has caused traffic woes and other problems in Fayetteville, Brown said.

Such large stores tend to put existing stores out of business, which has been seen in Fayetteville also, Brown argued. He pointed to the vacancies at the Banks Crossing center, which will soon grow emptier as the Kmart there closes.

"Wal-Mart has a grocery store component, so it doesn't just jeopardize Kmart and Belk, but also your Krogers and Publixes," Brown said.

If a grocery store closes in Peachtree City, it could ruin the village concept of having shopping areas spread throughout the city, Brown argues.

"These are regional shopping centers," Brown said. "Traffic will stream in and it will affect the rest of the city."

Doug Dillard, an attorney representing several developers, has already questioned the legality of the ordinance. The big box regulations aren't specific enough, he believes, especially in language regarding the traffic and water management plan requirements.

The big box regulations are fashioned into an amendment to the city's zoning ordinance. It wouldn't totally ban stores over 75,000 square feet from coming to Peachtree City, but it would force them to seek a limited use commercial zoning, which would likely involve more restrictions than the ones proposed for the big box amendment, which include:

Development of a traffic management plan;

Development of a water management plan;

Providing assurances that the space won't be left unoccupied for an unreasonable length of time should the store ever close;

No more than 75 percent of the lot can be covered by impervious surfaces.

Those requirements kick in on developments that have a tenant occupying over 6,000 square feet of space or where the entire development consists of over 100,000 square feet of retail space.

Brown has suggested using an incremental formula as opposed to a firm cap on the store's size. That would allow the retail areas of Peachtree City to grow along with the rest of the city without creating too much of a burden on the infrastructure, he said.

"That allows everything to work on the scale we already have here in Peachtree City," Brown said.

The battle against big box stores has been somewhat of an obsession for Brown, who devotes an estimated 20 hours a week to studying the issue. He took the concept for the incremental development idea from Al Norman, a nationally known expert on the adverse effects allegedly created when huge retail stores like Wal-Mart locate in communities.

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