By DAVE HAMRICK
Staff Writer

Owners of 20 acres on the southeast corner of Beauregard Boulevard and Grady Avenue in Fayetteville withdrew their plans for a 100-home senior subdivision in the face of strong opposition earlier this year.

Now they are back before the city Planning Commission with plans for just over half as many homes, 54, in a “neotraditional” neighborhood they are calling Apple Orchard.

The commission will vote next week on Charles and Mary Alice Odom's request to change the land's zoning from R-30 (requiring three-quarter-acre lots) to R-THC, which would allow town houses. The meeting will be Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. at City Hall.

The Odoms propose 54 single family homes, a minimum size of 2,100 square feet, starting from $170,000.

Lots would average 11,700 square feet, about a fourth of an acre. A park is planned at the center of the site.

Sandwiched between commercial property to the east along Ga. Highway 85 and neighborhoods with larger lots to the west across Beauregard, the property is the ideal place for a “step down” neighborhood, a transition from the commercial to the less dense residential areas, according to Dan Odom, son of the applicants.

“We want to create a Main Street look,” he told the Planning Commission during a work session last week.

Commission member Allan Feldman, known for his conservative approach to zoning, said he likes the plan. “I'm trying to find something I don't like about this project,” he said.

But some members of the commission weren't entirely convinced. “The problem I have is the density,” said member Segis Lipscomb. “I think it's zoned properly as it is,” added commission member Myron Coxe. “It's [zoned] according to the land use plan.”

But Feldman argued that the proposed density is the same as in Nancy Lane, a neighborhood just south of the site, and the commercial property next door to the east makes a zoning change appropriate. “R-30 on this property right next to C-2 [commercial] is really asking too much,” he said.

Mary Alice Odom said her family has held onto the property for decades while land all around was developed, including commercial projects along Grady Avenue, and she just wants the right to earn a profit on the land. “It's our turn,” she said.

“I feel very strongly that we should have been allowed to put some offices up on Grady,” she added. “We were there before any of the neighbors that we have now.”