By DAVE HAMRICK
Staff Writer

Line by line, Fayette County Planning Commission members last week pored over 102 pages of proposed changes to the county's development regulations and 34 pages of similar changes to subdivision regulations.

It was tedious work involving such minute concerns as the height and width of street curbing and how one measures a flood plain. But, according to county engineer Kirk Houser, the results will be important to Fayette residents in the future.

Houser and assistant David Borkowski have been working to rewrite the regulations since January, in hopes of reducing the possibility of engineering problems in future subdivisions, streets, commercial and industrial buildings.

“My goal for this effort,” Houser told the Planning Commission, “is that 30 years from now some future county engineer won't be dealing with some of the same problems and complaints I'm dealing with now. Everything from flooding problems to the structural integrity of buildings will be affected by the changes, he added.

When Fayette was a rural county, the standards of development were logically less stringent, he said, but now that development is going on at a rapid pace, the need for exact standards grows. “As we get more dense, these things become more urgent,” he said.

Houser's copy of the proposed changes quickly filled up with red tab markers as commissioners suggested minor changes or noted typographical errors.

The group agreed to go over the changes again at its November work session before asking for public comment in its regular business session Dec. 2.

The Planning Commission will discuss the changes at one more work session in January before voting on them in February for presentation to the county Board of Commissioners later that month.