Communications

towers could be closer together and closer to

homes under proposed changes to Fayette County's

ordinance governing the towers.

The

county Planning Commission will consider the

changes tomorrow during its regular business

meeting, 7 p.m. at the County Administrative

Complex. The group's recommendation will go to

the County Commission for its consideration April

27, also at 7 p.m.

Enacted

just last year, the law is so restrictive that no

new towers have been permitted in the county,

creating a situation in which Fayette has large

areas of poor cell phone reception, according to

industry representatives.

"It

wasn't our intention to make it real easy,"

said Planning Commission Chairman Bob Harbison

during a recent work session to discuss the

proposed changes.

The

current law requires that towers be at least

1,000 feet from any neighboring residence, a

requirement that's almost impossible to meet,

said James Ney, a lawyer representing tower

companies. He suggested requiring only the height

of the tower as a separation between it and

neighboring buildings.

Commissioners

said they're willing to talk about reducing the

distance, but not that much. A suggested

reduction to 500 feet also was rejected. "I

didn't think we were going to be talking about

radical surgery," said commissioner Fred

Bowen. "When you take these things and

reduced it by half, that's radical surgery."

Consensus

of the group was to change the distance

requirement to 750 feet.

But

commissioners were willing to compromise further

on the distance required between towers.

"I'm less concerned about this one,"

said Bowen. "A mile is a pretty good

ways."

Consensus

was to reduce the required distance from two

miles to a mile.

Among

other changes to be considered Thursday,

commissioners may decide to allow variances on

tower permits. The law currently doesn't.

But

county attorney Bill McNally cautioned the

commission not to rely too heavily on variances

as a way for tower builders to get around

difficult provisions of the ordinance. "You

ought to write your ordinance to handle 90 to 95

percent of the cases," he said.

Commissioners

also will consider automatic approval of permits

for new towers where old ones already exist, to

encourage upgrading old sites rather than

building new ones.

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