Wednesday, December 20, 2000
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Wednesday, December 20, 2000 |
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Starr's Mill gets retail center, 41
By MONROE ROARK
After repeatedly stating that they didn't want it, members of the Fayette County Board of Commissioners voted Thursday night to allow a commercial development across from the Starr's Mill school complex because they said they simply had no choice. Starr's Mill LLC had requested rezoning of about 28 acres for various retail and office uses on a tract on Ga. Highway 74 South just outside the city limits of Peachtree City. The developers announced plans to donate an additional 50 acres to the county to use as it sees fit. Planning Commission members and the Planning Department staff had recommended denial, saying the project doesn't fit with the land use plan. The land use plan calls for that area to have low-density residential development homes on two to five acres. But commissioners who reluctantly voted in favor of the rezoning argued that the surrounding area has already gone too far to turn back. "This is not A-R (agricultural-residential) anymore," said Vice Chairman Greg Dunn, noting that the school complex, a nearby planned unit development and other one-acre-lot subdivisions had already changed the area. He added that there is now "an issue of fairness and equity" with regard to the current applicants, and he could not see where the commission would be justified in denying the request based on the surroundings. "I don't want this development here, either," he said. "But something's going there, folks, and it's not going to be a farm, and it's not going to be five-acre lots." There were a number of opposing residents from nearby Brechin Park, which, ironically, is the planned unit development cited by the commissioners as a reversal of the land use plan. While he stressed that he was doing so "with great reluctance," Chairman Harold Bost said he also supported the application for most of the same reasons as Dunn. Bost said that in past years he voted against Brechin Park and The Chimneys, another subdivision next door, but now that they are there it changes the situation. Dunn said he ran for his commission seat because of previous decisions like this in other areas, but in the Starr's Mill area the damage is already done. "We just have to make sure it doesn't happen again." Commissioner Linda Wells made a motion to deny the request and it was seconded for discussion purposes. But after the discussion, her motion failed 4-1. In addition to the developers, who brought a number of experts to address such issues as land use, soil, wastewater and architecture, comments in favor of the plan were made by local environmental scientist Dennis Chase as well as a nearby land owner, who said the ratio of residential to commercial development is too high and this project would help the tax base while reducing traffic from the area to retail centers farther north. Dennis Payton, a member of the Peachtree City Planning Commission, addressed the board and said the city was opposed to the request because a similar project has recently been approved a few hundred feet up the highway inside the city limits. He said that approval was given partially due to the county's land use plan, which calls for no other commercial development in that part of the unincorporated county.
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