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PTC council denies Walgreens request

By JOHN MUNFORD
jmunford@TheCitizenNews.com

The decision didn’t come down until after midnight, ironically when a 24-hour Walgreens would have been one of the only pharmacy options in town.

But in the end, the City Council couldn’t fill the national chain’s request for a rezoning to locate such a store on the current site of the Christ Our Shepherd Lutheran Church, at the corner of Ga. Highway 54 and Peachtree Parkway.

Mayor Steve Brown was the only vote against the motion to deny the rezoning. He had argued the rezoning met the land use plan because the intersection is deemed a village center, which he interpreted to have a commercial use.

But City Planner David Rast explained that such village centers, as contemplated by the city’s 1985 master plan, were to include a mix of uses from commercial to office along with education and recreation. As such, Rast said, the current office institutional zoning for the church site was valid.

Rast also argued that approving the rezoning would set a precedent that could be used by other churches along Hwy. 54 to seek a commercial rezoning

Councilman Murray Weed predicted that the right-in, right-out entrance on Hwy. 54 planned for the store “would be a deathtrap.” He also criticized the traffic count figures provided by Walgreens, which didn’t include estimated traffic for the adjacent 10,000 sq. ft. building that would also be built on the site, possibly housing a bank.

The church was seeking the rezoning for limited use commercial for its 3-acre site, which church officials have said has long since been outgrown. Walgreens offered the church $3.5 million for the site, which is valued at $3.1 million for tax purposes, although the church pays no property tax.

Church supporters hoped for the rezoning so they could relocate to a larger tract, with room for recreation and parking. On the current site, some churchgoers have to park across the parkway at the parking lot of the Peachtree Crossing shopping center. And that’s on Sundays when the church has services going on at the same time on different ends of the church, just due to the space crunch.

Several city council members offered to work with the church and see if it is possible to work out a deal where the church can use vacant land behind the city’s fire station that borders the church property to the north. Church officials previously committed to moving from the property one day in the future so its ministerial offerings can be expanded.

The church had not put its property on the market under an office zoning because the Walgreens offer to purchase it came out of the blue, said Ted Thomas, a member of the church and a former member of the Peachtree City Planning Commission.

Some residents of the adjacent The Highlands subdivision complained that they worried about their property values declining because no one would want to move to a home in such close proximity to a 24-hour drugstore.

Robert Brown, who owns a home in Planterra Ridge, blamed the Home Depot and Wal-Mart superstore across the highway for hurting the sale of his home. He has since moved to a different home near McIntosh High School.