Plan to force replacement of landscaping elements tabled

A more stringent requirement for property owners to replace landscaping that dies or becomes damaged has been tabled by the Peachtree City Council.

Several council members expressed concern about the “acts of God” portion of the ordinance, which included a reference to age, disease and insect infestation. Under the proposed ordinance, if vegetation is damaged by acts of God, including weather-related problems, the developer or property owner wouldn’t be required to replace the vegetation. Instead, the developer or property owner would be “encouraged” to replace the vegetation.

Councilwoman Judi-ann Rutherford said she didn’t feel the loophole should be so big.

“I have a problem with age, disease and insect infestation being an act of God,” Rutherford said.

The city’s landscape ordinances over the years have been more stringent than many communities in terms of planting requirements. The city recently approved an ordinance that requires developers to submit a tree survey before and after site development which show all vegetation that is two inches or larger in diameter.

Currently, if any such vegetation is removed without city approval, the owner is required to replace it on a size-for-size basis in the tree save and landscape buffer “at the discretion of the city landscape architect.”

Councilman Stuart Kourajian, who agreed with Rutherford about the citation of “age, disease and insect infestation” as acts of God, also cracked wise about the issue.

“An act of God? That would be locusts I guess, not pine beetles,” he said.

At first, council suggested City Planner David Rast should prepare a separate board of volunteers to arbitrate alleged landscaping violations, but Rast said the city’s existing Tree Board could be used instead.

The ordinance amendment will be brought back before council at a future meeting with changes.

In other business, council approved new parking regulations that will lead to the greater use of pervious parking spaces. Pervious parking spaces allow water to filter through the ground instead of running the various contaminants off into the city’s stormwater system.

A recent example of pervious parking is at the Peachtree City Library, where gravel has been used for some parking spaces to help meet the parking need for the newly expanded facility.

The new ordinance requires developments using more than the city’s minimum required parking spaces build 70 percent of the additional spaces as pervious parking.

No development is allowed to have more than 25 percent above the minimum parking guidelines.

A new version of the parking ordinance was also passed by council, which is more detailed than the previous version, creating minimums for specific uses such as restaurants. The previous version of the ordinance had more limiting categories and it could be confusing at times to figure out what the minimum number of spaces was for a given project, Rast said.

Council also approved the final change order for the library expansion, which increased the price by $31,761 and left $33,305 in the contingency portion of the budget. More than $20,000 of the change order was to replace unsuitable soil on the lower driveway before it was paved. Another $4,086 was added for the construction of handrails at the exterior steps.

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