Engineers

designing a site plan for Southern Community Bank

on North Jeff Davis Drive can save more trees, at

the insistence of the Fayetteville Planning

Commission, but there's a rub.

Saving

five large oak trees at the front of the

2.08-acre site will mean eliminating the required

40-foot buffer between the bank and Carriage

Chase, a neighborhood next door to the east.

Only

a privacy fence will separate the bank's parking

lot from the neighborhood if the Planning

Commission approves the latest site plan

submitted by Integrated Science and Engineers,

and agrees to eliminate the buffer.

The

new plan also would require losing several

smaller trees on the south end of the site, which

would have been saved under previous plans

submitted by the engineering firm.

Commissioners

will consider that request at their regular

business meeting Tuesday at 7:30 p.m.

Bank

owners want to build a 14,000-sq. ft., two-story

bank building, but the commission tabled site

plans at its July meeting.

That

plan would have saved 57 percent of the existing

trees on the property, but commissioner Allan

Feldman argued that the trees saved would have

been the smaller ones on the lot, while larger

ones would have been lost.

Gary

McGaha, who will be chief operating officer of

the new bank, said the delay in approval of the

plans puts owners in a time crunch.

Investors

hope to open the bank for deposits next March.

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