The

Fayette County Planning Commission will do a

little more spade work before planting its final

version of a new tree protection ordinance.

Commissioners

will have a tree ordinance workshop following

their regular monthly meeting Thursday, Dec. 2 at

7 p.m.

Between

now and then, members of a special committee

appointed to study the new ordinance will come up

with their final recommendations for minor

changes in wording, and horticulture experts on

the committee will recommend additions to a list

of tree species accepted for replacement of

indigenous trees destroyed during construction

projects.

All

of this effort is aimed at coming up with a new

ordinance that encourages developers to save more

existing trees on construction sites, and to

resist the urge to strip construction sites bare,

replacing mature native trees with new exotic

ones.

Members

of a special committee appointed to study the

proposed changes met with the Planning Commission

in a marathon work session last week to talk over

proposed changes.

At

Thursday's workshop, commissioners hope to put

the document in final form before voting to

recommend it to the County Commission.

Both

Fayette County and the city of Fayetteville have

been poring over their tree protection ordinances

since this past summer in hopes of saving more of

the county's majestic native trees.

Local

residents have attended numerous meetings to

encourage the commissioners to make the ordinance

tighter, but the process has made some local

developers nervous that the restrictions will get

so tight that they won't be able to fit their

buildings, streets and parking lots on the

construction sites.

"We're

not trying to come up with something that's going

to force the developer out of business,"

said Planning Commission member Jim Graw during

the recent work session.

Commissioners

looked over drawings of test construction sites

using various proposals in the ordinances, and

noted that under at least one scenario, the

development would be stuffed so densely with

trees that large numbers of them probably

wouldn't survive for long.

"I

think we're talking about tree retention, not

tree farming," said commission Chairman Bob

Harbison.

Commissioners

and committee members wrestled with the

conflicting goals of writing an ordinance that

needs no interpretation and is clearly

enforceable and writing an ordinance that has

enough flexibility to be practical. Developers

argued that staff will have to exercise some

discretion, because there's no way to anticipate

every problem.

"There's

got to be a little bit of common sense applied to

anything we do," said commissioner Al

Gilbert.

In

anticipation of Thursday's meeting, county

forestry experts have been studying the proposed

ordinance's list of accepted vari eties of trees to make sure

the list is practical for local planting. Some

trees are too expensive, or too fragile, to be

practical, experts say.

Thursday's

meeting will be at 7 p.m. at the County

Administrative Complex. The only items on the

regular meeting agenda will be naming a chairman,

vice chairman and secretary for the Planning

Commission, and approval of minutes of earlier

meetings.

The

tree preservation workshop will immediately

follow.

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