By MONROE ROARK
Staff Writer

The Fayette County Planning Commission will do a little more spade work before planting its final version of a new tree protection ordinance.

Commissioners will have a tree ordinance workshop following their regular monthly meeting Thursday, Dec. 2 at 7 p.m.

Between now and then, members of a special committee appointed to study the new ordinance will come up with their final recommendations for minor changes in wording, and horticulture experts on the committee will recommend additions to a list of tree species accepted for replacement of indigenous trees destroyed during construction projects.

All of this effort is aimed at coming up with a new ordinance that encourages developers to save more existing trees on construction sites, and to resist the urge to strip construction sites bare, replacing mature native trees with new exotic ones.

Members of a special committee appointed to study the proposed changes met with the Planning Commission in a marathon work session last week to talk over proposed changes.

At Thursday's workshop, commissioners hope to put the document in final form before voting to recommend it to the County Commission.

Both Fayette County and the city of Fayetteville have been poring over their tree protection ordinances since this past summer in hopes of saving more of the county's majestic native trees.

Local residents have attended numerous meetings to encourage the commissioners to make the ordinance tighter, but the process has made some local developers nervous that the restrictions will get so tight that they won't be able to fit their buildings, streets and parking lots on the construction sites.

“We're not trying to come up with something that's going to force the developer out of business,” said Planning Commission member Jim Graw during the recent work session.

Commissioners looked over drawings of test construction sites using various proposals in the ordinances, and noted that under at least one scenario, the development would be stuffed so densely with trees that large numbers of them probably wouldn't survive for long.

“I think we're talking about tree retention, not tree farming,” said commission Chairman Bob Harbison.

Commissioners and committee members wrestled with the conflicting goals of writing an ordinance that needs no interpretation and is clearly enforceable and writing an ordinance that has enough flexibility to be practical. Developers argued that staff will have to exercise some discretion, because there's no way to anticipate every problem.

“There's got to be a little bit of common sense applied to anything we do,” said commissioner Al Gilbert.

In anticipation of Thursday's meeting, county forestry experts have been studying the proposed ordinance's list of accepted varieties of trees to make sure the list is practical for local planting. Some trees are too expensive, or too fragile, to be practical, experts say.

Thursday's meeting will be at 7 p.m. at the County Administrative Complex. The only items on the regular meeting agenda will be naming a chairman, vice chairman and secretary for the Planning Commission, and approval of minutes of earlier meetings.

The tree preservation workshop will immediately follow.