More trump cards may be played next week by persons seeking to locate apartments in Peachtree City, as the City Council holds a public hearing on rezoning a small part of Eric Edee's property on Ga. Highway 74.

The hearing will be part of the regular meeting at 7 p.m. Nov. 1 at City Hall.

If the council agrees to rezone the property, 220 apartments will be built according to a conceptual site plan already accepted by city staff and the planning commission. If the council denies the rezoning, Edee may continue to seek damages from the city related to the present lawsuit, and the city may have to agree to an apartment complex on smaller acreage, city attorney Rick Lindsey says.

Because the city is not in a good position legally, says city council member Annie McMenamin, the property owners appear to he holding the better hand, but she has hopes that the situation will be resolved for the good of all Peachtree City.

This Edee property has been a subject of controversy and litigation for several years. Just over 17 acres of the 21-acre property at Kedron Drive and Hwy. 74 is zoned for multifamily use (up to 10 units per acre), but a four-acre tract in the middle of the site is zoned AR, an agricultural classification that allows single-family homes on large lots.

Edee filed suit in 1997 in Fayette Superior Court against the city's moratorium on apartment development applications. On June of this year, Judge Paschal English declared the moratorium invalid. The city appealed the decision.

Nothing has been heard from the appeal, nor will any higher court decision be likely to support the city's position, according to Lindsey. Meanwhile, attorneys for the city and Edee have sought to reach agreement on a settlement.

In September, the City Council heard in executive session a draft agreement that had been worked out between the parties and came to a preliminary agreement with which McMenamin did not agree. She also cast the only dissenting vote when the development agreement was voted on at the Oct. 1 City Council meeting. The executive session discussion, she says, took place before the planning commission's review of the agreement at its Oct. 12 meeting.

At that meeting, the planning commission approved the "development agreement" which allows Edee's Peachtree City Multi-Family Partners Inc. (PCMFP) to submit an application for rezoning the four acres. The document also includes the following wording:

"(7) Upon rezoning of the 4 acres, satisfactory resolution of the buffer and landscape requirements, and issuance of the final building permit by the City, PCMFP will release their claim for damages in the lawsuit and both the City and PCMFP shall pay their own expenses and reasonable attorneys' fees. No lawsuits will be filed regarding any issues regarding the buffers as long as the Property is rezoned and the permits issued in accordance with the aforementioned schedule."

Part 8 of the agreement also states that PCMFP will submit a site plan for buffering, which has been received and approved by the staff as a "good plan," city development services director Jim Williams has said. Also in part 8, the agreement notes that "any variances needed from the buffer ordinances would be considered during the rezoning of the 4-acre tract. No buffer or landscape requirements shall be imposed on PCMFP that would lessen the density on both parcels (the 17.7-acre and the 4-acre tracts) below the density which is permitted by the zoning of the respective parcels."

McMenamin says that the above statement about buffer and landscape requirements seems to her to be a critical part of the agreement. Not only would the city be subject to longer and costlier litigation if rezoning is not approved, she added, but as the agreement stands, the city possibly could not secure the kind of buffers that might be needed. She says she has been told that the topography of the land is not suitable for apartments, and that the central location of the four acres does present a problem in site design.