Should Fayette

County allow more "conservation subdivisions," clustering homes

closer together in order to provide more green space?

County planning

professionals and the Planning and Zoning Commission will consider that

and other topics during a workshop meeting Thursday night.

Commissioners

meet at 7 p.m. in the Planning Department offices at the County Administrative

Complex. The meeting is open to the public, but public comment usually

is not accepted during workshop meetings.

Conservation

subdivisions are among the recommendations of the Atlanta Regional Commission's

Regional Development Plan, but some local leaders are skeptical of the

idea.

Leaders in

the past have complained that some developers use the concept to build

higher-density subdivisions, while using "unbuildable" property,

like wetlands, to meet the open space requirements.

According to

county senior planner Pete Frisina, Fayette's Planning Department is investigating

a "neutral density" approach, meaning that the number of home

lots allowed would not exceed the number that could be created with a

conventional subdivision design.

In other words,

if a parcel were zoned for 100 homes on 200 acres, the homes might be

on one-acre lots with the remaining space reserved for green space, but

no more than 100 homes would be allowed.

"In any

event," Frisina writes in a memo to the commission, "the Planning

Department would not recommend lot size being reduced to less than one

acre" in unincorporated Fayette County.

Planning commissioners

also will discuss county standards for development in historic areas.

The county

land use plan currently recommends that nonresidential development "maintain

an architectural character" that doesn't detract from the character

of historic areas, but leaves the details to be ironed out by placing

special conditions on approval of any rezoning applications.

"The Planning

Department wants to discuss the location of historic areas and structures

and the feasibility of establishing historic area standards to control

development more uniformly," Frisina wrote.

Also on the

agenda Thursday, commissioners will discuss setting special design standards

for all the county's state highway corridors.

Standards currently

are in place for Ga. highways 54 west, 85 north, 74 north and 314, designed

to encourage office and commercial development that looks more residential.

Commissioners will discuss establishing similar standards for highways

85 south and 54 east, and also slight changes to the borders of the areas

affected by the special standards for 74 north and 314.

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