By RAY LIGHTNER

“Neighborhood outcry weighs heavy in these issues,” explained Commissioner Larry Thomson.

He was talking – during the County Commissioners’ meeting Tuesday – about special exceptions, be it for a home daycare or a cell phone tower. That said, the commissioners approved three requests on the table Tuesday. The one that was denied – Joan Hurst’s request for a home occupation daycare – had a lot of public opposition.

Several residents spoke out against the request and 60 of the 89 homeowners signed a petition against it. Residents’ concerns included increased traffic, safety of the children due to proximity to a lake and a private airstrip, and decreased property values.

Hurst, “a military wife, raising four children and trying to support my family,” said there was nothing in closing documents about the covenants. She said the previous owners did not tell her about it and said there was no problem with a daycare.

They only thing they said about the homeowners association was the dues, Hurst said.

Hurst noted she is licensed through the state for six children maximum, and said the homeowners association and given false information about her request. She was not asking for rezoning and would not have 30 children.

A home occupation business is also in violation of the covenant and would take unanimous approval of the homeowners association at The Willows to get it approved. Commission Chairman Ned Sanders noted it was not the county’s job to enforce covenants.

Thomson made the motion to deny the request, noting the public outcry weighs heavy the decision. Commissioner Jay Walker seconded the motion, recognizing the need for daycare centers and Commissioner Tom McMichael said, “when it’s neighbor against neighbor we can’t go with it.”

The board voted unanimously to deny the request. Hurst was told since it was denied she cannot apply again for six months.

The board approved two requests for cell phone towers and a home occupation for a computer repair business.

One of the cell phone tower requests, had previous opposition at the planning board hearing, but after the second hearing and a $10,000 donation to the homeowners association by the applicant Larry Sheets, there was no longer any opposition to Sheets’ plan for a cell phone tower off Hatcher Road between Carterswood and Imperial Forest subdivisions.

Steve Gothenhauer, the chairman of the architectural controls committee of the homeowners association at Carterswood West, spoke out in favor of the request. “I told Larry I wish I’d heard the information before” on the monopole tower with radiation being directed toward the horizon, not down and noted the subdivision rescinded its petition in opposition.

Sheets’ attorney Jeff Grube noted the $10,000 donation was being held in an escrow account. “It was a business decision of my client, that I don’t agree with.”

Grube said Sheets ahs a contract with Nextel for the tower and letters of support from the Sheriff’s Office and verbal support from the mayor of Centerville, because the new tower would improve the Nextel service in the area. Grube said the sheriff’s office is having an awful problem, getting busy signals on their Nextel phones.

Sheets noted the new tower at this location would take some of call traffic off the existing tower on Carl Vinson Parkway, which is near 100 percent capacity. Only a certain number of calls can go through a tower at one time.

Sheets also told the county that other sites in the area like water towers and county property on Elberta Road are not suitable, and had line of sight difficulties. “Every tank was modeled.”

Grube said one was too close and the other too far to draw off the overloaded calls.

The board unanimously passed the request. Thomson made the motion to approve noting not more public outcry.

The board also unanimously approved William Woodard Jr.’s request to put a tower on his 36-acre tract off Woodard Road. Jeff Evans, zoning and permitting specialist from T-Mobile South, presented his case to the board.

“We’d love to locate on an existing facility, he told the board, “it’s infinitely cheaper, that building a new tower, unfortunately the water tower was not tall enough.”

Evans also noted an existing tower in the area of Oakey Woods was “too far away and didn’t meet the coverage objective. If we could, we would.”

Evans said the new tower would be 254-foot self-support structure fully enclosed by a 60-by-60-foot fence, set back approximately 1,600 feet off Woodard Road.