For the second

time in a year, residents of Old Senoia and Harp roads Thursday left a

Fayette County Planning Commission meeting unhappy.

Commissioners

voted unanimously to recommend approval of developer Mukut Gupta's rezoning

request to allow 18 homes on 40.5 acres on Old Senoia, just off Ga. Highway

85. Gupta is requesting a change from A-R (agricultural-residential) zoning,

which requires minimum five-acre lots, to R-72, which allows lots as small

as two acres.

The group also

recommended approval of Gupta's request for R-40 zoning, which allows

one-acre lots, eight months ago. But the county Board of Commissioners

denied that request.

At that time,

the county's zoning staff recommended R-72 zoning for the land instead

of the R-40 requested, but this time, the staff has recommended denial

of the request, leaving the land to be developed in five-acre lots.

"In my

mind," said planning commissioner Jim Graw," this is a better

proposal than the one we had at that time."

But Terry Durant,

who lives next door, held up a jug filled with brown water and said she

drew the water from her tap just before driving to the Planning Commission

meeting. The area is served by wells. "It will not help to add all

these families and all their waste to the water table," said Durant.

Gupta said

if the subdivision is approved, he'll bring county water to the neighborhood

and residents in the area can tap on.

But Durant

said that's no solution. It would cost too much to tap on, she said, and

she would never be able to afford to use county water to sprinkle her

lawn and garden. She's content to keep buying her drinking water, but

she doesn't want the water table further polluted, she said.

Durant was

one of four residents who spoke in opposition to the rezoning, citing

traffic concerns and the fact that most of the homes surrounding the proposed

subdivision are on lots of five acres or more.

But some of

those lots are zoned for one-acre lots, Gupta argued. "The criteria,

in my opinion, has to be what is zoned and not what is there," he

said.

Commission

member Al Gilbert said the plan is in keeping with the county's land use

plan for the area, and admonished home buyers to look at the land use

plan before buying in an area.

The County

Commission will consider the proposal April 26 at 7 p.m. at the County

Administrative Complex.

They also will

consider:

Cyress Development

Company's plan to add 127.5 acres with 60 homes to the Whitewater Creek

community. Planning commissioners voted 3-2 to recommend approval.

A request

from 3D Properties for a change from A-R to O-I (office-institutional)

for 8.1 acres across from Huiet Drive on Ga. Highway 54 west, for a medical

office. Planning commissioners unanimously recommended approval.

Lynn Fedor's

request for O-I zoning on three quarters of an acre on Ga. Highway 54

east at Plantation Drive. Fedor wants to move her insurance/financial

planning office to the property, using the existing house. Planning commissioners

unanimously recommended approval.

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