The Peachtree City Planning Commission anticipates a special workshop meeting "to discuss nothing but architectural standards review" prior to the city retreat in March, Jim Williams reported this week.

The architectural standards and methods for educating residents on compliance with the standards must be set up to work with new building codes for dealing with older homes or buildings that pose health or safety threats. The codes were approved by the commission at the regular meeting Monday.

The codes supplement others in Peachtree City which cover new construction. Older buildings have "not been a particularly significant problem in the past (but are) more of a problem each year as the building inventory ages," said Williams, the city's director of development services.

The meeting included the commission's third public hearing on the codes, in addition to having heard comments informally. Only residents who supported the codes spoke during the hearing. Frances Meaders, a retired city employee, said she felt the codes had been "needed for some time" and that "the older sections are fast deteriorating." Several residents encouraged the commission to include additional staffing for the building department in its recommendation for approval to City Council.

The codes approved for submission to council include a uniform "right of entry" section which provides that building inspectors must have a legitimate health or safety reason to enter private property, that they must obtain permission of the owner and at reasonable times, and that legal methods must be sought if entry is refused or the owner cannot be located.

The names for the new codes are the Standard Existing Buildings Code, 1988 edition as revised; the Standard Housing Code, 1994 edition as revised; and the Standard Unsafe Building Abatement Code, 1985 edition as revised. The approval motion included a stipulation that the Planning Commission be authorized as the Board of Appeals for the new codes, pending any overwhelming increase in workload.

The commission also heard a presentation on a conceptual site plan for AMLI apartments at Kedron Drive and Ga. Highway 74. The plan differs slightly from the one approved by City Council, but both city staff and some commissioners commented that new rearranged layout was an improvement over the first plan. The commission did require that because tennis courts had been removed from the site plan, AMLI make available its other tennis courts or provide on-site courts if the property is ever sold.

The commission also included in its approval a provision that the AMLI developers explore the possibility of a second entrance from the 217-unit complex onto Senoia Road. The only entrance now is off Kedron Drive, but the developers have said they will pay half the cost of a traffic signal at Kedron Drive and Ga. Highway 74.