The Fayette Citizen-News Page

Wednesday, September 5, 2001

80-acre annexation on PTC agenda

By JOHN MUNFORD
jmunford@TheCitizenNews.com

A request to annex 80 acres at the northern end of the city limits on MacDuff Parkway for a new 350-home subdivision will be discussed by the Peachtree City Council at its meeting Thursday night.

John Wieland Homes is requesting the annexation so its Centennial subdivision can be located entirely within the city limits. The 80-acre tract, if annexed, would be combined with a 101-acre site which is currently inside the city limits to create the subdivision.

County Commission Chairman Greg Dunn expressed several concerns about the proposed annexation in a recent letter to Peachtree City Mayor Bob Lenox. Specifically, Dunn worried that the zoning could potentially allow "as many as 600 or more units."

But in a reply to Dunn several days later, Lenox assured him that only 350 units will be developed on the entire 181 acre site, thanks to an agreement between John Wieland Homes and the city. The zoning used by the city was done to permit clustering of the homes and not to seek a higher density, Lenox said.

Dunn also indicated he was concerned about the land John Wieland Homes has committed to donating to the Fayette County Board of Education for a school site. He indicated that the county wants assurances that if a school is never built on the site, it will never be developed into more homes.

Lenox said that concern was moot since the limit of homes on the property is 350. When the portion of the land in the city limits was rezoned earlier this year, John Wieland Homes agreed to that limit as a condition of the rezoning.

School officials have not yet formally accepted the property as some details are being ironed out.

The plan for the subdivision allows for the northern extension of MacDuff Parkway, which city officials hope to eventually connect to Ga. Highway 74 north.

The 80-acre site was once included in the 900-acre, 1,700-home annexation proposal for the West Village area, which was denied by council last August. John Wieland Homes plans to build 65 townhomes and about 39 single family homes on the property, setting aside 20 acres for the school site, about 20 acres for recreation and open space land in addition to a site for a new fire station to serve the western area of Peachtree City.