Wednesday, May 23, 2001
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Wednesday, May 23, 2001 |
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Tree rules targeted for vote By DAVE
HAMRICK
There's no way to make a logging operation pretty, but Fayette planning commissioners think they've come up with a way to at least make it less of an eyesore. Commissioners are ready to take another shot at voting on tree protection regulations for logging operations in an attempt to make the messy agricultural activity more palatable in a fast-growing, upscale suburban area like Fayette. Commission members Thursday tweaked the language in the proposed regulations one last time before putting them on the agenda for a possible vote at the June 7 business meeting. Land owners and representatives of the logging industry left Thursday's work session mollified but not satisfied by a reduction in the tree-save buffers the commission wants to require around land being clear-cut. The land owners wanted the buffers eliminated altogether, except where timbered property is next door to already developed property. Commissioners reduced the proposed buffers from 50 to 25 feet. Scott Jones of the Georgia Forestry Association, a lobbying group for loggers, said requiring the buffers constitutes a "taking" of the land owners' property, because they can't profit from the timber in the buffers. "We're talking about people who have planted trees and managed the land for years to provide for retirement or put a child through college," he said. Clear cut land that is an eyesore is not a problem caused by loggers, he argued, but by developers wanting to clear the timber before starting construction. That land may lie devastated for a long time before construction begins, whereas a true logger will replant a year or so later, he said. "It's not pretty," he said, "but if it's a bonafide forester, it's going to be replanted in a short period of time." Commissioners considered adding language that would deny land owners the right to ask for rezoning for a certain number of years after timbering, as a way to stop pre-development logging, but County Attorney Bill McNally warned them away from that course. Government can't constitutionally deny residents the right to petition for a zoning change, he said. Proposed changes to design regulations for nonresidential developments also will be presented for public comment at the June 7 meeting. Proposed regulation changes include establishment of a 60 percent maximum limit on the amount of impervious surface (pavement and buildings) an office or commercial development can have. Current regulations provide no limit, except for industrial developments, which can build or pave over up to 70 percent of a parcel. Commissioners said they want to talk about proposed changes to street design standards at a future work session before voting on them. The proposals were just too confusing, said commission member Jim Graw. "I want to see something that's going to make some sense and that I can understand," he told county engineers after industry representatives complained that the proposed standards are unduly restrictive.
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