Fayette

County Planning Commission is looking into possible

changes to the county's tree preservation ordinance, and

the process is engendering some interesting discussion.

For

instance, what's a conservative county like Fayette doing

with so many development regulations? It's clearly much

harder for a developer to do business in Fayette than in

any other county I can think of.

I covered

Henry County for about a year, and it blew my mind to see

developers coming forward with plans for 750 homes on 200

acres with only minimal protest from neighbors.

In Fayette,

you can usually count on a long zoning meeting if the

request is for anything smaller than two-acre lots, and

it's not unusual to see vehement protest when someone

wants lots of three acres or more.

Generally,

one concept that's associated with conservatism is the

idea that business people should be allowed to do their

thing and make their profit without a lot of government

interference.

But here

you are, a conservative county, requiring that anyone who

wants to build a house or a store here jump through all

manner of government-required hoops.

The

explanation is that conservatism is not the knee-jerk

anti-regulation philosophy that some may think it is.

Being conservative means that when new government

regulations are being considered, the burden of proof is

on the regulation.

And it

means that we vest more power to regulate business and

individual activity in our local governments and less in

state... even less in federal governments. State and

federal governments, along with the courts, do provide

some balance, though. Among their most important

functions is keeping local governments from trampling on

the rights of the minority in their zeal to carry out the

will of the majority.

But within

a community, within reason, we decide what life should be

like, and we choose elected representatives who will

enforce our vision. And if that means hampering

developers in their natural tendency to bulldoze every

living thing off a piece of property before starting

construction, so be it.

The

difficult thing is to achieve balance. If we use the

basic formula: trees good - bulldozing trees

bad, we end up with some pretty goofy legislation.

If you're

going to make an omelet, you have to break some eggs, and

if you're going to have houses and stores, you have to

lose some trees. The key is to require that some big, old

ones be saved so the entire landscape isn't carpeted with

dinky little Bradford pears, to make sure trees are

dispersed as evenly as possible throughout each

development, and to still let the business do its job and

make a profit.

Tree

preservation isn't the only area in which we can get a

little crazy. Knees also tend to jerk whenever the

subject of residential density comes up.

I know this

is going to shock some of you, but density is not always

bad.

Fayetteville's

plan for the McElwaney property is a good example.

The city is

working diligently to create an upscale,

pedestrian-friendly, viable, vibrant, culturally

interesting center of town, and the 110-acre McElwaney

tract, just off the Courthouse Square and sandwiched

between Ga. Highway 54 and Fayette County High School, is

a key element in those plans.

Fill that

property up with one-acre or half-acre residential lots,

and all you gain is traffic. Under the plan that

consultants Cooper Carry came up with, developers will be

allowed to pack some very small residential lots, plus

businesses, offices, parks, maybe a church, even a hotel

into that space, creating a sort of central village that

will contribute to viability in Fayetteville's downtown

for decades.

City

leaders blanched at the proposed density and cut back on

it some, and in my opinion they did some harm -

hopefully not fatal harm - to the overall concept.

In this case, having large numbers of people in this

small space is what makes the plan work. It creates a

true downtown, a residential focal point for the

community that makes Main Street more than just a

governmental office village.

Government-sponsored

community activities also seem a little strange in this

bastion of conservatism. Spending tax money for

entertainment? How could we! But in the local context, if

a community decides to spend its money that way, why not?

It's part of the delicate balance that makes a community.

To get any

idea of the quality of entertainment and community

activities in Fayette County, you have to visit similar

activities in other areas.

Having done

that, I can report that you don't see top-notch groups

like the Buckinghams at most towns' festivals. You're

getting entertainment at events like July Jam and at

Peachtree City's Brown Amphitheater that's on a par with

such venues as Lakewood Amphitheater and Chastain Park.

Saturday's

festival, topped off by the concert, was another example

of the quality of life in Fayette that is not only better

than average, but also constantly getting better.

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