Lenox: County rezoning for retail center on 74 South will hurt PTC

By JOHN MUNFORD
jmunford@TheCitizenNews.com

Peachtree City Mayor Bob Lenox is not pleased with the Fayette County Board of Commissioners decision to grant a commercial rezoning for a 28-acre retail project that borders the city on Ga. Highway 74 south.

"I will characterize it as the worst zoning decision ever made in Fayette County," Lenox said Wednesday.

Starr's Mill LLC plans to build a grocery store and separate offices on the land, which is adjacent to the city's recreation fields on Hwy. 74. The Starr's Mill project is also near a new retail center across the highway, Holly Grove Pavilion, that will be anchored by a Publix grocery store.

Lenox said a representative of Starr's Mill LLC had approached him last year about possibly annexing this project into the city. After the presentation, Lenox said he couldn't support the annexation and the city was never officially approached about possibly annexing the land.

"I just said I was not interested in putting the wrong thing in the wrong place," Lenox said.

The mayor said he felt the commission could have left the zoning as it was and allowed a subdivision to be built on the land with 1-acre lots. But now that the land has been rezoned to commercial, it paves the way for other commercial rezonings to be sought in the area, Lenox said.

"The county's legal position was virtually impregnable," Lenox said, adding that a subdivision would create little traffic in the area. "When you put a shopping center there, how do you defend the county land use plan?"

The county's land use plan called for the property to be developed as low-density residential. But several county commissioners said they felt the area had strayed from the plan with the nearby location of the schools and a planned unit development.

"We're the guys who are going to have to eat the traffic and have the aggravation," Lenox said.

The developer plans to donate approximately 50 acres of the site to the county.

Peachtree City officials were opposed to the rezoning, and Lenox noted that the county's staff and planning commission also opposed the rezoning.

If the plan for the retail center falls through, there's little to prevent a large retail store from going in on the property at a later date, Lenox said.

"There's no control to prevent massive uses," Lenox said.

Lenox said he also thought the "open space" the developers want to donate could have been used to provide a larger setback off the road so the development would look more like those in Peachtree City.

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