Population growth continues apace in Fayette County.

The county attracted 3,300 new residents between April

1, 1997 and April 1, 1998, according to estimates approved by

the Atlanta Regional Commission during its meeting last week.

That puts the population at 87,400, just under 4

percent higher than last year's 84,100.

The change is dead on the average annual growth

from 1980 to 1990 3,337 new residents per year but the

number of people living here now is higher than during the '80s,

so the percentage of growth is lower.

It's also dead on the target growth recently articulated

during discussions of FUTURE (Fayette Unified Team to

Use Resources Effectively), in the so-called "growth manifesto."

But FUTURE members, all top level employees or

elected officials in Fayette County's local governments, have

recently stressed that 4 percent is just a talking figure. They may

settle on a lower figure as discussions continue, members say.

The new estimate won't affect the amount of money

Fayette County receives from various government sources,

said county manager Billy Beckett. "There are a variety of

different figures being used by different agencies," said Beckett.

Funding for many county programs is based on

population estimates from the federal Department of Community

Affairs, other funding counts on figures supplied by the State Office

of Planning and Budgeting, and the Department of Education

supplies population figures to the Board of Education, he said.

Whose figure is most accurate? "I couldn't tell you

which one is right," said Beckett. "But none of them take into

account people transitioning in and out of the county, children

growing up and moving out and that type of thing."

ARC's chief of research, Bart Lewis, said the agency's

estimate is calculated using the housing unit method. Starting

with 1990 U.S. Census figures, researchers "break down

the county into various housing types single family,

multi-family, mobile home then we get the amount of housing

inventory and turn that back into population," he said.

The agency uses an average household size of 2.918 for

Fayette, he said, but that's further broken down into

different household sizes for different categories of housing, and

within different small geographical areas, he said.

The ARC estimate means one thing: Fayette will pay

$2,640 more to the ARC as its dues to belong to the planning agency

in 1999.

Based on 80 cents per capita plus $2,000 for a special

project, Fayette will pay $71,920 next year.

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