Amoco Oil is ready to start building one of its Split Second convenience stores in south Fayetteville, but city officials' concerns over a canopy roof are holding up the project .

Members of the city Planning Commission split 2-2 Monday on a vote to approve the company's development plan for a store at Ga. Highway 85 and Ramah Road, so the company will have to take its plans to City Council.

Council meets Dec. 7 at 7:30 p.m., and a workshop for that meeting will be next Wednesday, Dec. 2, also at 7:30.

Planning commissioners Allan Feldman and Segis Lipscomb voted against the proposal. Feldman said the company plans to build a gas pump canopy with a modified mansard roof that is too flat.

City regulations call for a more substantial roof on the canopy to match that of the store itself, said Feldman. "The canopy itself is probably the ugliest part of a convenience store," said Feldman, "but it's a necessity. But the roof should come up higher and at a shallow angle," he said.

If the flat canopy is approved, he added, "We'll have these things all over the city."

Amoco spokesman Jonathan Ballew presented plans that have been modified since the commission's Nov. 17 meeting, when commission members asked for several concessions. The new plan met all of the objections except the canopy roof and commissioners' insistence that the company not put its trademark red, white and blue stripes along the canopy.

"I think this is somewhat of a compromise," commission chairman Bill Talley said of the plan. But commissioners were unanimous in insisting on deleting the colorful stripes. Myron Coxe made a motion that the plan be approved with that one exception. Talley voted in favor with Lipscomb and Feldman opposed.

In another matter, after residents of McIntosh Commons subdivision expressed concerns, the commission unanimously denied a special exception for Group VI corporation to build a Valvoline oil change facility on Ga. Highway 314 next to the subdivision.

The property is zoned for light commercial uses, but city attorney David Winkle advised the commissioners recently that an oil change facility doesn't fall in that category and a special exception would be required.

Commissioners told Group VI representative Carl Lang that the company's engineers did a beautiful job of designing a facility that they would be glad to have in the city, but said the proposed store should be in a heavier commercial zone, away from neighborhoods.

Lang asked for the group's legal basis for the denial, but Talley said no legal basis is required. "A special exception to the zoning ordinance is not a constitutional right," he said. Coxe, who made the motion to deny, said the issue is "the appropriateness of this use under our land use plan, which calls for office or light commercial."

Both items were held over from the commission's Nov. 17 meeting because of a legal advertising conflict.

Two other agenda items that night were tabled until the commission's Dec. 8 work session, another tabled until January, and one item was approved.

Carpets to Go received approval for its store at Hwy. 314 and Biltmore Drive. Lowe's Shopping Center will resubmit its plans, which have already been through several revisions, at the commission's January meetings.

The Pine Trail Road shopping center proposed by Concordia Partners Inc. is undergoing revisions based on earlier meetings and is tabled until Dec. 8 at 7 p.m. for discussion, with action tentatively set for Dec. 15.