Part of 50-foot landscape buffer to be cleared for driveway on scenic road

A new office building planned for the eastern tip of Aberdeen Parkway will get the second-ever curb cut along the picturesque route.

City officials said Thursday there is no ordinance to prevent such from occurring, but Councilman Don Haddix pleaded with the developer to try and come up with a way to not cut a driveway on Aberdeen. Councilman Steve Boone said his main concern was the possibility of increased auto accidents.

Nonetheless, council approved several variances to allow the 11,000 square foot office building to proceed, including one that allows a stormwater swale to be built in the city’s required undisturbed 50-foot buffer.

City officials said the driveway installation would require most of the landscaping in the area to be cleared anyway, but trees would be replanted in the area of the swale. That landscaping issue will be addressed when the developer prepares a landscaping plan that must be approved by the city’s planning commission.

Several residents spoke out against the variances, saying the curb cut along Aberdeen was unnecessary since the building will also be served by a driveway on Northlake Drive.

Resident Lynda Wojcik said in her view the city should only allow buffer variances when there is a hardship on the developer.

In this case, the driveway on Aberdeen “is for their convenience,” Wojcik said.

City Planner David Rast noted that this is the only undeveloped tract left on Aberdeen Parkway.

Rast said the fire marshal might have a problem with eliminating the driveway since two sides of the building do not have access to a paved surface for fire apparatus.

The vote to allow the buffer variance was unanimous. The developer also received a variance to allow for fewer parking spaces and a reduction of the rear landscaping buffer from 10 to five feet.

“I don’t see any way to deny that entrance,” Haddix said.

Prior to the newly-approved right-in, right-out curb cut, only the huge Dolcé Conference Center (built as a Pitney-Bowes training center in the mid-1980s) had even a single driveway access to the signature parkway in Peachtree City.

Now there will be two, including the new one for Northlake Woods office building, which will abut the historic Whitlock family cemetery next to Aberdeen Shopping Center on its south side and Westpark Court on its west side.

The developers, H&R Land Development Corp. and Northlake Woods Offices, LLC, were represented by Newnan attorney Melissa Griffis.

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