Fayette's planning staff is recommending no changes to the county land use plan for the area around Fayette Community Hospital, and only a few changes in the Ga. Highway 85 north corridor.

The county Planning Commission will discuss the first two segments of a five-part review of the land use plan tomorrow during its monthly work session, 7 p.m. at the County Administrative Complex.

A general guide that helps officials make planning and zoning decisions, the land use plan has not been thoroughly reviewed in several years, and the County Commission recently directed the planning department to study the plan, paying particular attention to the hospital area, the 85 north/Fayette Pavilion area, south Fayette, environmental concerns and the overall text of the plan.

The hospital area needs no changes, said planning director Chris Venice, because a recently written set of architectural guidelines for the Ga. Highway 54 corridor provided for changes in the area due to the construction of the hospital. The 54 overlay allows office development along the corridor, regardless of zoning. Most of the land in the area is zoned A-R (agricultural-residential).

That's fine for the corridor, said Diane Jones, who lives on land just behind the hospital off Sandy Creek Road, but she was hoping the county might consider office uses for her land as well. The overlay standards apply only to land on Hwy. 54.

Jones and other residents got their first look at proposed changes to the land use plan for the two areas during a recent public meeting sponsored by the planning department.

"Nobody's going to want to listen to LifeFlight at 2 o'clock in the morning," said Jones, adding that she has no immediate plans to sell the property, but would like to be able to sell it for office space eventually.

"Nobody's going to want our houses to live in," agreed neighbor Shirley Horton.

The women's comments were collected, along with those of others who attended the hearing, and will be given to the Planning Commission as it begins discussing the plan at its work session tomorrow.

Some land owners along 54 are pushing for increasing the density of office and institutional development in the corridor, said Venice, but staff has resisted that pressure because of environmental concerns, she said.

"Given the fact that development is occurring in the corridor under the current land use plan and given the state's increasingly strict environmental requirements, staff recommends no changes in the land use plan in this area," she said in written comments handed out during the meeting.

New maps available from the state, showing environmentally sensitive areas such as groundwater recharge zones, helped staff arrive at that conclusion, said Venice. The environmental maps can be reproduced on clear plastic and placed over the land use plan maps to show how sensitive areas will be affected by development, she said.

Staff is recommending that some areas designated for office uses along Ga. Highway 85 be designated for commercial uses instead. All the areas affected by that recommendation are already in commercial zoning categories, and a new set of design standards is in place to protect the area from overly intense development, said Venice.

"We believe that commercial land use is the more appropriate category" for the areas, she said.