Fayette County has purchased

180.5 acres of rolling pasture and forest land for a community park for

north Fayette residents, including more than 40 acres of permanent green

space.

"It's a nice piece of

property ... a big piece of property, where we can do what we need to

do now, and if we need to we can add [facilities] to it later," said

Greg Dunn, chairman of the Board of Commissioners.

He said tentative plans are

for "ball fields, a picnic area, maybe a pavilion," on the land,

which fronts on Kenwood Road and Ga. Highway 279.

Work could begin as early as

next summer, if all goes well, Dunn said.

Grants from Georgia's green

space program will provide more than $380,000 toward the purchase. The

remainder of the purchase price undisclosed at this time will come from

funds the county has been putting aside for this purpose.

"We took that money and

put it with the green space money and that made a really good deal for

a park," said Dunn.

Residents working through the

North Fayette Homeowners Association have pushed for the park for some

time, he said. "We don't have any facilities in the north county

right now for recreation, and we had committed to them to provide some

decent facilities and we're going to do it," said Dunn.

An added benefit to purchasing

the property, he said, is that the land is now preserved from development.

"A lot of people don't

realize what we have up here in the north part of the county," Dunn

said. With projects like the park and green space program, he said, "This

whole part of the county up here is going to be really neat."

Fayette has received about

three quarters of a million dollars each year of the first two years of

the green space program. The state Legislature, in creating the program,

made the funding available to counties that would commit to a long-term

effort to set aside 20 percent of their land area as permanent green space.

"I like the green space

program," said Dunn, "because it coincides with our desire to

keep the county, as much as possible, like it is."

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