Wednesday, March 10, 2004
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Wednesday, March 10, 2004 |
| Brown claims wide support for ‘west village’ annexation By J. FRANK LYNCH Steve Brown said he has received nothing but positive reviews so far about his “unofficial” efforts to help John Wieland Homes annex and develop several hundred acres northwest of Peachtree City as a mixed-use neighborhood of residential, recreational and commercial uses. “I’ve gotten well over 100 e-mails and not one of them has been critical of the project,” said Brown, Peachtree City’s mayor. Soccer families who like a plan to include four regulation-size fields at the site, giving the city enough total fields to host national tournaments, are especially gung-ho on the long-shot project. Thanks to a mass campaign launched by officers of the Peachtree City Youth Soccer Association, Brown and the four other members of the City Council have been barraged in the past week with e-mails to their city accounts. The subject fields of the e-mails nearly always state the same thing: “Allow the City Planners to Study the West Village Annexation Plan.” While most are forwarded duplicates, some of the messages include personal, original pleas from soccer moms and dads, asking that the city council at least temporarily lift the moratorium on annexations so city staff can look at what Wieland is suggesting for the nearly 500 acres beyond the north termination of McDuff Parkway, wedged between the CSX Railway tracks on the east and Line Creek and the Coweta County border on the west. The city’s long-time ban on annexing property forbids anybody at City Hall from considering the possibility, even a rough draft. Though he is mayor, Brown said he was acting not in an official capacity so much as a concerned citizen when he recently brought together about a dozen private residents to hear Wieland’s plan formally and draw feedback. Among the notes urging the city to consider the plan was one from Dr. and Mrs. Archie Don Walden of Honeysuckle Ridge, who support it even though they live directly across Ga. Highway 74 from the Comcast Cable facility near where an extended McDuff Parkway is planned to terminate. “We think it is a good idea for the city,” Walden wrote. “Our grandson likes soccer, and we need to keep this city young.” Walden concluded to Brown, “Yes, please go ahead with this plan, even though I think it is ironic that you opposed the original annexation.” Since being linked to the Wieland project, Brown has been defending the change of face since his 2001 campaign, in which he suggested annexations only be allowed by public referendum. It was an idea born after then-Mayor Bob Lenox came out in support of a long-abandoned single-family residential plan in that area that included very dense zoning. At the time, Brown said, his opposition stemmed from the density of the proposal. Several of the city’s political and development insiders admit privately that Wieland’s preliminary plans look promising and should be considered seriously, though none were willing to go on record. Further, the amenities Wieland has indicated he may give to the city to make the West Village annexation happen are one-shot opportunities the city can’t afford to pass up, Brown said. In addition to the soccer fields, Wieland has indicated he’ll contribute to building a northside senior citizens’ center to relieve the overburdened Gathering Place next to the amphitheater, include a baseball recreation complex and a town-square type commercial center intended to evoke images of Savannah. Most vital and precious a gift, Brown said, is the McDuff Parkway extension, a road that could offer relief as a bypass collector from the nightmarish Ga. highways 54-74 intersection. As Brown described it, a quick shortcut from Hwy. 54 to Hwy. 74 via McDuff Parkway would relieve the intersection where the two highways meet. “All we’d be doing is fanning out the traffic,” Brown said. “It’s all we can do for now, as a city, make connections and spread out the concentration of traffic.” Unless the land is annexed by the city, Wieland has drawn up plans to make McDuff a dead-end cul-de-sac instead, Brown said. “Previous annexations benefited only the developer,” the mayor said. “By turning the table around and asking the developer to provide vital infrastructure, the citizens view the proposal as a ‘win’ for the city. In addition, I told the Wieland people to only come with their A-plus product if they want it to work.” That means single-family homes starting in the upper $300,000 to $400,000 range, and senior housing for retirees and empty-nesters that will be in the top tier of that market. “The westside development might only be second to the Livable Centers Initiative Hwy. 54 West project in terms of the developmental benefit to the city,” said Brown. The committee of residents will meet again soon to hash out the details and raise concerns. “If they like what they see, then we’re going to ask the City Council to let the staff consider it,” explained Brown of the difficult process. No estimate on when that might be has been offered, and a second meeting of Brown’s informal citizens’ committee has yet to be scheduled.
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