Wednesday, February 21, 2001
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Wednesday, February 21, 2001 |
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County planners: Keep low density in Starr's Mill area By DAVE HAMRICK
In spite of recent approval of a shopping center in the heart of the area, future land uses around the Redwine Road/Ga. Highway 74 intersection should remain primarily low-density residential, Fayette County Planning Commission members say. "Preservation of the existing land use intent" is the main thrust of changes to the land use plan being considered by the commission, Chairman Fred Bowen said. But additional office and institutional uses are being contemplated in the plan, to provide a "step down" from the approved shopping center to residential properties surrounding it. Planning commissioners will have a public hearing March 1 to consider whether to recommend the changes to the County Commission. "We had what we thought was a sound land use plan," said Bowen during a work session last week to review the proposed changes. "We revisited that land use plan a little more than a year ago and reasserted our belief that it was an adequate land use plan," he added. That plan called for no additional commercial development in the area. But the County Commission's approval last month of community commercial zoning for 21.8 acres of retail space bordered by 5.8 acres of offices on the south side of Hwy. 74 directly across from the Starr's Mill school complex changes things, Bowen said. "That ... requires that we need, as good stewards of the public trust, to look at the area again to see if the land use plan for that area needs to be modified," he said. The Plantation Centre shopping center, to be developed by Starr's Mill LLC, a Macon-based firm, will have about 120,000 square feet of shops and restaurants, including a grocery store in the 50,000-sq. ft. range. Developers donated an additional 52 acres to Fayette County for green space, and that property will serve as a buffer between the shopping center and the Brechin Park neighborhood next door, planners say. Office uses abut the planned center along Hwy. 74, and senior planner Pete Frisina suggested that the land use plan also anticipate future offices on the north side of 74 along Redwine Road, and on the Peillor property, a small triangle of land at the front of the school complex. The group also discussed applying the residential style overlay standards that are in place on the Ga. Highway 54 corridor to any office development around Starr's Mill. "We find this [shopping center] is self-contained and well bounded by these boundaries," Frisina told the Planning Commission last week. With the offices and the green space surrounding the shopping center, there will be no need for commercial development to spread along the highway, Frisina said. The only other change he suggested is to increase the expected density of residential development on seven parcels along the west side of Redwine Road just north of the intersection. The current land use plan calls for two- to five-acre lots for the parcels, but land next door, inside the Peachtree City limits, is zoned for quarter-acre lots, and a plan is in place for about a 250-home subdivision to be named Wilshire Place. Frisina suggested a plan calling for one- to two-acre lots for the parcels next to Peachtree City. Two- to five-acre home lots for a large parcel just north of the school complex on the east side of Redwine would continue to be anticipated under the proposed changes. An overall density of one home every two to five acres is the target for the entire area under the current land use plan. If the changes are approved, the plan will reflect conservation/green space uses on the 52 acres donated to the county. The group decided to go ahead and put the changes on the March 1 agenda, rather than having any additional work sessions on them. There was little discussion. "I'm comfortable with what they've done," commission member Bob Harbison said of the planning staff's recommendations. "I think it is incumbent on us to take this up in a timely fashion, because it is a very timely issue in our community," said Bowen. Also on the March 1 agenda will be a request for commercial zoning for the Peilor property in front of the school complex. That request does not fit with the current plan, which calls for residential uses on the land, or the suggested office/institutional use under the proposed new plan.
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