Fayette

County Planning Commission members scratched their heads

in mock perplexity last week as they read the county

Board of Education's response to two rezoning requests.

"I'm

trying to figure out how rezoning this property from a

subdivision category to agricultural is going to impact

these schools," said commission member Fred Bowen.

School

board comment is sought for each rezoning request that

comes before the commission, and for years the board's

standard response has been a form letter that lists

recent school construction activity, calculates the

number of students that would be generated by a change in

zoning and cautions that "growth in the tax digest

must parallel growth in the student population if an

undue burden is not to be imposed on the county's

taxpayers."

The letter

addressing last week's requests points out, using

averages, that under the new zoning the property could

"generate an estimated one elementary student, one

middle school student and one high school student."

It fails to mention that under the current zoning the

property could generate several more students, and in any

case the rezoning applicant has grown children and is not

likely to place any new ones in the school system.

The letter

is signed by superintendent of schools Dr. John DeCotis.

Discussing

the form letter, Planning Commission members laughed at

one local newspaper's recent story reporting that the

commission had ignored the school board's

"impassioned plea" in approving a rezoning.

"I'd

prefer not to even see the letters on these things

because it's the same letter every time," said

commission member Jim Graw.

"We

need the input," commissioner Al Gilbert responded,

"but a letter addressing the merits of each rezoning

individually would be better" than the form letter,

he added.

DeCotis

told The Citizen he would be happy to make changes in how

the school system addresses rezoning requests if the

Planning Commission would address its complaints to him.

"They should at least contact us to tell us what

they would like," he said. "We need to know

what they're looking for."

He added

that school officials "would be happy to work with

them any way we can."

The

commission deliberated all of 15 minutes before granting

the two requests for rezoning from subdivision categories

to agricultural.

"To me

it's a no-brainer," said Gilbert before making the

motion to approve Darrell Kozisek's request to change the

zoning of his 10.12 acres on Neely Road from R-20, which

would allow homes on 1.5-acre lots, to A-R, a category

that requires a minimum of five acres per dwelling.

Kozisek

said he wants to replace an old pole barn on the property

with a storage building for equipment used in his

commercial fishing lake, adding he also might want to put

a cow or horse on the land at some point.

"In my

opinion, the land's not suitable for farming," said

Thomas Petrasek, a Neely Road resident. But Petrasek

didn't voice any strong objection to the rezoning, and

commissioners voted unanimously to recommend that the

County Board of Commissioners approve the request.

The group

also unanimously approved Lloyd Touchton's request to

rezoning his 22-acre tract on Spence Road from R-70,

which allows two-acre home lots, to A-R. Touchton said he

wants to build a house and workshop on the land.

The

requests will go before the County Commission Thursday,

Oct. 28 at 7 p.m. for final consideration.

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