Controlling access to the city's sewer system gives Peachtree City leaders a powerful bargaining chip when dealing with development on or near the city's borders -- and they are not afraid to use it.
A case in point is the 77 acre commercial / office zoned tract along Highway 74 across from Redwine Road, located just south of the city limits.
Late last year, the previous city council rejected an annexation and rezoning request that would have brought 18 acres of the site into the city limits, while providing sewer access to the entire development.
Less than eight months after threatening to build a 14-acre septic spray field adjacent to Meade Fields to support the commercial / office project, the developer, Southern Pines Plantation, is headed back before the city council this week to again pursue a sewer hook-up.
Southern Pines will seek council permission Thursday to take the first steps of a new annexation and rezoning request for the 77 acre tract.
This time, the company wants to bring an as-of-yet unnamed light industrial manufacturing plant to the site.
According to Community Development Director David Rast, the proposed tenant is a "third generation family owned business" with "165 non-union employees" working in "light metal fabrication combining electrical welding, grinding, refrigeration, woodworking and other trades performed in house."
This time, Southern Pines is asking for the entire site to be annexed, something then mayor Harold Logsdon asked for in December of last year.
At that time, Southern Pines' Jim Wells and Peachtree City Water and Sewer Authority Chairman Wade Williams implored city council to accept the deal, which would have annexed just 18 acres, but given the city 14 of those for a Meade Field expansion.
In exchange, Southern Pines would have paid for the water and sewer authority to construct a gravity line adjacent to the development, giving the office and commercial sections of the project access to Peachtree City's sewer.
Following a recommendation from Rast and the planning commission, the former Peachtree City city council of Doug Sturbaum, Cyndi Plunkett, Steve Boone and Harold Logsdon rejected the proposal in a 4-0 vote.
Wells said after the rejection he felt the city was hedging its bets that he would not develop the site without sewer. At the time, he promised that would not be the case.
"We have six projects on the drawing board as a company and two are currently funded. This is one of the two and I'm going to take advantage of that," Wells said last year.
"There is an immediate market for phases of this project."
Wells even took the tract back before the Fayette County Board of Commissioners early this year to clean up several property lines to make way for the commercial development.
However, the down economy and the value of connecting to Peachtree City's adjacent sewer line appears to be a sticking point with investors.
The commercial project remains dormant. The new proposed light industrial tenant also wants sewer access -- and is apparently willing to forgo the county's more relaxed building restrictions to do so.
On Thursday, the council will only decide if the applicant can move on to step two of the annexation and rezoning process. If the developer is allowed to continue, it will then appear before the planning commission prior to coming back before council.
This development dates back to 2000, when the Fayette County Board of Commissioners rezoned a large chunk of acreage along Highway 74 South near Meade Field from Agricultural/Residential to Community Commercial and Office Institutional -- despite a request by Peachtree City not to do so.
Southern Pines brought forth the original request a decade ago and has owned the undeveloped property continuously since.
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