Wednesday, November 8, 2000

By AMY RILEY
One Citizen's Perspective

As I am writing this column, the election is still ahead of us. By now, you know the outcomes on every race, amendment, and referendum. I hope that, as you are reading, the Fayette County school system is secure in the knowledge that help is on the way in the form of three new elementary schools, one new high school, and some long awaited upgrades and repairs to older schools.

As citizens, we must continue our vigil on growth in Fayette county, even when it seems that the will of the people is being left off of the agenda. We can't stop growth, but we can unceasingly urge our local governments to stick to their own land use plans and halt rezonings to higher densities. In order to maintain the standard of excellence that we enjoy in the Fayette county schools, we should seek to stem growth to an orderly and manageable pace.

In the interest of responsible growth and raising consciousness about the impact of higher density rezonings on the school system, area activist Steve Brown is promoting an "Education First" ordinance to local Fayette governments. The proposal states that, "a quality educational system is essential to sustaining and enhancing the quality of life of the residents of Fayette County."

The "Education First" proposal recognizes that the school system cannot effectively calculate future student populations in the wake of unforeseen rezonings to higher densities and to "residential" from other zoning categories. The proposal also suggests that the Board of Education inform new home owners that, if their new home was the result of a rezoning, their children would be the first students to be bused to another school district or placed on double session schedules.

In the interest of supporting the "Education First" proposal, which hopefully will become an ordinance or policy if local governments elect to do so, I am going to unveil a regular feature at the end of my column space once a month, and more often as needed to reflect rezoning requests. In a brief tag, I will provide a running tally of potential home sites with projected student populations for those sites. I will also post a running tally of pending rezonings so that we can see the impact of growth on our school system. We've got to get proactive in addressing potential problems before they present themselves.

First prize for the "almost" proactive approach to potential problems goes to the too-late-to-do-us-any-good "big box" ordinance enacted by the Peachtree City Council last week to limit the size of future commercial retail sites.

If we could have nailed that one down about a year ago, we might have successfully inoculated ourselves against the Ebola of all "big box" viruses, the Wal-Mart Supercenter. That's right, folks, coming soon to your pristine small town, courtesy of RAM (first rule in business, choose a name that reflects your philosophy) Development, is the scourge of neighborhoods across the country, Wal-Mart.

It doesn't take a crystal ball to see horrendous traffic, higher crime rates, and future closings of locally owned independent establishments who can't compete with the megagiant. The consensus seemed to be one of "we can't fight it, because we can't afford the lawsuit." If there were ever a time to strongly consider taking our chances with a lawsuit, this would seem to be the time. But epic battles take epic fortitude and epic budgets. I think we're short in one or both of those categories.

Don't lose heart, though. Steve Brown sent out 15,000 letters to registered Peachtree City voters seeking your views on the exemption from the "big box" ordinance for the Wal-Mart development and another site at Kedron Village. He included a reply card to make it easy for you. He asked that residents continue to send in the reply cards, or a simple letter stating your views. He had already received 900 as of Saturday, so keep them coming.

You may mail your responses to: Steve Brown, 148 Terrane Ridge, Peachtree City. It can't hurt. The response rate could become a leg to stand on, and we could sure use one.

As promised in support of "Education First" and the Fayette County School System: There are currently 4,879 residential lots available for construction, capable of impacting our school system with an estimated 7,441 students.

A pending rezoning by Rendley Norris, if approved, would add an additional 36 homes and an estimated 54 students. A second pending rezoning by Bob Adams Homes, Inc., if approved, would add an additional 140 apartments, 60 townhouses, 68 live/work units, and an estimated 448 students to our schools.

Contact the Fayette County Commission regarding the Rendley Norris request. Contact Peachtree City Council to comment on the Bob Adams Homes request.

[Your comments are welcome: ARileyFreePress@aol.com.]

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