By DAVE HAMRICK
Staff Writer

Cell phone companies that want to get around Fayette County's moratorium on communications towers now have a simple solution: put your tower in a commercial or industrial zone.

The County Commission last week lifted the moratorium for towers in commercial and industrial zones after Commissioner Glen Gosa said his intention was only to target residential areas when he introduced the moratorium at an earlier meeting.

"I did not intend to stop tower development if they find good places in nonresidential areas," said Gosa.

Commissioner Herb Frady wondered whether it might be better to leave the moratorium as is, saying the county Planning Commission's discussion of a county-wide master plan for the ubiquitous towers might affect commercial and industrial areas as well as residential.

But Commissioner Scott Burrell pointed out, "We're trying to encourage the towers in commercial and industrial zones."

The commission last month directed the Planning Commission to work with the seven cell phone companies and county planning staff to develop a master plan that would meet the county's communications needs with as little impact on residential areas as possible.

"We need to come up with... a compromise that provides for what the telecommunications companies want and what Fayette citizens need," Planning Commission Chairman Bob Harbison told the county Board of Commissioners recently.

The commission responded with a 180-day moratorium on new cell tower requests to give the planning panel time to study the problem. The Planning Commission then tabled four pending requests for tower sites until its Oct. 1 meeting.

Planners will vote on the pending requests Oct. 15 after discussing them Oct. 1. The County Commission won't take up the requests until Nov. 12. The discussion had been scheduled for Oct. 22, but Commissioner Herb Frady last week asked that the requests be held up until the first meeting in November because he will be out of town the 22nd.

The meeting will be Nov. 12, 7 p.m. at the County Administrative Complex.

Meanwhile, the next round in the Planning Commission's tower master plan discussions will be Sept. 17 at 7 p.m. All seven cell phone companies are expected to tell how many towers they might need in the next 18 months, and where.

County planning staff members said they were surprised at the lack of public interest in the first master plan meeting Aug. 20. Dozens of residents showed up at recent meetings to protest specific requests for tower locations, but only two residents attended the meeting to discuss a master plan.

A rash of recent tower requests has met with a storm of neighborhood opposition, with several requests turned down in recent months. County ordinances currently allow communications towers in the A-R (agricultural-residential) zoning category.

Companies can build towers up to 150 feet high without a public hearing, or they can request special permits for taller towers in A-R zones.

The county recently passed a new ordinance aimed at encouraging several companies to put their antennas on each tower, reducing the total number of towers needed. But that concept calls for taller towers, and taller towers have met even stiffer opposition than shorter ones.

Planning Commission Chairman Harbison said those who want to comment on the problem should think about that dilemma. "Do you want lots of 150-foot towers, or fewer very tall ones?" he asked during a recent meeting.