The two newest members of the Peachtree City Planning Commission, Rich Schumacher and Robert Ames, were welcomed aboard Monday night at their first meeting but had little time to sit back and get comfortable.

A sizeable crowd was on hand to see the latest round in the battle between developers looking to create a retail center on Ga. Highway 54 west and the local residents who do not want anything added to what they already consider a traffic nightmare.

The Planning Commission tabled RAM Development's conceptual site plan for the first phase of what is planned for the Huddleston property, a 139,000-square-foot Home Depot plus two outparcels. The second phase would contain a Wal-mart superstore.

Attorney Doug Dillard, representing the developer, urged the Planning Commission to either approve the plan or deny it, so that the applicant can appeal to the City Council if it so chooses.

But commission vice chairman Willis Granger said that the application was not clear about what the first phase of the project would entail.

“The application is not correct,” he said as he made the motion to table.

Wes Saunders, elected chairman of the commission at the beginning of Monday's meeting, asked if tabling the project required the applicant's approval, and city planner David Rast said it did not.

Rast said that the plan was significantly better than what it was a few weeks ago, but city staff still cannot recommend it one way or the other yet.

As expected, the main sticking point was the stipulation that a traffic study be done and its results have an impact on the approval or denial of the project. Dillard said that a traffic study would be done and made available to the city, but not before approval and its results cannot, by law, be the basis for denial.

Reading through portions of the city's ordinance covering site plan approval, Dillard said that his client's project met the requirements of the ordinance and the eight conditions outlined by city staff in its memo to the Planning Commission are not specifically covered in the ordinance.

The traffic ordinance, passed by the City Council at its Oct. 7 meeting, cannot be applied retroactive to this project because it had already been submitted, Dillard said.

Commissioner Jim Finney charged that Dillard, while saying he wanted to cooperate, was merely laying out a long list of things he thought the city must do. “Compromise goes both ways,” he said as the audience applauded.

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