OCONEE COUNTY — The Oconee County Planning Commission intends to send a proposed zoning enabling ordinance back to Oconee County Council next week, but the ordinance contains some important differences from the document the commission first considered.

For one, lake protection overlays will extend to all lakeshore property on Lakes Keowee and Jocassee and Hartwell Lake. And the overlay zone will be reduced to 210 feet instead of the 1,300 feet first proposed.

“There is a consensus that the Planning Commission opposes all overlays in principle,” said Commissioner Randy Abbott. “But if County Council insists on having them, we can recommend what we think they ought to be.”

The lake overlays restrict the density of housing and limit the heights of buildings to 65 feet.

In addition, the county’s requirements for a 25-foot buffer around all lakeshore areas also will include Hartwell Lake and also will be made retroactive. Owners of lakefront lots without buffers will be given two years to comply.

“If we don’t apply it to all the lakeshores, we really haven’t done anything,” said Commissioner Howard Moore, explaining that the purpose of the buffer is aimed at preserving and protecting the lake’s water quality.

The only exemption will be lakefront areas used for agriculture.

Commissioner Rex Ramsey argued that the buffer made no sense in lakefront areas that involved farms. Ramsey, who owns a farm in western Oconee County, said in some places the buffer between his property and the lakeshore was often 300 yards, sometimes more.

Ramsey also argued that the present zoning enabling ordinance contained no language that ensured that at least 51 percent of the property owners in a district wanted zoning.

The current ordinance establishes the county’s 17 planning districts roughly the same as the county’s rural fire districts.

Proposed language would allow requests for areas as small as 200 acres and, for subdivisions, 50 acres. The county planning department has proposed a survey method of gauge property owners’ support for zoning once the process is initiated.

Currently, the zoning process would be initiated if 30 percent of the property owners in a district petitioned for zoning. The number was raised from an initial 15 percent.

“Once it starts, it’s a political process,” Ramsey said. “There should be at least 51 percent of the people supporting it before it (the district) can be zoned.”

County Planning Director Art Holbrooks explained that a mailing system is planned after zoning maps have been prepared, the mailing’s intent to involve all property owners in the decision.

The commissioners discussed without a conclusion the possibility of sending the ordinance back to the County Council in its final form with no recommendation.

Commissioner Moore recommended the strategy, explaining that Council members often use the Planning Commission’s recommendation to explain their own votes on measures that are unpopular with many county residents.The Planning Commission is scheduled to make its own final vote on the ordinance at its regular meeting on Monday.

The County Council has scheduled a public hearing on the ordinance for Oct. 23.