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PTC says ‘yes’ to Target, but annexation plan derailed

By J. FRANK LYNCH
jflynch@theCitizenNews.com

Target got the greenlight, but westside annexation was stopped dead in its tracks in an exhausting Peachtree City Council meeting that ran into the wee hours of Friday morning. The council voted 5-0 to approve Faison Corp.’s site plan for a Target store at the Kedron Village retail center, bringing to an end months of legal battles.

The decision, which included a host of conditions, paves the way for construction to finally begin on the 125,000 square foot Target and numerous other retailers. But also in the near five-hour meeting, the council turned down a request by John Wieland Homes’ to pursue annexation and development of more than 400 acres on the city’s westside, effectively sending the proposal back to the drawing boards.

The surprise 3-2 vote against annexation came after more than an hour of discussion and pleas from Wieland Vice President Dan Fields and residents. Neighbors closest to the land in question turned out in force to show support, filling the room with green “Vote Yes Phase 1 Annexation” signs. No one from the public spoke out against the annexation idea, but several councilmembers were critical of the lack of details included in Wieland’s application.

Fields outlined for the council some of the ideas brainstormed in a recent series of public meetings on the annexation, specifically plans to extend McDuff Parkway to Ga. Highway 74 and include a retail village of some kind.

“Allow us to work with the city staff and come up with a plan to present to you,” Fields implored.

But the request was met with skeptism. Stuart Kourajian, Steve Rapson and Judi-ann Rutherford all voted aginst moving forward, explaining that Wieland’s initial request was too vague on details.

Rapson, for example, was concerned with density and wanted to know how many homes Wieland was planning to build on the site to turn a profit.

The majority of the tract, which Wieland already owns, is now in the unincorporated county and zoned for two-acre homesites. Kourajian asked Fields if the company had seriously considered building the project in the county and still finding a way to build the road connection. He was also concerned about plans to have school buses cross the CSX tracks to the site.

Rutherford was concerned about what would become of hundreds of acres of land with multiple owners that isn’t part of Wieland’s tract, stretching north all the way to Tyrone.

In the end, only Mayor Steve Brown — who first approached Wieland about annexation to start with — and Councilman Murray Weed voted to move forward. But Weed prefaced his show of support by saying he had no intentions of approving any annexation request, but didn’t want to stand in the way of Wieland studying the idea with input from city officials.

After the vote, Fields said he and Wieland designers would prepare more detailed proposals and bring it back to the council at a later date.

After the annexation decision, the council went into executive (closed) session with city attorneys for 90 minutes to hash out last-minute recommendations on the Faison project. That was followed by a two hour open discussion in which council members, city attorneys, lawyers and project designers for Faison, and members of the Lake Kedron Homeowners Association who were party to the lawsuit all went down their lists of requests.

Much of the compromise centered on the design of the Target store itself, which will be owned by Target’s parent company, Dayton-Hudson Corp. The rest of the development will be separately owned.

Representatives of Faison said they worked hard to match up the architectural style of the new addition to the present Kroger strip center that sits on the site now, as well as meet requests by the city for extensive landscaping.

Residents left pleased with the final plans for new access roads into and out of the project, which will require new traffic lights at Ga. Highway 74 North and Georgian Park, and Peachtree Parkway and Georgian Park.