Friday, August 22, 2003
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Friday, August 22, 2003 |
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Plan raises Parkway traffic fears By J. FRANK
LYNCH
A planned 264,000-square-foot addition to Kedron Village that would include a 125,000-square-foot Target store and four or five smaller "big-box" retailers won't make much of a difference to efforts to control future development along the Ga. Highway 74 corridor, Mayor Steve Brown said. But it could have a devastating impact to traffic along Peachtree Parkway North. The Kedron Village expansion, Brown said, was planned several years ago as part of the original long-range vision for that commerical node, and city planners have always known it was on the horizon. But news of another cluster of "big box" retailers as big as The Avenue just a few miles south came as a surprise to some homeowners in the area, especially since Peachtree City has a "big box ordinance" that bans any more huge retailers within the city limits. Adding to the confusion, Brown appeared to support the Target proposal in news reports last week even though the "big box" moratorium was a central issue in his campaign for mayor in 2001. According to Brown, he has no choice but to be enthusiastic about the project because the city can do nothing to fight the Faison Enterprises development. In 2000, former mayor Bob Lenox wrote a letter to the Kedron Village developers reassuring them that their original plans for the shopping center which at one time was considered by Home Depot would not be reduced by any new development guidelines. And while Brown ultimately credits Lenox for crafting the legal loophole, he concedes that the developer has rights in his favor anyway. "For years, the land owner has been putting funds into that project and the developer has invested funds in that project, and for us to now say, 'you can't proceed,' wouldn't be proper," he said. And so that's why City Hall is trying to take what Brown calls a "proactive" approach to the commercial cluster, meeting with homeowners and other businesses to lessen the impact of what some say is a project way out of proportion to that area of the city. "I think that we have to ask ourselves, 'Out of proportion compared to what?' on the Target development," said Brown. "It is certainly not out of proportion compared to Highway 54 West (Wal-Mart and Home Depot). And in terms of size, there is not a lot we can do about it." Set to start building next spring with a completion date about two years from now,the Kedron expansion will include a new entranceway off Georgian Parkway, a wide boulevard that loops from Hwy. 74 to Peachtree Parkway and mostly unused now except by neighborhood residents.That "back way" into the Target phase of the commercial village might help divert traffic off of Hwy. 74, Brown acknowledged, but it could have an opposite effect on Peachtree Parkway. "The significant impact on traffic will be on Peachtree Parkway coming from east to west," said Brown, refering specifically to the stretch of road north of Lake Kedron, which provides access to some of the city's most exclusive neighborhoods. "The curved pattern of the parkway is not designed as a true collector road," he said. "Sight distances coming out of Kedron Hills, North Cove and Smoke Rise could be a problem with increased traffic from the east." In earlier plans long since put on hold, Peachtree Parkway was designed as a major north-to-south collector running the length of the city. For the most part that function was maintained from Hwy. 54 south to Redwine Road, where it meets up with Barnard Road. But from Hwy. 54 north to Hwy 74, Peachtree Parkway has been preserved pretty much as it was when it first opened: A lush, twisting, two-lane country drive albeit a few more mansions tucked into the trees. And though the bridge over Lake Kedron before Stoney Brook Plantation was built to support four lanes of auto traffic, city planners say that won't happen anytime soon. With the opening of Target, Brown and others fear that more people will discover what city residents already know pretty well: Peachtree Parkway North is a signifcant shortcut from the city's westside to the northside. Less than three miles from the planned Target, at Walt Banks Road and Ga. Highway 54, the mixed-used Lexington Park mixed-use development is just beginning to gain steam, bringing another commerical cluster and dense residential development to the city's westside. The logical route to Target for those folks is Peachtree Parkway. City planners say it's too early to tell what might be proposed to help alleviate the Parkway's traffic burden, but Brown isn't shy about asking the developer to invest more in the city. "This might be a situation where we include impact fees to make improvements to the Parkway that we've been needing for awhile," Brown said. "We can't afford to do anything to the road on our own."
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