As if the economy wasn’t troubling enough, a recent Georgia Court of Appeals ruling has complicated future growth in Peachtree City.
The court voided the city’s annexation of about 800 acres of land along Ga. 74 on the west side of town. Two developers planned to build about 1,000 residences, extend a road and construct a bridge across four-lane Ga. 74.
The court agreed with attorney and Peachtree City resident David Worley, who argued the May 2007 annexation violated state law by creating a small unincorporated island of land within the city limits. The city annexed that land in 2008, but the court said that didn’t fix the problem with the first annexation.
The land now reverts back to being in unincorporated Fayette County.
The issue isn’t dead yet. Developer Brent Scarbrough and John Wieland Homes and Neighborhoods will appeal the ruling to the Georgia Supreme Court.
Peachtree City’s council decided Thursday night not to appeal. Since the 2007 annnexation, the economy has tanked and the council membership has turned over completely.
“There are so many uncertainties we don’t know what makes economic sense for Peachtree City,” Mayor Don Haddix said. “We have such an inventory of homes it doesn’t make sense to build 1,000 new homes.”
Haddix said the developers had done little work because of the economic slowdown.
Peachtree City is a 50-year-old planned community of about 35,000 residents that's known for an abundance of golf carts. Much of the city’s growth in the past decade, including the construction of several big-box stores and new subdivisions, occurred on the west side of Ga. 74, the main north-south corridor that runs along railroad tracks.
The 800 acres is bounded on the west by Coweta County, on the north by Tyrone and to the east and south by Peachtree City.
The developers had agreed to extend MacDuff Parkway, which now dead-ends on the west side, so that it would connect to a bridge over the railroad tracks and Ga. 74. Many of the housing units would have been age-restricted, for people 55 and older.
Worley said he sued because "I didn’t think the annex was good for the city or its taxpayers. I had some objections about the way it was done, both the content of the annexation and the procedure."
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