Peachtree City UDO steering committee adopts mission, goals and timeline; adds quick‑wins to Phase 2

The Peachtree City UDO (Unified Development Ordinance) steering committee on March 24 approved a mission statement, goals and a three-phase work plan that sets a target to complete a consolidated UDO by December 2026 and directs the committee to identify quick wins during Phase 2.

The committee’s mission, read aloud by staff, is “to create the Unified Development Ordinance or UDO for Peachtree City that consolidates zoning, land use, site development, and building regulations into a single accessible document to enhance clarity, improve efficiencies, and support sustainable growth for residents, developers, and city officials.” Committee members debated scope questions — including whether building-department regulations should be folded into the UDO and the legal effects of doing so under state zoning procedures law — but chose to keep the mission broadly worded and defer detailed scope decisions to later phases.

The approved timeline divides the work into three phases: (1) setting the UDO foundation (January–June 2025) with an April–June run of outreach and creating an outline, (2) producing an initial consolidated draft (June–October 2025) with an explicit task to identify possible quick wins, and (3) finalizing the UDO (October 2025–December 2026) with structured legal review, at least two rounds of public education and multiple presentations to City Council (tentatively February, June and October 2026) before a final adoption in December 2026.

During public comment, Keith Larson, a member of the Transportation Advisory Group, urged the UDO team to coordinate with transportation efforts and raised public-safety and enforcement concerns related to golf carts, including a proposal to place tags on the rear of golf carts to aid identification after crashes or fleeing the scene. “Many residents have had issues and conflicts with carts passing them or in crashes and then fleeing the scene and not having an ability of the victims or witnesses to identify the fleeing cart because there’s no tag as it flees away or drives away,” Larson said. He offered materials the Transportation Advisory Group had prepared and said the group was available to collaborate on cart and bicycle parking, ADA references and other operational provisions.

The steering committee also directed staff to pursue outreach and transparency measures — including creating a website page with links to reference documents and setting up a dedicated UDO email address for public input — and asked staff to reach out to Fayetteville to learn from that city’s recent UDO process. Committee members emphasized that much of the work will be an organizational consolidation of existing ordinances; any substantive new ordinances identified during the review would be forwarded to City Council (and typically return to the Planning Commission for the standard public-review process) for separate adoption.

A committee member moved to approve the mission, goals and objectives with the addition of identifying quick wins in Phase 2; the motion was seconded and approved by voice vote. Staff said they would present an initial progress report to City Council in May 2025 and continue regular updates through the UDO process.