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PTC annexation: I’ve heard this bad
tune before

By CAL BEVERLY

Like those horror movie zombies, the West Village annexation just won’t stay dead.

The Peachtree City Council this Thursday will again take up annexing vacant land to add so-far unrevealed population density, multifamily dwelling units and commercial areas to the city’s traffic-choked west side.

Before its burial in August 2000, former Mayor Bob Lenox, who famously proclaimed that he knew “more about the West Village than anyone else” produced a PowerPoint presentation hawking its supposed benefits.

At that time it was 900 acres and many multifamily dwelling units (read “apartments”).

The Citizen conducted a front-page poll: Who wants to annex this property?

Not quite five years ago, an astounding 93.8 percent of our respondents said, “Not us!”

Now, five years after a publicly generated hurricane blew Lenox’s annexation dreams over the rainbow, a more compact, 400-acre version is sneaking in under a guise of traffic relief. It couldn’t be more bogus.

Annexation’s latest incarnation is assaulting us again thanks solely to yet another Peachtree City mayor, this time named Steve Brown.

Is this the same Steve Brown who vociferously opposed the Lenox dream development five years ago publicly and privately? Yes.

Is this the same Steve Brown who ran for mayor in 2001 on a platform of opposing all annexations without a majority vote of the people affected, the voters inside the city? Yes, the very same Steve Brown.

So what has happened in four years to turn a vocal opponent of annexation into the leading advocate of shoehorning in more density, more traffic, more commercial development, more everything into the Westside?

What happened to the mayoral candidate who more than once proclaimed Lenox to be a developers’ favorite?

Who was it who last year went to John Wieland Homes and lobbied them and cajoled them into coming up with a new annexation proposal just for the Westside? Steve Brown? Yes, the very same.

Who was it last year who convinced the city council to throw away their annexation moratorium in favor of a much more developer-friendly “annexation process”? Steve Brown? Yes, the very same annexation foe of four years earlier.

One of our poll respondents in 2000 said of the annexation proposal then: “I do not believe our mayor should be a stoolie for developers.”

Has our current mayor become a stoolie for developers? His actions today speak louder than his words of four years ago.

In a column published in August 2000, I wrote the following:

“Developers want annexation into a city almost exclusively for one reason: more money.

“They want access to at least two things a city automatically provides: Higher density zoning and sewer service to facilitate that higher density housing.

[Editor’s note: Wieland already has sewer access to the 400 acres, thanks to an abominable sewer deal the city agreed to in the mid-1990s. However, under current county zoning, already defended in a court case, only about 200 homes could ever be built in the area if it stays outside the city.]

“Is higher density a good thing, a neutral thing or a bad thing?

“Depends on your perspective. One thing for sure: higher residential density brings worsened traffic and the sudden need for more government services and added school classrooms.

“Remember that cities have no legal obligation whatsoever to annex new land. No obligation even to listen to annexation pleas. They can tell developers to go farm it.

“So why would any city even entertain the idea of annexing new territory?

“Simple: money and power.

“Some city officials salivate at the prospect of added tax revenue, although residential development almost never pays in taxes what it costs in taxes for services. It does, however, build bureaucracy — more government clerks needed to send out more tax bills, more cops and fire fighters needed to serve the added population, and on and on.

“Some politicians like being in charge of bigger populations. Mayor of 50,000 sounds better than mayor of 30,000 — right?

“That’s just human nature. One particular politician I remember felt that service to his local school board didn’t fully tap his talents. He went on to be president.

“Nothing wrong with that. But you need to recognize agendas that don’t appear in the official records.

“One city that grew way beyond its historic circle is Fayetteville. There was a dark side to the sudden growth in the mid-1980s, and that got a whole group of city council members thrown out and replaced by a reform bunch, led by Mike Wheat, later mayor.”

That group a few years later undertook its own annexation blizzard, resulting in what is now a new hospital and a major retail center known as the Pavilion.

“In most cases, the developers wanted the city sewer and more favorable zoning and the city wanted more taxes.

“Tyrone has had its own case of annexation fever, expanding its north borders nearly to the Fulton County line. Unofficial reason: bigger town, more taxes.

“Always, the official reason will be something like this: We want to protect our borders.

“Well, horsefeathers.

“The concept of defensive annexation is ludicrous in today’s Fayette County.

“In the name of “protecting our borders,” you get way more people, way more traffic and way more need for high-priced, usually duplicated government services, and way more taxes out of your wallet.

“We city folks ought to be glad there’s some county left as undeveloped, low-density land that cities haven’t gobbled up yet. And we ought to tell our local elected officials: leave it alone!”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.