By DAVE HAMRICK
Staff Writer

Engineers designing a site plan for Southern Community Bank on North Jeff Davis Drive can save more trees, at the insistence of the Fayetteville Planning Commission, but there's a rub.

Saving five large oak trees at the front of the 2.08-acre site will mean eliminating the required 40-foot buffer between the bank and Carriage Chase, a neighborhood next door to the east.

Only a privacy fence will separate the bank's parking lot from the neighborhood if the Planning Commission approves the latest site plan submitted by Integrated Science and Engineers, and agrees to eliminate the buffer.

The new plan also would require losing several smaller trees on the south end of the site, which would have been saved under previous plans submitted by the engineering firm.

Commissioners will consider that request at their regular business meeting Tuesday at 7:30 p.m.

Bank owners want to build a 14,000-sq. ft., two-story bank building, but the commission tabled site plans at its July meeting.

That plan would have saved 57 percent of the existing trees on the property, but commissioner Allan Feldman argued that the trees saved would have been the smaller ones on the lot, while larger ones would have been lost.

Gary McGaha, who will be chief operating officer of the new bank, said the delay in approval of the plans puts owners in a time crunch.

Investors hope to open the bank for deposits next March.