The year 2007 will prove to be a defining moment in the history of Peachtree City. Whether the definition will be viewed in the future as positive or negative depends upon the course that is selected today.

The path to our future quality of life must be cleared by the elected officials. At present, we do not possess a transportation or land planning leader on the City Council. Each member of council brings certain strengths and weaknesses to the table, and it so happens that knowledge on growth-related issues is wanting.

Probably the council’s most lucid decision-maker on growth issues is Councilwoman Rutherford, and she just resigned. Mayor Logsdon has taken aggressive action on various growth issues, but he has pushed non-productive measures in favor of sprawl-like big box development and jagged annexations.

I believe inaction, such as the TDK issue, can be as fatal as actively moving in the wrong direction. The council’s hesitancy to appeal the GRTA ruling is a big mistake and could cost us dearly in the future.

The city is soliciting input from the public on July 26 as it makes the finishing touches on a new comprehensive plan. I gave my concerns at the June 19 town hall meeting. Here is an overview of what I believe we need to concentrate on into the future.

In my opinion, the least dense metropolitan Atlanta counties in 2030 will be the most sought-after areas. We need to work on diplomatic solutions to alleviate future traffic and land use problems. Coweta County’s current land plan will bring us all down, and we need to have a serious dialog with them about our future.

Recently, the town of Tyrone raised some objections to Peachtree City’s westside annexation. Unfortunately, Peachtree City officials snubbed Tyrone and refused to discuss their concerns. We must have better cooperation.

Several years back, I submitted the concept of creating a grade separation at the intersection of Georgia highways 74 and 54. The grade separation does appear in the transportation plans. However, we need to begin on the engineering for that project immediately and establish how to acquire the funding for its implementation.

The truth is we have some sections of older housing stock on the verge of dropping to third tier shelter. We need to set some plans into motion to revitalize this older stock. Having large sections of rental housing will cause problems. Our demand to capacity ratio has saved thus far in the real estate market, but more and more housing is coming on line all around us.

Crime rates will continue to climb. We need to work on innovative ways to inhibit crime on our cart paths and control vandalism and graffiti. Read Malcolm Gladwell’s book “The Tipping Point” to see what controlling vandalism and graffiti did to New York City’s crime rates. We have been especially slow responding to graffiti.

If the traffic bottlenecks at the intersection of hwys. 74 and 54 again, the West Park shopping center – with its horrible access – will be in big trouble.

The new comprehensive plan should include strong language on the city’s efforts to preserve green space and tree buffers. We do not need a repeat of Hwy. 74 South whenever we widen roads in the future.

The plan should include language discouraging “big box” type development and encourage the preservation of our long-standing village style development patterns.

It would be extremely smart to move the new CSX rail spur along Hwy. 74 to a less threatening location. With thousands of houses and possibly a new school nearby, the rail spur presents a HAZMAT disaster scenario.

We must be leery of creating any new, non-critical city venues without voter consent. Expanding the city’s maintenance and personnel costs will certainly be followed by raising taxes.

We should look at creating individual overlay zones for each of our village centers to avoid “cookie-cutter” redevelopment across the city.

We must begin a serious dialog with Coweta County regarding our need to protect Falcon Field from large residential encroachments.

We need to begin a dialog with the Board of Education on stabilizing school attendance districts to reduce uncertainty and maintain healthy real estate sales.

On redevelopment, we need to avoid knee-jerk reactions. The problems with the Braelinn Village shopping center have more to do with the out-of-town management than the center itself.

We need to learn from development missteps like Lexington Circle. Then-mayor Bob Lenox did an admirable job of trying to piece together a plan for that site. However, the plan was unrealistic and several of the property owners have failed to act in a productive manner.

The current talk about adding “more density” to Lexington Circle to improve the site will cause significant problems, especially with school districts. We should not change our development patterns so that a landowner can obtain well above average profits for his land.

Our traditional village style development model is not the obstruction to making that area better. The high prices set by the land owner in addition to the proximity to the church and high school (no alcohol sales for restaurants, etc.) is the problem.

Unfortunately, the westside annexation process failed to master-plan all of the property in that particular area, leaving 89 acres to literally be fought over when the future development plans reach City Hall. We need to create some direction for that site in the new comprehensive plan.

Steve Brown

stevebrownptc@ureach.com

Peachtree City, Ga.

[Brown served as Peachtree City mayor from 2001 to 2005.]