Proposed Peachtree Corners City Borders Draw Criticism

The legislation presented earlier this year for the unincorporated Gwinnett County area known as Peachtree Corners has moved through the House and reached the Senate for review.

When the legislation was presented before the General Assembly as H.B. 396, it contained provisions for customary items such as the election process for a mayor and city council and qualifications for office, among many items.

But one item, the proposed city boundaries, has created some concern.

The proposed charter for the new City of Peachtree Corners calls for boundaries that extend southward to where Fulton, DeKalb and Gwinnett counties intersect. The proposed city limits extend northward to the Fulton-Gwinnett boundary at the Chattahoochee River and up to the city limits of the cities of Berkeley Lake and Duluth. To the east, the boundary is Buford Highway, a sticking point for some Norcross officials and residents.

“Those boundaries are inappropriate,” said State Senator Curt Thompson (D-Norcross). He said that the borders do not reflect what people think of as Peachtree Corners and that he suspects the reason is to make the proposed city more sustainable financially.

If the bill reaches the Rules Committee, Thompson said he would be speaking to Don Balfour, chairman of that committee, about the map. “Even though it is a general bill, it affects all of us in Gwinnett County,” said Thompson.

So why has the city's charter been written to include such a large tract of land? According to Mike Mason, president of the United Peachtree Corners Civic Association (UPCCA), it all has to do with the Peachtree Corners Overlay District, which was drawn up and approved by the county in 2007.

The purpose of the overlay district was to help in protecting land values by ensuring all property defined in the district would be maintained in a uniform manor, according to Mason.

"We had no intention of becoming a city in 2007," said Mason. But when it came time to draw up the boundaries for the proposed city, the overlay district had to be included, he said.

If the boundaries of the overlay district had not been considered, the charter for the proposed city could have run the risk of violating the Voting Act of 1965 and jeopardizing the Department of Justice's certification of the city's charter, said Mason.

Rep. Tom Rice (R-Norcross), who introduced the bill in January, said adjusting the borders to eliminate part of the overlay district was not an option. "It would have appeared that we were excluding minorities," he said.

Senator Thompson said he was not aware of any such law in the Voting Act, but that he may not have all of the information.

The proposed map appears to extend slightly further than the Overlay District, however, bumping up to Buford Highway.

Mason points to a Frequently Asked Questions document he put together, which explains the three-step process of creating the boundaries: “As a final step, we rounded the borders from the two steps above to the nearest arterial transportation route or existing City or County border.”

Representative Pedro Marin (D-Norcross) also voiced his concern recently about the proposed Peachtree Corners map. “As a second signee, I support the bill,” he said. “But I do not support the map.” Marin said he went so far as getting information together to amend the bill, before finding out it was introduced to the House under the Modified Structured Rule, which does not allow for amendments.

The charter must make it to the Senate calendar by the 40th day of the session to be considered, sometime in mid-April, by Thompson’s calculations. If the charter receives the Senate's approval, it will move to the governor's desk for his signature and the residents would be voting on a referendum by fall to decide if Peachtree Corners will become the county's 16th city.