County grows 4% in 1 year; average household size is 2.918

By DAVE HAMRICK
Staff Writer

Population growth continues apace in Fayette County.

The county attracted 3,300 new residents between April 1, 1997 and April 1, 1998, according to estimates approved by the Atlanta Regional Commission during its meeting last week.

That puts the population at 87,400, just under 4 percent higher than last year's 84,100.

The change is dead on the average annual growth from 1980 to 1990 3,337 new residents per year but the number of people living here now is higher than during the '80s, so the percentage of growth is lower.

It's also dead on the target growth recently articulated during discussions of FUTURE (Fayette Unified Team to Use Resources Effectively), in the so-called "growth manifesto."

But FUTURE members, all top level employees or elected officials in Fayette County's local governments, have recently stressed that 4 percent is just a talking figure. They may settle on a lower figure as discussions continue, members say.

The new estimate won't affect the amount of money Fayette County receives from various government sources, said county manager Billy Beckett. "There are a variety of different figures being used by different agencies," said Beckett.

Funding for many county programs is based on population estimates from the federal Department of Community Affairs, other funding counts on figures supplied by the State Office of Planning and Budgeting, and the Department of Education supplies population figures to the Board of Education, he said.

Whose figure is most accurate? "I couldn't tell you which one is right," said Beckett. "But none of them take into account people transitioning in and out of the county, children growing up and moving out and that type of thing."

ARC's chief of research, Bart Lewis, said the agency's estimate is calculated using the housing unit method. Starting with 1990 U.S. Census figures, researchers "break down the county into various housing types single family, multi-family, mobile home then we get the amount of housing inventory and turn that back into population," he said.

The agency uses an average household size of 2.918 for Fayette, he said, but that's further broken down into different household sizes for different categories of housing, and within different small geographical areas, he said.

The ARC estimate means one thing: Fayette will pay $2,640 more to the ARC as its dues to belong to the planning agency in 1999.

Based on 80 cents per capita plus $2,000 for a special project, Fayette will pay $71,920 next year.