Lexington tree protection plan OK'd

By TIM FLACH - tflach@thestate.com

Restrictions on clear-cutting trees for new stores and offices are taking root in Lexington.

Those limits won final Town Council approval Monday, as another measure to discourage golf course redevelopment is delayed temporarily.

The tree protection plan is an effort to ensure natural buffers remain when commercial development adjoins neighborhoods.

It requires developers to keep a 20-foot buffer of landscaping on parts of a tract abutting homes and to look for ways to save major trees elsewhere.

Trees still will but lost but “this will help slow it down,” councilman Ted Stambolitis said of the plan unanimously adopted.

Meanwhile, a plan to discourage development of golf course neighborhoods stalled.

Guidelines putting parts of fairways off-limits are being revamped slightly after an attorney for Golden Hills — the only course in town — promised to challenge it legally.

The proposal is an “affront” to the Berrys who created the neighborhood, lawyer Richard Whitt said in a May 1 letter to Town Hall.

It’s also an attempt to give Town Hall more leverage in a bid to buy sewer easement across the neighborhood, he said.

The Berrys say there are no plans to develop two holes and other facilities adjacent to a major commercial area on U.S. 378 but don’t want that possibility denied.

Their complaints that Mayor Randy Halfacre and Stambolitis are seeking to benefit the neighborhood in which they live led the pair to withdraw Monday from council consideration of the guidelines.

The plan taking shape would create a 125-foot natural buffer around homes in the 279-acre neighborhood, a move town officials say effectively thwarts redevelopment.

It’s part of an effort by town leaders and Lexington County officials to deter commercial development of five courses lined with homes.

Reach Flach at (803) 771-8483.