Some who opposed the Mews project had predicted early on that they could work the city council so that not a single vote would be cast in favor of the project. But we know that the vote was not representative of the will of all of Peachtree City, for even after the Jan. 7 vote we were receiving unsolicited calls from residents from different parts of the city and from different walks of life in support of the project and willing to volunteer their time and effort in trying to ensure passage.

We thank all the people who showed us support, and in particular for sharing our vision of what might have been. That vision involved an upscale shopping village with exclusive restaurants and stores where people would want to congregate and pass their neighbors on sidewalks instead of on roads, and where a cultural arts center would find a natural home.

It was a vision of a project that would be uplifting not only for present generations but for later ones, and a vision for which this particular property, given its checkered past, seemed somehow especially destined. That everyone could not share this vision does not mean than it was incorrect.

The property which had so much potential will be developed, at best, in a manner which will be profoundly ordinary.

The planning department and city council have gone on record as supporting the current zoning, and the wisdom of that choice will be etched in brick and mortar on what is built on the property. It may be a legacy to which few in public life might aspire.

For it is not every day in an American community, after all, that a city council, heeding the fervent demands of its planning director and a handful of citizens, turns away the opportunity to bring a cultural center and stores such as Parisians to their town in favor of a zoning conducive to video arcades and bowling alleys.