The Peachtree City Planning Department and Comprehensive Plan Advisory Board hosted the first of seven public forums Thursday night at City Hall to help plan the future of the city for the next 20 years.

A sizable crowd attended the first forum, at which citizens were encouraged to provide feedback on what they feel the future of the city should look like and view stations for each of the city’s villages, which included background information on each.

“We just want to get as much information out there as possible,” said Peachtree City Planner/ Zoning Administrator David Rast. “These forums will bring a great perspective to what we’re doing. We want to solicit comments from the public to hear their vision for Peachtree City. Hopefully, this is something different from what other cities have done.”

Rast informed those in attendance that the city is not creating a new comprehensive plan. Its goal is to gather information from the meetings to be used to update the city’s comprehensive plan.

Peachtree City’s Planning Department and the Comprehensive Plan Advisory Board have been working since June 27, 2005, to complete the first two sections of the comprehensive plan update. Thus far, these efforts have included the Community Assessment and the Community Participation Program, both of which have been approved by the Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) and the Georgia Department of Community Affairs (DCA).

Thursday’s meeting featured individual stations for the city’s five six villages — Kedron, West Village, Aberdeen, Glenloch and Braelinn — and its industrial park. Each station displayed drawings, photographs and information specific to each of the city’s villages and its industrial park.

The Peachtree City Planning Department and Comprehensive Plan Advisory Board are nowhere near finished acquiring information on the villages and industrial park, Rast said.

“We want to go out into each village to solicit input,” Rast said. “We want to find out what type of information you want us to provide. The first part of the comprehensive plan is that we created a parcel-based map of Peachtree City. We did a physical inventory of every map of Peachtree City.

“We have as up-to-date information as we have ever had, to my information. We want you to give us your input. We’ll format that and bring it back for your review. This is more of an introductory and overview meeting.”

As part of the process to update the city’s comprehensive plan, Tony Bernard, a Peachtree City planning assistant, developed a Visual Preference Survey that can be accessed on the city’s website, peachtree-city.org/plan. The survey consists of 20 questions, and the results from the surveys will assist in preparing the city’s first Design Guidelines Manual.

“Your participation here really impacts our design guidelines for the next 20 years,” Bernard said. “Our objective is to further define the redevelopment of Peachtree City.”

Brian Jack, a summer intern for the Peachtree City Planning Department, discussed the four major questions the city faces now and in the future: transportation, residential, commercial and recreational and natural.

The transportation concerns include how to deal with growth in Tyrone and Newnan; whether the city will ever support an actual commuter rail service; and how the city can improve its cart path system.

The residential concerns include how well is Peachtree City equipped to accommodate its aging community; how it can provide affordable housing; and how the city can cope with the increasing demand for housing.

The commercial issues include where to encourage development; the need to create a downtown area; and whether the anticipated growth at Falcon Field Airport will have a positive or negative impact on future development.

The recreational and natural concerns include whether funding should be set aside for the maintenance and expansion of the multi-use path system; and what are the cultural opportunities for the city.

Upon entering the room where the public forum was held, there was a community participation comment board on which citizens could post their concerns and recommendations on sticky notes regarding Peachtree City’s future.

Some of the posted comments included providing a safer golf cart crossing for North Peachtree Parkway; increasing current buffers and enforcing them; stocking the Peachtree City lakes and Kedron with fish for recreational fishing; distributing students to schools to eliminate trailers; continuing community outreach to involve more residents; and restricting big retail development.

Once all the public forums are held, the Peachtree City Comprehensive Plan Advisory Board, the Planning Commission and City Council will compile all the feedback received from the public and present the information for review at several workshops (tentatively scheduled for November and December of this year).

Following the workshops, staff will prepare the Community Agenda portion of the update and present this to the Planning Commission and City Council for review. The documents will then be submitted to ARC and DCA for review prior to approval and official adoption by City Council.

Peachtree City’s next public forum will be held Aug. 23 at 7 p.m. at the Falcon Field Terminal.

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