The planning board and board of commissioners recently approved a new entertainment facility off of SR 141 in South Forsyth.
New Project
Peachtree Puttery, as listed in the drafts proposed to the planning commission, is slated to take an approximately 9-acre piece of land and convert it into a significant entertainment facility. The complex will be comprised of four buildings that including a hotel, restaurant, retail, a bowling alley, an outdoor recreational facility, and miniature golf course. The hotel will be a Tru by Hilton and is a three story building with 110 rooms. The indoor commercial space will total about 16,400 sq ft, with 31,800 sq ft of indoor recreation space, and 53,068 sq ft of hotel. The entertainment facility will be located at 2310 Peachtree Parkway, Cumming, GA 30041.
Public Opposition
During the public comment on the proposal, residents of the nearby Sentinel Chase community voiced major concerns regarding the development. The property backs directly up to a small residential development causing alarm due to various quality of life questions. Residents spoke up against the proposed outdoor speakers at the facility, worried about excess noise, and similarly spoke against the lighting at the facility with concerns over light pollution. The most significant outcry was related to the placement of a hotel on the property with residents concerned about travelers being able to look directly into their master bedrooms and homes due to the height and placement of the building. Other concerns were in relation to the placement of dumpsters on the property with some residents expressing that they didn't want dumpsters within "500 ft" of the neighborhood. Runoff due to the impervious surfaces associated with the commercial property sparked more worries about flooding. Furthermore, traffic patterns were a massive sticking point as they worried about additional traffic due to missed turns, increased demand, and already deficient traffic patterns associated with SR 141 would make the establishment a hazard to residents and their children. Various other complaints included potential crime, the presence of alcohol, and potential for adversarial commercial businesses (tattoo parlors, liquor stores, etc.).
Variances and Alleviation
The developer, S1 Properties LLC, sought to alleviate concerns by pointing out various measure they'd taken and conditions that they'd agreed to that make the property a good fit for the area. They have since updated the location of the Hotel to be as far as possible from the residences and provided drone footage of what travelers might see from the hotel windows, which appears to be almost entirely blocked from residences by foliage. The developers also plan to add an 8 ft privacy fence approximately 6o ft from the residential buildings, far beyond the mandatory minimum required by the county. S1 Properties LLC also agreed to move the placement of the dumpsters to a location further than 100 ft from the residences, as some of the requests by residences would place them on Peachtree Parkway. Another condition was to only place ground level speakers on the property and to not have candlelight bulbs greater than 6 inches in length, to counter concerns of noise and light pollution. They also plan to keep additional foliage to protect some additional homes from the entertainment facilities presence and will continue to comply with any water regulations as well as additional traffic changes as they become clearer. The planning commission board also pointed out that adversarial commercial businesses (like tattoo parlors and liquor stores) would be required to go before the board for approval any way, which it would be unlikely to approve.
S1 Properties LLC also brought up a condition that was required when the neighborhood was first built. When approved, the seller and future sellers were required to notify the future residents that the property in question would likely be changed from residential zoning to commercial zoning, which many of the owners seemed to be unaware of. This prompted skepticism of the actual implementation of that condition, though it did not affect their decision to approve the rezoning of the property to CBD and vote in favor of the design.
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