I own a small company that does freelance photography and graphic design work in the Fayette and Coweta County areas. For full disclosure, I live, and therefore vote, in Coweta County. However, much of my business is serving Fayette County, and especially Peachtree City, residents.

I have been actively researching commercial real estate in the Peachtree City area because I would like to open a centrally located studio space to better serve my clients.

I can do that, in Peachtree City, for $28-30 per square foot per year in or behind The Avenue, $24 in Kedron, $17.50 at Westpark Walk, $25 with a yearly 15-percent rent increase in the Wal-Mart shopping center.

Two local photographers have recently shuttered their doors and put their studios on the market. So I could spend $330,000 to $500,000 purchasing an acre of land and an old house that has been zoned commercial.

I could spend nearly $500 a month for a 12-foot-by-36-foot box on Huddleston Road. No central air conditioning in that one, but I’m debating whether or not I could stand the broiling summer heat in order to avoid $20,000-plus in leasing a facility in my first year as a start-up.

In order as above, for 1,500 square feet, I’d be paying the following in rent each year: $45,000, $36,000, $26,250, $37,500 (year 2: $43,125, year 3: $49,600). Those totals do not include utilities. Nor do they include “common area maintenance” fees – at an average of $3 per square foot per year, add $4,500 to those totals.

At these prices, it is simply not possible for many small- or mid-sized businesses to open in your community. Not because we don’t want to. But because builders are allowed to build, and build, and build.

And then they put a Wal-Mart in. And a Home Depot. A Target. Kroger. And they put “For Lease” signs in the windows of the smaller places around the big box store.

Of course, they don’t really focus on renting those out – Wal-Mart and their 50,000-square-foot-based rental rate covers the cost of those empty spaces, plus a Porsche payment or five.

For the celebrity obsessed, it’s kind of like the outrageous amounts of money magazines will pay for exclusive rights to publish a certain couple’s baby photos, even offering to print blank pages in the magazine for the remainder of the year for the privilege.

The empty commercial spaces in Peachtree City are the blank pages.

The difference: there’s no telling how long the lease term is for Wal-Mart. Or Target. Or Kroger. My guess is that it isn’t renegotiated every year.

If the money is coming in just fine to cover your building expenses and then some, why bother with small- or mid-sized business owners who want to pay reasonable lease rates or start-ups who can’t commit funds to a multi-year lease term?

Clearly the Wal-Mart shopping center owners won’t, and don’t. See San Francisco Bread Company, Little Gym, Planet Smoothie and others.

Guaranteed rent increase? I’ll sign up for that – when they guarantee that moving in will increase my business by 15 percent each year. Maybe you should stick to hammers and nails, gentlemen.

My husband was driving in traffic on Ga. Highway 54 yesterday when he witnessed a violent accident involving a deer. With traffic speeds approaching 45 mph near (you guessed it) more empty commercial space, the deer ran across Hwy. 54 and was hit by at least two cars, sending the creature airborne before it landed on the ground.

When he told me, my first thought was, “I’m glad you weren’t hurt. I hope no one else was.” Then, I thought of a comment I’d read on The Citizen website, from the chauffeur mother concerned about her children watching the deteriorating carcass of another unfortunate animal killed on but not removed from the road.

There are a myriad of issues surrounding commercial building in Fayette County. But I’m especially concerned about what I view as continual disregard for community feedback on these issues. Nowhere is this more evident than with the ongoing warring over the Line Creek Shopping Center.

I understand it’s next to a nature preserve and that the interests of the builder are, at present, to purchase additional land to accommodate his retail playground plans.

There are already many, many empty commercial spaces in Fayette County. Despite this, businesses aren’t opening in droves – either because they can’t afford it (like me) or they see a rapid deterioration of the Peachtree City ideals that bring so many people to the area in the first place.

It strikes me as odd at best that decision-makers would ever dream of letting a big developer pillage preserved lands, especially when citizens, visitors and animals clearly feel the negative effects of this development.

Citizens see their prized, protected land taken away, sold to the highest bidder and their voices and objections unheard all the while. Visitors witness terrible accidents involving wildlife, carnage on the roads and countless empty storefronts as they drive through. Deer (and hundreds of other critters, no doubt) get booted out of their homes and forced out onto the streets.

Booted out of homes and forced onto the streets at the hands and fault of big business. Something about that rings familiar.

I’m not a red-paint-tossing PETA supporter fighting for the equal rights of animals. I have no political agenda. My general goals are to make art, make friends and make money. The citizens of Peachtree City have welcomed me and my small business with open arms. I’ve worked closely with McIntosh High School over the past school year. Parents are involved and creative. Administrators interact and praise. Science teachers show up to chorale performances. And the students. Oh! How bright, motivated and accomplished they are.

I’ve also met many small-business owners and lots of community members. They, too, are involved in and show a great want to better their community. On the whole, I’ve found Fayette County citizens to be smart, hard-working, thoughtful people.

Public opinion is not found in secret meetings. It isn’t hidden in deeply lined pockets and it doesn’t come out to play during backroom deals.

Public opinion is found on bumper stickers, on newspaper forums, in private homes and in businesses where service and community – not discounts and foreign made goods – are paramount.

Elected officials: you must start listening to your public and responding to their concerns as if they were your own. They are, of course.

After all, you live here, too.

Emily Ray

www.thefotolounge.com