2. The zoning laws in this

county are completely subjective and arbitrary. They allow our county

commission to pick who gets to be a millionaire and who gets to be a farmer.

Having read The Citizen articles regarding zoning for the past five years,

I am convinced that no objective safety or health related reasons are

consistently being used to turn down zoning requests. It is always something

like, "that subdivision would ruin the view from such and such road,"

or, "those houses aren't going to be as big as mine." Eventually

as land values go up, our county is going to be sued (successfully I might

add) for compensation.

3. Hardly anyone wants five

acre or larger lots, and most people can't afford them. Most of the country

is moving toward smart growth, while Bob wants to move the other way toward

large rural estate lots like his.

Neotraditional development

mixes work space, parks, shopping, and residential housing within the

same area so that you can walk more and drive less (if you want to). It

is not for everyone, but it is popular with a large segment of the population.

This kind of development does

not have a snow ball's chance in hell in this county, thanks to people

like Bob Craft. Why can't people be free to choose their own level of

density and type of land use plan? You can have your estate lot and others

can live in a neotraditional setting. Let the market decide, Bob!

4. Traffic problems, smog,

and congestion are not caused by development, but by stupid development

patterns brought on by stupid zoning. Almost every store of any size in

this county is within one mile of the Fayette Pavilion. To get to the

Pavilion, we must all drive though downtown Fayetteville.

You can thank your local governments

and people like Bob who attend every meeting to lobby for their agenda

for this arrangement. All the stores [are] north of Fayetteville because

people like Bob Craft fight allowing them elsewhere, and our governments

back them up. Maybe the citizens of Fayetteville (and Newnan) would rather

you Peachtree City folks shop in your own d town and stay off their streets.

5. To control growth, America

(not Fayette County) must control population growth (not housing growth).

This means severely restricting permanent immigration and make changes

in our own society, i.e., removing tax advantages favoring large families

from the tax code and frowning more on illegitimate pregnancy.

Housing growth is a symptom,

not a cause of population growth. Who would build houses if there were

no new people to buy them. We Americans no longer seem to have the courage

to tackle pressing problems like national (and worldwide population) growth,

so we find an easy substitute in fighting local growth. It is easier to

be weasel and use bogus zoning to just keep them out of your own back

yard than to fix the problem. Right, Bob?

6. Finally. This is Fayette

County, not Craft County. I know for a fact that you are not a native

of this county. Someone had to build roads, schools, hospital, fire stations,

etc., when you moved here. Don't you think it is a little hypocritical

for you to expect the county to not build infrastructure to accommodate

other newcomers? Besides, most home buyers have no problem paying legitimate

impact fees.

We used to respect freedom,

tackle root problems, and mind our own business in this country. What

happened?

Bill Gilmer

Fayetteville

[email protected]