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Council looks to tweak pocket bike, smoking ordinances

By JOHN MUNFORD
jmunford@TheCitizenNews.com

The ordinance banning the use of pocket bikes and other motorized play vehicles in Peachtree City may soon be tweaked.

Last month, the City Council banned the mini-motorcycles and similar devices from being used on some types of private property, but staff was asked to revisit the issue for a possible amendment.

The new proposal would allow pocket bikes and other motorized play vehicles to be used on commercial and industrial zoned property such as parking lots, as long as the driving areas aren’t accessible to public traffic.

The vehicles will still be allowed to operate on privately owned property with permission of the property owner. One change will allow homeowners associations to regulate usage of motorized play vehicles.

Another proposed change would allow pocket bikes and other motorized play vehicles to be used on privately owned residential property with permission of the property owner.

The changes will be considered by the Peachtree City Council at its regular meeting Thursday night at 7 p.m.

In other business, council is expected to hear a presentation from its consulting traffic engineering firm on a traffic study and projections for MacDuff Parkway.

The company, QK4, is not recommending to widen the parkway to four lanes, but instead suggests that it be extended to intersect with Ga. Highway 74 at North Kedron Drive “as soon as right of way and funding are secured.”

Doing so would require a bridge over the CSX railroad tracks, but that intersection already has a traffic signal.

If that can’t happen, QK4 recommends MacDuff be extended to the intersection of the southern end of Kedron Drive, which will require an at-grade crossing due to the proximity of the railroad to Hwy. 74.

QK4’s study took into account “compounded annual traffic growth plus future land uses which include the full build-out of the Centennial subdivision, a new elementary school and a proposed 360-home single-family development north of the city limits.”

That development is proposed by John Wieland Homes, which is seeking an annexation into the city. Wieland has proposed it would fully fund the extension of MacDuff to the southern intersection of Hwy. 74 and South Kedron Drive.

Council also will consider changes to its indoor smoking ban, chiefly removing the required “no smoking” signs. This and other changes are being suggested due to some differences in the city’s ordinance and the indoor smoking ban adopted by the legislature earlier this year, according to Administrative Director Jane Miller. The state, for example, only requires signs to be displayed if a facility allows smoking, Miller noted in a memo to council.

The changes proposed by staff also cover fines, which for a smoker found guilty of smoking in a non-smoking area would jump from the city’s current limit of $50 to anywhere between $100 and $500.

A staff proposal to forbid large scale burn permits for development of commercial properties and new subdivisions will also be discussed by council.

According to Fire Marshal John Dailey, a recent burn for the Phase 2 commercial development at the Kedron Village shopping center was halted by fire officials after citizen complaints of debris and ash settling onto their patios, cars and homes.

Such burns are performed by contractors who use large commercial blowers directed into large pits so fires can burn hotter and faster, possibly causing less debris and emissions leaving the site, Dailey explained in a memo to the City Council.

Fire staff spent eight to 10 hours following up on debris complaints from the Kedron incident, but only six similar burning permits have been issued in the last four years, Dailey said.