Fayetteville officials are hoping that plans for one shopping center on Ga. Highway 85 north will help solve problems associated with another.

If the plan works Pine Trail Road residents, who are practically surrounded by commercial development, may be pleased with the results.

Concerned residents are currently fighting to keep traffic off their road as developers plan a shopping center at its intersection with Hwy. 85. Directly across the highway is Thomas Enterprises' sprawling Fayette Pavilion, and waiting in the wings are 54 commercial acres that stretch from 85 all the way back to Morning Creek, running all along the northern border of the neighborhood.

Worried about traffic problems, crime, rainwater runoff from all the commercial parking lots, and even trash from business dumpsters blowing down their street, Pine Trail residents started fighting when a developer wanted to put a Super Wal-Mart on Hwy. 85 three years ago, and they have been regular participants in Fayetteville's planning process ever since.

The city Planning Commission has tabled Concordia Partners' development plans for a shopping center, hoping the company can work with the property owner next door to come up with a traffic plan that will reduce the impact of two new shopping centers on the neighborhood.

Piedmont Properties plans to develop a shopping center including up to seven restaurants on the 54 acres now occupied by Future Wood, said city chief planner Jahnee Prince. Piedmont spokesman Marvin Isenberg and Concordia spokesman Kent Rose met with city officials last week and laid out plans for a frontage road linking the two developments and directing traffic northward from Pine Trail to a traffic light that would be placed at the Future Wood site, said Prince.

It's not a new idea, but Prince said for the first time city officials are optimistic that the developers can pull it off.

"We're pretty well convinced he's going to get this light," she said. The Georgia Department of Transportation would have to approve any traffic light on the state highway.

The traffic light is key to the concept, because it would give drivers a convenient place to enter Hwy. 85, rather than queuing up to turn left out of Pine Trail. Currently, with just one business on the south corner of Pine Trail and 85, residents say they have to wait through several light changes to turn south, because of the heavy traffic coming out of Fayette Pavilion.

To give the developers time to flesh out their plans, the Planning Commission has tabled Concordia's development plans until its work session Dec. 8.

Meanwhile, residents went to last week's commission meeting to continue letting their feelings be known.

"Why do we need another shopping center?" demanded one resident who didn't give her name.

Commission members told residents that they are barking up the wrong tree. "The issue here is how it's going to look and how it's going to impact your neighborhood," said commission Chairman Bill Talley. The land for the shopping center is zoned for commercial development, and there is nothing the city can do to stop its owners from using the property, he said.

"He can build it with his money, or we can deny it and he can build it with the taxpayers' money after a lawsuit," said commission member Allan Feldman, prompting a scolding from Banks Road resident Barbara Anderson. "We are here concerned, worried, mad as the dickens, and you are talking to us in some instances in a very condescending way," she said.

Most residents said they understand the shopping center must be built, but they are drawing a line at the company's plans to put a curb cut on Pine Trail Road.

But even that is a line the city may not be able to draw, commissioners said. Concordia's plans show a curb cut serving a Chili's restaurant, which would be on an out-parcel not connected to the main part of the shopping center. City law prohibits a curb cut for the center, but not for a single parcel.

In an earlier meeting, Concordia spokesman Kent Rose presented the company's plans to spend about $500,000 improving the Pine Trail/Hwy. 85 intersection, including addition of a left turn lane and signalization to help residents and shoppers move onto the state road faster.

The intersection is the only way in and out of the neighborhood for some residents, and Rose insisted there will be less of a traffic problem after the shopping center is built than there is now.