By DAVE HAMRICK
Staff Writer

Fayetteville's new Medical Office zoning category, designed to encourage a campus-like setting for offices in the Fayette Community Hospital area, is now in place.

Council unanimously approved the addition to its zoning ordinances during its regular business meeting Monday night.

Approval came quickly in government time: council members directed staff to develop a master plan for offices in the hospital area just last May. Shortly after that, consultants recommended that the city enact a new zoning category rather than a master plan, and the new ordinance was written, presented to the Planning Commission, revised and sent on to City Council, then approved in three months.

But to Mr. and Mrs. H.E. Holbrook, the process was excruciatingly slow.

“We signed the contract on the house in February,” Holbrook said following the council action Monday. “It's been a long, hard struggle for us.”

But with passage of the new ordinance, Holbrook was able to finalize the sale of his home on Sandy Creek Road just off Ga. Highway 54 to John DeLash.

DeLash wants to use the house as an office for his Fayette Dental Aesthetics dental laboratory, and following approval of the MO zoning, council promptly approved DeLash's request for annexation into the city of the house and 1.44 acres.

Council also unanimously approved placing the house in the new MO zoning category.

Among requirements of the new zoning category, developments must be linked with common driveways or frontage roads and must dedicate easements for a walking/bicycle trail that will wind through the area. The concept is designed to reduce traffic on Hwy. 54 and Sandy Creek Road.

Two other candidates for the zoning were on the council agenda as well, but one applicant asked that the item be tabled and the other submitted a letter of withdrawal.

Dr. Gerald Goldklang has decided not to seek annexation into Fayetteville for his proposed medical office on 4.9 acres on Ga. Highway 54 just west of the hospital. Instead, he will take his project to the Fayette County Planning Commission tomorrow night, seeking O-I (office-institutional) zoning.

“Fayette County's O-I guidelines meet his needs better than the city's new MO guidelines,” said Aubrey Massey, Realtor for the project.

Council Monday accepted Goldklang's letter of withdrawal, and voted unanimously to table developer Randy Hayes' request for annexation and rezoning of four acres on the east side of the hospital until its Nov. 1 meeting.

Hayes wants to build a two-story medical office building and a bank on the site, and his plans have been delayed along with the Goldklang and Holbrook requests while council considered its new zoning category. He asked for the further delay to continue working out a joint access agreement with Fayette Community Hospital, something council has insisted on in previous discussions.

In addition to the new zoning category, council also approved several changes to its zoning ordinances, mostly minor corrections in language.

Among the changes, council approved a provision requiring that psychics locate on property zoned C-3 commercial and have a minimum of 1,500 square feet in their offices.

Also added to the ordinance was a definition of yard sales and garage sales, to distinguish them from neighborhood businesses. The idea is to discourage ongoing or too-frequent yard sales.