Wednesday, September 19, 2001
|
Wednesday, September 19, 2001 |
|
Tyrone silence on annexation worries county By DAVE HAMRICK
Fayette County officials don't like the silence surrounding an annexation request in the town of Tyrone. "It would have never occurred to anyone that the town of Tyrone would go forward with an annexation without knowing how the property was going to be used," said County Commission Chairman Greg Dunn. Town Council is scheduled to act on the annexation request tomorrow during its regular meeting, 7:30 p.m. at Town Hall. County officials had thought that an agreement between the county and its cities, providing for settling of disputes over annexation, required that the development plans be revealed as part of that process. But in a Sept. 7 letter, Tyrone Mayor Pro Tempore Lisa Richardson said that's not the case. The town must provide the information only if the town has the information, she wrote. "... neither state law nor the annexation agreement itself requires the town to identify the development plans for the area proposed to be annexed unless such plans are disclosed to the town," she wrote. Apparently, that's correct, Dunn told fellow commissioners last week. "I don't know how to deal with that," he said. "It's a technicality but in this case the agreement will uphold their decision to proceed." R. L. Jennings is asking the town to annex 32.4 acres next to John Wieland Homes' Southampton subdivision, currently under construction. Dunn told The Citizen he thinks it likely that the owner plans to sell the land to Wieland to add to the subdivision, something the county would have formally objected to, since it would increase density of development on the land more than five-fold. "That would be speculation on their part," said Town Manager Barry Amos. If the mayor and council decide to annex it, the land will come into the city with an AR zoning designation, which requires a minimum of three acres per home. The annexation agreement provides 20 days for the county to object to proposed annexations, and provides a procedure for joint meetings to negotiate those points. But when county commissioners discussed the proposal Aug. 24, they said without any information on development plans, they couldn't decide whether to formally object. Dunn wrote to Tyrone asking for more information, resulting in Richardson's Sept. 7 reply. Amos said this week that there is plenty of precedent for acting on annexations without development plans in hand. If the owner wants anything more dense than the AR zoning allows, he would have to go through the rezoning process, he added. "It's not a requirement of state law nor is it a town requirement" that development plans be attached to annexations requests, he said. Since the county failed to object in the proper form, the deadline for those objections has expired, Richardson said. "As that date has now passed ... the town of Tyrone will proceed with the annexation process in this matter," she wrote. Dunn said he was pleased with how the cities of Fayetteville and Peachtree City handled similar annexation requests recently, both going out of their way to provide information to the county. "The other two cities didn't play these games with us," he said.
|
||