In the face of furious neighborhood opposition, a developer Monday night abandoned his plans to seek a dense redevelopment of three spacious lots along Robinson Road on Peachtree City’s eastern border.

City Planner David Rast announced at the beginning of the Planning Commission meeting that William Gibson Jr. of Georgia Classic Homes withdrew his request to rezone the Freeman, Jones and Carter tracts at the northeast corner of Robinson Road and Spear Road from ER (estate residential) to LUR (limited use residential).

Rast’s announcement elicited applause from the sizable crowd. The majority of the crowd left immediately after Rast’s announcement.

Gibson informed Rast of his decision via email at 10 a.m. Monday.

“He sensed the opposition,” Rast said. “He did not want to fight anybody and create a bad name for himself.”

When asked if Gibson would bring his rezoning proposal before the planning commission again in the future, Rast said, “The option is there, but it’s highly unlikely.”

Gibson had wanted to combine the three tracts, located in between Spear Road and the Peachtree City United Methodist Church, into one parcel and develop a 46-lot cluster residential subdivision.

He received opposition from many citizens and several planning commissioners, including Chairman Marty Mullin.

Several neighbors who would have been affected by the rezoning attended a workshop held by the planning commission earlier this month. They vowed to attend every city meeting in which the issue would be discussed in an effort to defeat Gibson’s plan.

Only one person who attended the workshop spoke in favor of the project, and it happened to be one of the landowners who planned to sell his property to the developer of the project.

City staff had recommended that the proposed rezoning not be approved. Rezoning the properties to the LUR classification, as requested by Gibson, would have been inconsistent with Peachtree City’s land use map and land use plan, plus it would have created a “spot zone” within an established subdivision of low-density residential lots.

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