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Commission puts 3-floor limit on houses, office buildings in county

By J. FRANK LYNCH
jflynch@theCitizenNews.com

Fayette County isn’t likely to have a towering skyline anytime soon.

On Thursday, the County Commission amended two sections of the county’s zoning ordinance that essentially limits the height of any building in the unincorporated county to 35 feet for residential and 40 feet for commercial. Three floors and a basement is the new limit.

The new rules apply to structures in the Agriculture Residential District which primarily means large, estate-size houses; and the Office-Institutional District, which includes things like schools, professional offices and churches.

A couple of churches are the only buildings of that size located anywhere in the unincorporated county now. The six-story medical office building fronting Piedmont Fayette Hospital on Ga. Highway 54 is the county’s tallest occupied structure, but it actually sits inside the city limits of Fayetteville.

Fire safety is the main for limiting the height of some structures. The county doesn’t have the resources to outfit the Department of Fire and Public Safety with the ladder trucks that would be required if taller buildings were commonplace.

Commission Chairman Greg Dunn said there was concern by some on staff about how the 35-foot height is measured.

It was reported that a building’s height was considered from the “highest ground elevation to the midpoint of the highest gabled part of the roof.”

That obviously left some leverage, Dunn said.

“In all probability the building will be higher than 35 feet,” he explained. “What we’re trying to do is make sure no buildings are occupied over 35 feet.”

Commissioner Herb Frady wanted to know how the height limit would apply to churches, and specifically if it would prohibit balconies.

Commissioner LInda Wells answered no, explaining that the 35-foot rule wasn’t meant to apply to every case anyway, and when conditions warrant an exemption it would be granted.

It was also explained that the 40-foot height limit on commercial buildings in the C-I category was decided because the average height of a professional office floor (accounting for plumbing, electrical and ventilation systems) is 13 feet.

Dunn asked county staff why the height limit wasn’t also applied to buildings in the industrial category, since it seemed more likely that’s where larger buildings would go.

There was no good answer, except to say that industrial buildings by nature are almost always one-story, warehouse-type structures.