There's no

way to make a logging operation pretty, but Fayette planning commissioners

think they've come up with a way to at least make it less of an eyesore.

Commissioners

are ready to take another shot at voting on tree protection regulations

for logging operations in an attempt to make the messy agricultural activity

more palatable in a fast-growing, upscale suburban area like Fayette.

Commission

members Thursday tweaked the language in the proposed regulations one

last time before putting them on the agenda for a possible vote at the

June 7 business meeting.

Land owners

and representatives of the logging industry left Thursday's work session

mollified but not satisfied by a reduction in the tree-save buffers the

commission wants to require around land being clear-cut. The land owners

wanted the buffers eliminated altogether, except where timbered property

is next door to already developed property.

Commissioners

reduced the proposed buffers from 50 to 25 feet.

Scott Jones

of the Georgia Forestry Association, a lobbying group for loggers, said

requiring the buffers constitutes a "taking" of the land owners'

property, because they can't profit from the timber in the buffers.

"We're

talking about people who have planted trees and managed the land for years

to provide for retirement or put a child through college," he said.

Clear cut land

that is an eyesore is not a problem caused by loggers, he argued, but

That land may lie devastated for a long time before construction begins,

whereas a true logger will replant a year or so later, he said.

"It's

not pretty," he said, "but if it's a bonafide forester, it's

going to be replanted in a short period of time."

Commissioners

considered adding language that would deny land owners the right to ask

for rezoning for a certain number of years after timbering, as a way to

stop pre-development logging, but County Attorney Bill McNally warned

them away from that course. Government can't constitutionally deny residents

the right to petition for a zoning change, he said.

Proposed changes

to design regulations for nonresidential developments also will be presented

for public comment at the June 7 meeting.

Proposed regulation

changes include establishment of a 60 percent maximum limit on the amount

of impervious surface (pavement and buildings) an office or commercial

development can have. Current regulations provide no limit, except for

industrial developments, which can build or pave over up to 70 percent

of a parcel.

Commissioners

said they want to talk about proposed changes to street design standards

at a future work session before voting on them. The proposals were just

too confusing, said commission member Jim Graw. "I want to see something

that's going to make some sense and that I can understand," he told

county engineers after industry representatives complained that the proposed

standards are unduly restrictive.