Friday, August 29, 2003

Rivertown Road rezoning refused

By LINDSAY BIANCHI
Special to The Citizen

An attempt to rezone 70 acres of land along Rivertown Road from R-1 residential to R-2 residential was shot down Monday night at Fairburn's regular City Council meeting.

Tom Black of Legacy Investments Group who had applied for the rezoning spoke in favor of the motion saying he "knew there were mixed feelings on all sides" of the issue. He appealed to the Council offering up a new design that showed 105 single family lots on 52 developable acres, or two units per acre.

Several citizens who live along Rivertown Road spoke in opposition to Black's request. Denise Harrison said that the "nice, small community" was "getting busier and busier." She felt that two houses on one acre would be "quite tight."

Councilman Roy Farr moved to deny the proposal. The motion was seconded by Councilman Doug Crawford and passed unanimously.

In relation to land development, section 4.1 of the subdivision regulations was amended without any question. Entitled "Suitability of the Land", the new wording made it clear that "land subject to flooding, improper damage or erosion, and any land deemed unsuitable for development due to steep slopes, unsuitable soils... shall not be subjected to development for any uses..."

After another unanimous decision to pass the amendment, Councilman Harvey Melear stated, "I just think this is something we've needed for a long time. We've had a lot of developers coming in using flood plain areas as part of the development."

In addition to other business, the City Council passed an ordinance raising the Mayor and City Council's pay. More than 20 years has gone by without any adjustments in pay. The Mayor's annual salary was raised from $1,800 per year to $3,000 per year and the Council member's salary rose from $900 per year to $1,500 per year. It was noted that these figures retain the ratio of two to one between the Mayor and Council's salaries.

Finally an increase in basic and expanded cable rates was discussed. In order to help fund the expansion of the city's cable system, basic cable was raised from $9.25 to $10.25 per month and expanded basic from $22.95 to $26.95 per month.