Rebuffing the County’s Planning & Zoning staff’s and commission’s recommendation to deny the proposed rezoning, the Fayette County Commission voted three-to-two to rezone the corner of South Sandy Creek Road and Ga. Highway 54 from R-70 Residential to Commercial to allow Fayetteville Ford to relocate its dealership there.

More than twenty residents gave numerous valid reasons why such zoning is bad for this area of the county. None of those who spoke in favor of the rezoning even lives close by.

The nagging question is: What was the compelling reason the three commissioners had for violating their own Comprehensive Land Use Plan, which they had ratified only four months earlier?

That Plan calls for the tract to remain R-70 (2-acre residential lots), or Office-Institutional. None of the three proponents gave a reason for allowing such a blatant commercialization of that corner. That just doesn’t pass the “smell test.”

In fact, Commissioner Gibbons scolded the local residents for thinking that the corner is always going to remain a green forest. Obviously, the commissioner has not driven by there recently. It has not been a forest since it was logged over five years ago.

The neighbors are under no illusion that the corner will remain undeveloped. But there is a huge difference between a medical office and a car dealership with over 400 vehicles.

Commissioner Chuck Oddo correctly pointed out, to no avail, that the Commission would be setting a precedent by violating its own Comprehensive Plan.

A car dealership does not fit that area.

J.D. Holmes

Fayetteville, Ga.