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The LaGrange City Council is considering a Board of Planning and Zoning recommendation to approve a text amendment for exterior cladding material.

A developer, Ken Boatwright, requested the amendment to utilize board and batten pre-engineered color-coated metal panels for commercial construction instead of the city’s current material requirements for exterior cladding. 

Board and batten is a type of wall paneling, where panels are installed with seams covered by thin strips called battens. The technique can be used for interior and exterior siding.

City Planner Mark Kostial explained that already allows for similar pre-engineered color-coated metal panels to be utilized in commercial construction, but the code currently mandates that they use no more than 35 percent of each side of the building for that material.

“The ask is that that be increased from 35 percent to 60 percent,” Kostial said.

Kostial provided the council with an example of the panels, which mimic wood panelling, but noted that there are several different color options that the manufacturers provide for the material.

The Planning Board voted 5-2 in favor of the recommendation.

Mayor Jim Arrington said that he has no problem with the nice paneling that mimics wood, but noted it would allow other variants.

“Typically, that 35% in years past would have just been a color. It would not have been something similar to this,” Mayor Jim Arrington said. “If we go to the 65% rule, then they could just use a colored metal instead of something like this, which looks much nicer.”

Kostial said Boatwright proposed that change and has already submitted plans for a self-storage business located behind the CVS Pharmacy at the corner of Hogansville Road and South Davis Road.

Arrington said he has no problem with the product as a material for businesses, but people might cry foul when they see odd colors of it on Lafayette Parkway.

“I hate regulating things. I’m for less regulations, but you stick it out there on the parkway and it sticks out like a sore thumb,” Arrington said.

Kostial noted that the issue is that the city doesn’t regulate color, like its sign ordinance, it doesn’t regulate content.