Wednesday, July 18, 2001
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Wednesday, July 18, 2001 |
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Planners eye cluster development By DAVE
HAMRICK
Should Fayette County allow more "conservation subdivisions," clustering homes closer together in order to provide more green space? County planning professionals and the Planning and Zoning Commission will consider that and other topics during a workshop meeting Thursday night. Commissioners meet at 7 p.m. in the Planning Department offices at the County Administrative Complex. The meeting is open to the public, but public comment usually is not accepted during workshop meetings. Conservation subdivisions are among the recommendations of the Atlanta Regional Commission's Regional Development Plan, but some local leaders are skeptical of the idea. Leaders in the past have complained that some developers use the concept to build higher-density subdivisions, while using "unbuildable" property, like wetlands, to meet the open space requirements. According to county senior planner Pete Frisina, Fayette's Planning Department is investigating a "neutral density" approach, meaning that the number of home lots allowed would not exceed the number that could be created with a conventional subdivision design. In other words, if a parcel were zoned for 100 homes on 200 acres, the homes might be on one-acre lots with the remaining space reserved for green space, but no more than 100 homes would be allowed. "In any event," Frisina writes in a memo to the commission, "the Planning Department would not recommend lot size being reduced to less than one acre" in unincorporated Fayette County. Planning commissioners also will discuss county standards for development in historic areas. The county land use plan currently recommends that nonresidential development "maintain an architectural character" that doesn't detract from the character of historic areas, but leaves the details to be ironed out by placing special conditions on approval of any rezoning applications. "The Planning Department wants to discuss the location of historic areas and structures and the feasibility of establishing historic area standards to control development more uniformly," Frisina wrote. Also on the agenda Thursday, commissioners will discuss setting special design standards for all the county's state highway corridors. Standards currently are in place for Ga. highways 54 west, 85 north, 74 north and 314, designed to encourage office and commercial development that looks more residential. Commissioners will discuss establishing similar standards for highways 85 south and 54 east, and also slight changes to the borders of the areas affected by the special standards for 74 north and 314.
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