Many comments seem to be anti-smaller houses. Don't you think that a 3,000 square foot house for a typical family of 4 seems overly large? Square footages do not take into account basement spaces or usable attic spaces. From the 1950's, the typical US house has doubled in square footage and now stands around 2,350 square feet. Do we really need every house to be a McMansion? Drive around that famous county to the north of us. The bane of that county is apartment complexes and other high density buildings. Do you want to keep the nature and density of our county roughly the same? Then ensure that lot size and zoning does not change. Do not add high density housing and we should be okay

Read this

“The consensus of the board seems to be to lower the square footage,” said interim County Administrator Jack Krakeel."

Again, are you kidding me? Hit the road Jack before the door hits you in the butt. Try and remember you are a civil servant and work for the taxpayers. That's right - taxpayers. The same ones who will have their property devalued by your builder welfare scheme. Idiot.

Then after you devalue property and diminish tax revenue, you will come back and increase taxes on the rest of us. Go away quickly or else I'll fire up my buddies - the non-friends of Barry Amos.

You make the choice to go and buy up all of this land, because money is good and you are sitting pretty in that nice new 12,000 plus square foot house, probably more like 18,000 plus. Now because the market has hit the tank, you want help. What about all of the people losing real jobs. People who need the work to pay for their little 1800 sq foot houses. DEAL WITH IT AND GET TO WORK. You need to quit depending on others to get you out of your own trouble. I mean you want to have your cake and eat it too. As soon as you get your way there, you will be all over those new home owners trying to control everything they do. SUCK IT UP!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh, so, even if the building's the size of an outhouse, a 5-acre lot makes it a great idea??! If the county commission agrees to this, the character of this county will quickly slide into the outhouse. And why should the county government help out a private developer to build on the cheap? After all, isn't this the same bunch of commissioners that just love to talk about how "wealthy" this county is? Isn't Wright's bad timing his problem? Building a bunch of cheap cracker boxes only lowers the value of the surrounding larger homes.

Folks, unless you want to end up with Fayette's version of Gwinnett county, you'd better go to the commission meeting and oppose this.

Oh, and, by the way, am I the only person who is starting to suspect Krakeel is the new "Sixth Commissioner"? He sure seems to hold a lot of power for someone nobody elected.

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If you and I are always in agreement, one of us is likely armed and dangerous.

Time for you to move on in my very humble opinion. You can find property in Henry or Coweta to build your row houses on.

Or any other way, now that I think about it. The square footage is there to preserve value for the homeowners. Builders can't change it because of their bottom line or the recession - yes we are in one.

This is very wrong because it sets a precedence that is not healthy.

Having said that, reducing square footage on estate lots is not a serious problem in and of itself - it is only a problem when the builders under pressure in other areas with many more residents and less density try to do the same thing.

“I just think that everybody needs to pitch in and help everyone get through this,” he said.

I have news for you, the only thing that's going to correct this housing crisis is a return to true market dictated prices, in other words get ready to see severe drops in your home value (perhaps 30-35%). This won't be a completely bad thing, for example we'll have a normal housing price to income ratio: no more than 2.5x the median housing income for a starter home, as opposed to the massively inflated bubble prices we're used to seeing.

“They are all contributing money towards advertising the open house to help try and turn this economy around,” he said.

The economy isn't going to turn around anytime soon. There's more to the crisis than what the major news outlets are reporting, perhaps because if people knew the true gravity they're facing they would PANIC. Do you think the average person has any idea how close we came to a complete and utter meltdown last month when the Fed bailed out Bear Stearns, the nation's 5th largest investment house? If they didn't bail them out and they went insolvent we would've seen repercussions that would have been "severe and extremely difficult to contain," according to Bernanke.

Anyway, my point is this: To suppose that easing building requirements will somehow magically fix a failing debt-based economy is misguided wishful thinking bordering on madness. Not to mention, it opens the door for destroying the fabric of our community, but that's a whole different issue.

Sure, its hard selling those expensive, high square footage size homes. So lets lower them to 2200 s.q..

Those are hard to sell too? Well lets lower it down to 1800 s.q.

What? The sub-prime market is down?

Okay, lets do 1100 s.q. homes and heck while we are at it, we can open a few more mobile home parks.

And oh yeah, some people can't afford a real mobile home, so lets set up lots for campers too.

I'm sure if we lower the size of the lots to fit the needs of the construction companies, that we are serving the needs of Fayette County.

Now lets see. 1 home per 5 acres equals 2.5 more kids in our schools and 2 more cars on our roads.
2 homes on a 5 acre lot, means 5 more kids and 4 more cars.
Oh, but what the heck, the construction companies need the work.
Besides, look at all of the work that we will have to go around. Someone to build new roads, new traffic lights, new pawn shops and gas stations, and new schools too. A heavenly paradise?

Lets just subdivide the entire county into 1/4 acre lots. Put a travel trailer on them all and then we are done worrying about maintaining a quality of life, because it will be gone.

We have these restrictions, not to hurt the builders, but to help our quality of life. Those restrictions is what brings people here to buy the big homes, and if you lower the quality of life, then you lower the people who will come and buy here.

Gees, who is in charge over there?