LaGrange City Council has been asked to rezone a Victorian-style house at 601 Vernon St. for use as a real estate office.

Pete Bryan, owner of the house and a broker for Lighthouse Realty at 2270 West Point Road, wants to change the corner lot from a residence to an office because of its closeness to city commerce and its charm.

“I want to keep it just the way it is,” Bryan said. “I just thought it’d be a good office. It’s so much … traffic right in there.”

A seven-car parking lot is proposed behind the house at the intersection of Boulevard and Vernon Street, and traffic introduced would be customers going to houses or filling out paperwork, he said.

“I liked the house when I wanted to move,” he said. “I wanted to keep it the way it is, … (for) the charm.”

City Council on Tuesday heard the first reading of an application to rezone the property.

At the earlier committee meeting, an application was denied for about 30 parking spaces near the Granger Park track and along Hunnicut Place to be designated LaGrange High School parking places.

Due in part to temporary classrooms placed in the Highland Avenue student parking lot because of the new wing’s construction, school officials have asked for the spaces to be designated student parking during school hours.

Mayor Jeff Lukken felt giving the spaces to a different local entity wouldn’t be favorable.

“I don’t like the idea of turning those spaces over to anyone inside the city of LaGrange,” he said. “These curbs, right now, belong to the city.”

Councilwoman Norma Tucker said the specified spots would be highly sought after by motorists once fall begins and the Ann and Doc McCluskey Tennis Center expansion is finished.

The application died for lack of a motion.

Also Tuesday, council approved a resolution to allow the Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia to help fund large swings in the city’s advanced billing.

City officials have seen in-creases of $800,000 in their utility payments due to the price volatility of the power received from MEAG’s natural gas plant, city utility director Patrick Bowie said.

“In order to keep the (plant’s) cost down, they did what was called advanced billing. We pay that working capital, they bill us in advance for what’s coming in the next several months,” he said, “and it really hasn’t been a problem until gas prices became so volatile.

“We’ve seen months where we’ll have to pay $800,000 or $900,000 (the current) month for power that’s not going to be generated until two months down the road.”

Although the city gets the additional money back later, the large changes added with other utility costs can make for sticky situations and difficult calculations, officials said.

“You could be out ($1.5 million) cash,” City Manager Tom Hall said. “If you get hit with combined-cycle working capital and all these advanced debt services on your water and sewer debt, we’re out $5 million or $6 million cash come winter time.”

The amendment allows MEAG to provide the city with working capital through short-term debt to balance out changes in the city’s payments. The power group would debt finance the working capital.

All 32 MEAG municipalities will have to approve the amendment for it to pass.

In other matters Tuesday, council:

— approved the annexation of about 965 acres at Cannonville Road.

— approved a motion to reroof the Alpha Multipurpose Center at 200 N. Dawson St., which houses Dawson Street Christian School, for $55,000.

— learned that the city will receive a $3.59 million Recovery Act grant for sewer treatment plant improvements, with 40 percent to be paid through a low-interest loan on a 20-year term.

— and learned that the city will receive a $672,000 Justice Assistance Grant to equip four new police officers.

Trey Wood can be reached at twood@lagrangenews. com or (706) 884-7311, Ext. 228.