Fayette County

commissioners turned down all four rezoning requests on their agenda last

week, including the controversial request for commercial zoning for the

historic Peeples house at Ga. Highway 74 and Redwine Road.

The group did

grant a rezoning in Peeples house owner Charlie "Lou" Pailer's

case, but not the one Pailer was asking for. Commissioners changed the

zoning of the house and five acres from agricultural-residential (A-R)

to office-institutional (O-I). Pailer had originally asked for highway

commercial (C-H), but had amended that request prior to Thursday's meeting,

asking for community commercial (C-C), a category that allows less intense

types of retail development.

Pailer said

he has lived in the house since 1980, and enjoyed the rural atmosphere

around the home until that was ruined by development of the mammoth Starr's

Mill school complex, which surrounds the home on three sides. The county's

recent approval of a shopping center across the street will make the home

even less desirable as a residence, he said.

"I'll

be looking right in the front door of that Kroger," he said. When

he bought the house, he added, the advertisement "said historic plantation

surrounded by countryside, not by a school."

He has tried

to market the property for offices without success, he said, and a commercial

and office appraiser testified that after studying the situation, she's

convinced there's no market for offices in that area.

A couple dozen

residents stood to show their opposition to the rezoning, and six spoke

against it, saying they represented hundreds of homeowners in their neighborhood

associations.

All were sympathetic

to Pailer's plight, but said they fear commercial development on the corner

in front of the school will present a danger to their children.

Donna O'Kelly,

Pailer's daughter and real estate agent, said her own son will attend

school at the complex. "If that kid would be in danger, I would not

recommend" the rezoning, she said.

Commissioner

Herb Frady argued in favor of Pailer's request. "He's entitled to

some use of his property," he said. "Mr. Pailer lived on that

property a long time. Some of your subdivisions were not there, the school

was not there ... he made it his home, and he's been impacted probably

more than this store will impact your property," he told the opponents.

But four other

commissioners said the rezoning is simply not in the best interests of

the county. "We do have to do what we feel is best for the largest

number of people," said Commissioner Linda Wells.

Commissioners

also turned down the Carmack family's request for a rezoning so developer

Mukut Gupta could put 18 homes on 40.5 acres on Old Senoia Road and Sarah

Banister's request for a similar rezoning 20 homes on 42.3 acres on New

Hope Road.

In both cases,

developers had previously asked for rezonings to allow one-acre lots,

had been turned down and had returned with the request for two-acre lots.

Commissioners

said the property should remain zoned for minimum five-acre lots, to prevent

a domino effect with surrounding acreage.

Also turned

down was Fayette Youth Protection Home's request to change the conditions

on its C-C zoning for five acres of its Ga. Highway 279 property. Conditions

placed on the zoning allow only a nonprofit youth home on the land. The

home's board wants to sell five acres, including the old Kenwood School,

to Aston Peart for a day care center.

Residents said

they don't want a commercial operation near their homes, adding that the

commercial zoning was approved by in the '80s only so that the youth home

could operate there, fitting in with other residences.

Commissioners

Greg Dunn and Herb Frady voted in favor of the rezoning. Linda Wells,

A.G. VanLandingham and Peter Pfeifer voted "no."