By DAVE HAMRICK
dhamrick@thecitizennews.com

Communications towers could be closer together and closer to homes under proposed changes to Fayette County's ordinance governing the towers.

The county Planning Commission will consider the changes tomorrow during its regular business meeting, 7 p.m. at the County Administrative Complex. The group's recommendation will go to the County Commission for its consideration April 27, also at 7 p.m.

Enacted just last year, the law is so restrictive that no new towers have been permitted in the county, creating a situation in which Fayette has large areas of poor cell phone reception, according to industry representatives.

“It wasn't our intention to make it real easy,” said Planning Commission Chairman Bob Harbison during a recent work session to discuss the proposed changes.

The current law requires that towers be at least 1,000 feet from any neighboring residence, a requirement that's almost impossible to meet, said James Ney, a lawyer representing tower companies. He suggested requiring only the height of the tower as a separation between it and neighboring buildings.

Commissioners said they're willing to talk about reducing the distance, but not that much. A suggested reduction to 500 feet also was rejected. “I didn't think we were going to be talking about radical surgery,” said commissioner Fred Bowen. “When you take these things and reduced it by half, that's radical surgery.”

Consensus of the group was to change the distance requirement to 750 feet.

But commissioners were willing to compromise further on the distance required between towers. “I'm less concerned about this one,” said Bowen. “A mile is a pretty good ways.”

Consensus was to reduce the required distance from two miles to a mile.

Among other changes to be considered Thursday, commissioners may decide to allow variances on tower permits. The law currently doesn't.

But county attorney Bill McNally cautioned the commission not to rely too heavily on variances as a way for tower builders to get around difficult provisions of the ordinance. “You ought to write your ordinance to handle 90 to 95 percent of the cases,” he said.

Commissioners also will consider automatic approval of permits for new towers where old ones already exist, to encourage upgrading old sites rather than building new ones.