The Peachtree City Council next week will face yet another controversy over property at Ga. Highway 54 and Walt Banks Road. The "Palm Beach" tract may well be the city's most fought-over piece of property.

Developer John Callaway has proposed an upscale shopping area called "The Mews" on the 33-acre tract, but must have an adjacent 19 acres rezoned for commercial use in order to make the 345,000-square-foot "village" work. Residents of Southern Trace, behind the property off Walt Banks, are adamantly opposed, despite concessions Callaway already has made in his plans.

The Peachtree City Planning Commission last month recommended that the residential-to-business rezoning be denied. City Council must decide another "living vs. shopping" controversy, particularly since a similar but smaller area of upscale retail stores is a "done deal" at the intersection of Ga. Highways 54 and 74.

Council will decide the shopping center's fate during its meeting Thursday, Jan. 7, 7:30 p.m. at City Hall.

Divided opinions

"I came to Peachtree City to live, not to shop."

That attitude is seen among diverse citizens banding together to oppose new commercial developments; the comment was heard in a private conversation at a planning commission meeting.

To others, a town without adequate shopping from milk to mink coats is not worth living in. They may say they are tired of traveling to Lenox Square Mall, Phipps Plaza or beyond to find the better retail stores, or elsewhere in Fayette to find discounters.

And in Peachtree City as nowhere else, developers face a phalanx of planners and citizens determined to see "highest and best" land uses, no naked lots before it's time for building and lots of trees.

Despite positions that are frequently adversarial, both developers and regulators are caught in the middle, as varying opinions of the residents (read: voters and spenders) fill meetings with newsworthy quotes. Builders sometimes push the envelope in the name of profit, while the city sometimes decides against its own experts. Both sides agree, however, that it's a system that works so far. In the backs of many minds is the fact that Hilton Head Island, S.C., to which Peachtree City's "planned community" is often compared, somehow managed to become overdeveloped and traffic-choked but it was all beautifully done.

Land-use locked

The city's development services director, Jim Williams, has stated publicly that Callaway's "Mews" should not be built at that location because changes to the city's Land Use Plan would be involved. It's the same land use plan, says council member Annie McMenamin, that has been successfully defended in the past in controversial lawsuits; a change might open the way for other challenges, she adds.

Williams recounts that residential zoning was in place on the Walt Banks-54 corner back in the 1980s, but the city agreed to a commercial classification for a community hospital.

"That fell through," Williams said, "and though we went back to the AR (agricultural-residential) zoning, the nose of the camel was under the tent."

Two lengthy and expensive lawsuits ultimately resulted in a compromise of zonings, with 15.5 of the 33 acres designated for retail, with the remainder for buffers along Hwy. 54 and office and institutional uses. Williams said there also was a 32,000-sq. ft. limit placed on the size of a single store there equivalent at that time to "the biggest store in town, the Big Star which is now A&P."

When court decisions played a part in the corner zoning, the 19-acre tract that Callaway is seeking to rezone and combine remained residential, according to Williams. Toward the end of the '80s, another developer sought to combine the "Heard" tract with "Palm Beach" for a 64,000-sq. ft. store, "and the public reaction was venomous," Williams said.

While Williams has praised the quality of The Mews development, he retains a skepticism born of long years of experience, he says.

He adds, "Without questioning the integrity of any developer, the projects we see and approve are not necessarily the ones that are built." He cites Callaway's willingness to quickly make "multimillion dollar decisions" to accommodate local opinion, such as removing a movie theater from the plans, and vowing to keep out discount stores, auto service, fast food and drive-in banking.

Callaway says reducing the size or scope of The Mews is not an option. He also maintains that unless the way is paved for his high-quality retail village, up to 405,000 square feet of stores and offices can be built on just the 33 acres under the existing zoning.

That would hopelessly tangle traffic on Walt Banks and subject area residents to the smallest possible buffers (50 feet), he said. Callaway has pledged a 250-foot buffer for Southern Trace and Parkway Estates, with the property just across from McIntosh High School as a five-acre park that eventually could become the site for a cultural center for Peachtree City.

Rick Schlosser of Metro South Realty Advisors, who represents two of the three property owners involved in the proposed Mews site, says that "without question" the land will still be sold and developed according to its present zoning, if The Mews rezoning fails.

"We assume that wonderful things will happen at that corner," Williams says, "but we have no assurances either way. Maybe if the doomsayers are predicting third-rate commercial uses, then a first-rate residential use is in order. I know we will hold that land to the same high standards that are in effect for the rest of the city."

Williams says he also believes that The Avenues shopping area at the 54-74 junction may affect traffic temporarily, but not after both highways are improved and widened. Cousins MarketCenters and Fickling Inc. have purchased 17 acres through Pathway Communities, planning "upscale" retail such as The Gap and Banana Republic.

Bill Bassett with the Cousins Company says that while the developers also looked at the Palm Beach and Heard tracts, "we think that City Circle is the right size and the right location." Most of the traffic The Avenue will generate, he says, "is already there, and we will have four ways in and out, one on each highway that will not involve going through the intersection." The 150,000-square-foot center is "just right for Peachtree City," Bassett says.