Tech students to unveil design suggestions

Fri, 10/23/2009 - 3:57pm
By: John Munford

Peachtree City’s storied history of planning is about to get another chapter.

A group of Georgia Tech architecture students has been studying the city’s village centers and will unveil its proposal at a meeting Wednesday at The Gathering Place at 4 p.m.

The city is not married to adopting the students’ concepts, but there is hope their vision can help chart the city’s future course in particular to help keep the unique village concept thriving.

The project kicked off in September when students met here to collect information from officials and city father Joel Cowan about the city’s beginnings and its current status. The students also got input from citizens at the meeting, asking questions to help direct their work.

The five-week program is led by Georgia Tech architecture professor Richard Dagenhart. The students have studied the centers and are preparing plans for how they can be retrofitted to insure they continue to serve their purpose.

Much of the citizen input at the kickoff meeting was in the form of encouragement to make sure to include the city’s vast network of golf cart paths in the designs. The city estimates roughly a million trips are made each year by golf cart, saving short car trips in most cases.

Because the cart path system is so unique several residents said the best way to learn about it was to hop on a cart and experience it themselves.

Other residents said they wanted the students to place a priority on preserving greenspace.

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