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Wednesday, October 24, 2007 The Braselton News Page 5A RETAIL— continued from page 1A MAYFIELD — continued from page 1A Special events set at Mayfield Mayfield Dairy Farms will celebrate the 10 th anniversary of its Braselton plant with several special events this week. Through Friday, Mayfield will be selling its single-scoop ice cream at the 1997 price of $.50. On Thursday, Oct. 25, Scottie Mayfield, president of the com pany, will be signing autographs at the visitor’s center throughout the day. On Friday, Oct. 26, the mobile dairy classroom will visit the Braselton facility from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The mobile dairy classroom teaches students where milk comes from and how it is produced. Also on Friday, WNGC’s George Mason Dixon will do a live radio remote from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. drive-ins, such as coffee stores or drug stores, he said. Snedecor said there is no inten tion to open a fast-food estab lishment or other “less desirable” application. “This is designed to be a vil lage-type concept,” Snedecor said, while adding the development will have sidewalks and other mea sures to encourage customers to stay longer in the retail center. OPPOSED TO PLAN Mickey Wages, a resident of Chateau Elan, said he was opposed to any changes to the zoning con ditions. “I don’t think there was any desire for it to be just another strip center,” he said. Wages said any drive-in — even one for coffee shop — would not fit the proposed “village-type” concept for the development, as drive-ins would not encourage customers to spend time in the center and enjoy the environment. Grant Carlson, another Chateau Elan resident, said the shop ping center would not enhance Braselton’s appearance. He also said it would create a dangerous traffic situation at the intersection of Hwy. 211 and Liberty Church Road. Snedecor said the Georgia Department of Transportation has approved a traffic light at the intersection, which the developer will fund. Braselton planning director Kevin Keller confirmed that the Please Recycle This Newspaper DOT approved a traffic light at the intersection and engineering work is underway. RECOMMENDED APPROVAL The Braselton Planning Commission recommended that a zoning condition restricting drive-in windows to banks and dry cleaning establishments be removed. The planners also rec ommended that a conditional use permit for a drive-in restaurant be granted. Lensned also requested that a zoning condition requiring a 50-foot buffer adjacent to resi dential property be reduced to a 25-foot buffer. That request was also rec ommended for approval by the Braselton Planning Commission, which added that two rows of trees must be planted along the perim eter of the property next to resi dences. A fence is also planned. Planning commission member Edd Price said the current zoning regulations would have allowed the developer to plant the trees at the bottom of a steep hill — and not the top of the hill to block the view of residences. Snedecor said reducing the buf fer would give the builder more flexibility to install parking space and utilities, but the location of the proposed buildings would not change. He also said the 25-foot buffer is a standard for other com mercial projects in the area. The Braselton Planning Commission denied a request by Lensned to reduce a 40-foot buf fer along Hwy. 211 to a five-foot landscape strip. Snedecor said his company didn’t object to that rec ommendation. PROPERTY HISTORY The property that includes the 15.2-acre commercial project has been a controversial project since the Braselton Town Council approved annexation and rezoning plans in December 2001. At that time, the 214-acre prop erty was rezoned to Planned Unit Development (PUD) for more than 500 houses with no commercial development. Barrow County officials filed a lawsuit against the town in January 2002, objecting to the annexation and rezoning of prop erty, saying the 500-home project would require too many services for fire protection and schools for the neighborhood. A legal compromise between Braselton, Barrow County and the developer resulted in earmarking 16 acres of the project for com mercial space at the intersection of Hwy. 211 and Liberty Church Road in Barrow County. In August 2002, a number of Chateau Elan residents asked town officials to move the com mercial project further north on Hwy. 211, next to the Mulberry Walk Shopping Center. Moving the commercial project further north, however, would place it in Gwinnett County. Braselton plant from 100 employees to more than 225 employees working three shifts, Thompson said. Twenty- nine of those people have worked more than 10 years locally, when Mayfield Dairy had a small office in Jefferson. As business among area grocery stores and schools have expanded, so has Mayfield’s Braselton plant. The facility has been expanded from about 68,000 square feet in 1997 to more than 80,000 square feet with the addition of more cold stor age space and a case dock. In 1997, Mayfield produced about 55,000-60,000 gallons of milk a day at its Braselton facility — today, the plant now produces more than 150,000 gallons a day, Thompson said. The milk that is manufactured in Braselton is distributed to Atlanta, Marietta, northern Georgia and Greenville, S.C., according to the company. While the visitor’s cen ter sells Mayfield ice cream, the Braselton facility doesn’t produce ice cream. Each week, Mayfield delivers about 2 million half-pint milk con tainers to Georgia schools, including those in Jackson, Barrow, Gwinnett, DeKalb and Cobb counties. Mayfield plans to expand its opera meeting with the school board. Brannigan reiterated the neighbor hood’s goals of keeping the commu nity intact, focusing on what is good for the entire county, limiting impact on students and preparing for future growth. Hamilton Mill United is asking the school board to send all of Hamilton Mill’s elementary students to the new Puckett's Mill Elementary. Brannigan said residents would prefer to stay at Duncan Creek ES, but, after examin ing maps and enrollment forecasts, residents realized that would result in overcrowding at Duncan Creek while tion next year to include the produc tion of the plastic, half pint contain ers that are delivered to institutions, such as schools. Schools also serve another key factor at the Braselton visitor’s center — a large number of students take tours of the facility each year. The Braselton visitor’s center also wel comes plenty of day care centers and home school students, Thompson said. Mayfield also continues to draw a large number of its visitors from inter state motorists who see billboards on 1-85, Thompson said. Some of those motorists include senior groups, other schools would be underutilized. The current plan proposed by GCPS would keep both Duncan Creek ES and Fort Daniel ES over capacity through the 2011-2012 school year while Puckett’s Mill ES would be well under capacity. The plan proposed by Hamilton Mill United would keep Puckett’s Mill ES and Fort Daniel ES under capacity and Duncan Creek near capacity for the next four years. Brannigan said Hamilton Mill’s plan does a better job of balancing enroll ments and allowing for continued growth than that of the school board. Brannigan told homeowners that church groups and summer camps, she added. Tours of the Braselton plant are available Mondays through Fridays, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and on Saturdays, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. The visitor’s center is closed on Sundays. Tours begin every 30 minutes Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, with the exception of no tours at noon. Tours on Saturdays are every hour on the hour. No tours are held on Wednesdays. The last tour begins one hour before closing. For more information, visit www.mayfielddairy.com or call 1 -800-M AYFIELD. members of the neighborhood’s redis tricting committee have requested a meeting with the school board to dis cuss their concerns. The school board has denied the request saying they have already established a process for listening to community members through the public input meetings. Brannigan emphasized the impor tance of the upcoming input meeting and encouraged all homeowners to attend. The public input meeting will be held at 7 pm on Nov. 15 at the GCPS Instructional Support Center located at 437 Old Peachtree Road in Suwanee. 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