Peachtree City Mayor Bob Lenox made crystal clear his position on certain points regarding the city's sewer policy, specifically in response to questions raised in a recent editorial by the publisher of the Peachtree Citizen Review.

Publisher Cal Beverly stated in his column in the April 23 edition that the City Council, and Lenox in particular, made a "pledge" when the city acquired the sewer system never to extend its services beyond the city limits in the future.

The column was motivated in part by actions at the April 15 City Council meeting, where Water and Sewerage Authority director Larry Turner informed the council of Senoia's desire to discuss the possibility of purchasing sewer service from Peachtree City.

Councilwoman Annie McMenamin asked if the council had not promised its residents to never make such a move. Neither Lenox nor the other council members responded to that question during the meeting, and McMenamin asked that the minutes from the relevant meetings be checked out.

Lenox said last week in an interview with The Citizen that the minutes were pulled from the public meetings where the issue was discussed, and there was never any such commitment. He added that a copy of the minutes were being sent to Beverly so that he could review them.

"What we said was we'd have to be very careful about doing so, and that decision had to be reserved to the City Council and not the Water and Sewerage Authority, because it's essentially a political decision," said Lenox. "My only answer is, factually, I never said that, and secondarily, we're doing exactly what I said we'd do if the question ever came up."

On that point, some of Beverly's comments seem to back up what Lenox said. According to his column, in a press conference announcing the sewer service acquisition, "Lenox answered that he couldn't imagine a situation where the city would ever want to sell its sewer service beyond city residents. In fact, Lenox emphasized, the water and sewer authority couldn't even talk with anybody else about such a subject without getting permission first from the city council."

That statement, while not a firm commitment one way or the other, is one that Lenox acknowledges he could very well have said in a forum other than an actual City Council meeting.

"When we did the public hearings, those were of extreme importance a $27 million investment and we were being real careful what we said and promised people," said Lenox. "When Annie raised that question, I went, 'What? I never said that.' I couldn't imagine I ever would have said that.

"Whether I said at a press conference or in a conversation somewhere else, 'We'll probably never extend sewer service outside the city and I can't imagine why we'd want to' could I have said that? Yeah, I could have said it."

As for the issue of whether to make a deal with Senoia, Lenox said the city doesn't currently have a position either way, but that decision cannot be made without gathering all of the facts.

Senoia is requesting approximately 300,000 gallons of sewer capacity per day, which "in the cosmic scheme of things, is not an enormous amount," Lenox said. According to Turner's comments at the City Council meeting, Peachtree City will have a capacity of four or five million gallons in a few years.

"But they've [Senoia] got some serious problems in the downtown area," said Lenox. "They know they've got a little jewel there downtown if they treat it properly, so they would like to grow that downtown area a little bit. I thought that was worth talking about."

Lenox acknowledged that the Planning Commission keeps a close eye on potential developments in unincorporated Fayette County on the outskirts of the city, because some of those developers could come and request sewer service and/or annexation from time to time.

Another issue raised by Beverly was the possible annexation of a large tract of land bordered by Ga. highways 54 and 74, Line Creek and Coweta County.

"The city seems to want to get all the land owners to agree to a West Village plan that would increase the currently allowable housing density by a factor of five to 25," said Beverly, who went on to point out the lack of septic tank capability on the wetlands portion of the property and the railroad tracks limiting accessibility.

"But, if Peachtree City has its way, the land will come in zoned for a range of commercial uses, apartments, condominiums and houses on lots well under a quarter-acre each and sporting a big, traffic-clogged bridge over the railroad tracks," he continued.

Lenox said that the property in question, specifically 400 of the 1,400 acres on that tract, was once the subject of a lawsuit because of a former zoning quirk that allowed apartments in commercial zonings.

"Some developers sprung it on us and came in with a plan to pour 1,200 apartments into that area," he said. "We went to court and succeeded in getting the number of apartments reduced to 399."

The developers returned with a site plan that called for some commercial property and a subdivision of about 225 houses, in addition to the apartments, on the 400-acre portion, leaving 1,000 acres undecided.

"Where Cal is factually wrong in his editorial was that we have publicly stated and in fact had public hearings on it last year what we specifically said, and what our citizens told us, was that they felt it would be a good idea for us to annex that area, because the only way to get to it is through Peachtree City, and so that we could control how it was developed," said Lenox.

Several conditions have been made concerning the 1,000 acres, Lenox said. Among those were the total absence of multifamily housing, a school space donated by the developers, the appropriate amount of park space and green space, and the only commercial space being what the city calls "neighborhood convenience." The tract also will have to consistent with the look and feel of the rest of Peachtree City, he said.

"From a density standpoint, we've told the land owners the absolute maximum they can build in there would be about 1,500 homes," he said. "That would be about the same density as the rest of Peachtree City.