The approval of Senoia's new zoning ordinances were halted again Monday night after Mayor Joan Trammell agreed to meet with a group of concerned businessmen.

Another large crowd turned out at City hall to see if the council would approve the zoning ordinances that have come under fire in the last two weeks.

Many of the business leaders assembled at City Hall Monday had hired Newnan attorney George Rosenzweig to plead their case before the mayor and council.

Rosenzweig started out by telling the council that the two sides were really not that far apart in coming to an agreement on the ordinances. The businessmen are upset over a proposed historic town center zoning category that they believe limits their business opportunities.

Hardware store owner Jimmy Hutchinson decried the new category as adding another layer of bureaucracy to the city's zoning process.

"If these buildings were sold, it would take a couple of months to go through planning and city council to see what we could do with them," he said.

Rosenzweig agreed with Hutchinson and told the council that business leaders didn't need any more government control. The attorney also took exception with the council just limiting future commercial growth to the intersection of Ga. Highway 85 and Ga. Highway 16.

"The zoning map is a prescription for urban sprawl," he said.

The attorney added the council should listen to the businessmen since most of them had live in the Senoia environs their entire life.

"These people aren't interlopers or carpetbaggers,' he said.

Trammel agreed with many of Rosenzweig's assessment, but said the zoning process had just started in the last two weeks. The planning commission has worked on the ordinances for over a year and the Blueprints for a Better Community outline for Senoia was done May. Both planning procedures often had nobody in the audience to add input.

"How do you get people to participate?" Trammell asked.

Trammell added that everybody in town knew the meetings were occurring.

"You can't sneeze in this town without somebody knowing it," she added.

When Rosenzweig asked if the mayor would be amenable to meeting with the businessmen, she said she could meet with the group yesterday. While Trammell is hopeful that some agreement can be reached, she added the process must continue and be resolved soon.