Fayette County officials don't

like the silence surrounding an annexation request in the town of Tyrone.

"It would have never occurred

to anyone that the town of Tyrone would go forward with an annexation

without knowing how the property was going to be used," said County

Commission Chairman Greg Dunn.

Town Council is scheduled to

act on the annexation request tomorrow during its regular meeting, 7:30

p.m. at Town Hall.

County officials had thought

that an agreement between the county and its cities, providing for settling

of disputes over annexation, required that the development plans be revealed

as part of that process. But in a Sept. 7 letter, Tyrone Mayor Pro Tempore

Lisa Richardson said that's not the case. The town must provide the information

only if the town has the information, she wrote.

"... neither state law

nor the annexation agreement itself requires the town to identify the

development plans for the area proposed to be annexed unless such plans

are disclosed to the town," she wrote.

Apparently, that's correct,

Dunn told fellow commissioners last week. "I don't know how to deal

with that," he said. "It's a technicality but in this case the

agreement will uphold their decision to proceed."

R. L. Jennings is asking the

town to annex 32.4 acres next to John Wieland Homes' Southampton subdivision,

currently under construction. Dunn told The Citizen he thinks it likely

that the owner plans to sell the land to Wieland to add to the subdivision,

something the county would have formally objected to, since it would increase

density of development on the land more than five-fold.

"That would be speculation

on their part," said Town Manager Barry Amos. If the mayor and council

decide to annex it, the land will come into the city with an AR zoning

designation, which requires a minimum of three acres per home.

The annexation agreement provides

20 days for the county to object to proposed annexations, and provides

a procedure for joint meetings to negotiate those points. But when county

commissioners discussed the proposal Aug. 24, they said without any information

on development plans, they couldn't decide whether to formally object.

Dunn wrote to Tyrone asking

for more information, resulting in Richardson's Sept. 7 reply.

Amos said this week that there

is plenty of precedent for acting on annexations without development plans

in hand. If the owner wants anything more dense than the AR zoning allows,

he would have to go through the rezoning process, he added.

"It's not a requirement

of state law nor is it a town requirement" that development plans

be attached to annexations requests, he said.

Since the county failed to

object in the proper form, the deadline for those objections has expired,

Richardson said. "As that date has now passed ... the town of Tyrone

will proceed with the annexation process in this matter," she wrote.

Dunn said he was pleased with

how the cities of Fayetteville and Peachtree City handled similar annexation

requests recently, both going out of their way to provide information

to the county.

"The other two cities

didn't play these games with us," he said.

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