Pathway Communities wants city permission to pre-clear three commercial lots on a six-plus acre tract on the north end of Commerce Drive.

The site has a substantial amount of rock that must be removed, Gene Levine of Pathway Communities said at Monday’s meeting of the Peachtree City Planning Commission. In fact, officials for Taco Mac restaurant cancelled plans to locate on one of the lots because of the dramatic cost of rock removal, said Levine, who is vice president of land development for the company.

That may not make it any easier for the company to get approval to pre-clear the site. Planning Commissioners Dennis Payton and Marty Mullin said they would much prefer a site plan that uses the entire 6.15-acre tract so less parking and pavement would be required.

“The way you’re planning on developing it scares me to death,” Mullin said.

Pathway plans for one of the buildings to house retail, one to house a restaurant and the other to be a hotel site.

“There’s no imagination,” Payton said of the rough-sketch site plan.

Levine said he knows there is interest in the three lots as currently divided, but he was unsure what the interest would be if the site were developed as one lot.

“We just don’t see it sitting for very long,” Levine said of the three-lot configuration.

The city has an ordinance covering the pre-grading and pre-clearing of sites, and Pathway was allowed to do so on three sites around town seven years ago. Only one of those sites has actually sold, officials confirmed.

Levine said the landscape buffer along Ga. Highway 74 would screen the lots from view of the highway.

The matter was discussed in a workshop format, so the commission was not required to vote on it. Pathway Communities may bring in one of its brokers to discuss the matter in further detail at another date.

“I’m not saying ‘no,’” Payton said. “I’m just real leery about it.”

In other business, the commission learned about an effort to develop a four-lot subdivision along Peachtree Parkway near the St. Andrews in the Pines subdivision. The 4-acre subdivision would have four lots and the homes, at sizes upwards of 4,000 sq. ft., would be priced in the million-dollar range, said developer Victor Daniel.

That discussion also took place in the workshop format and no vote was taken.

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