Members of the Richmond County Planning and Zoning Board of Adjustment drew terms of office at their meeting Tuesday night.

Richmond County Board of Commissioners at its meeting April 6 re-appointed the planning board members to new terms, but they had to determine their own length of appointment.

The idea is to provide staggered terms so the entire board doesn’t have to be re-appointed at the same time.

After the drawing, terms from now on will be for three years.

One seat on the board, and two alternate seats remain to be filled. Interested residents may apply at the County Manager’s Office, County Administration Building, South Hancock Street, Rockingham.

Members receive $50 for every meeting they are seated as members of the board. Alternates are paid only if seated by an absence of a regular board member.

Drawing three-year terms were Dr. Diane Honeycutt and Jim Lambeth.

Drawing two-year terms were Board Chairman Harvey Melton and Richard Williams.

Drawing one-year terms were Fred Morris and Greg Norton.

The remaining seat is for a two-year term.

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Van Billingsley of Electronic Services of Hamlet thought Tuesday night he had solved his situation to increase the height of his communications tower on Mt. Zion Church Road as he returned to the Richmond County Zoning Board of Adjustment to request a conditional use permit.

He and Marian Savage, a property owner adjoining property on which the tower stood, had come to an agreement about the tower because he planned to reconstruct it at its new height away from her property.

The landowner on which it now stands owns adjoining property. Billingsley said he and the landowner came to an agreement to relocate the tower on property so it would meet county regulations regarding distance needed around it should it fall.

But County Planner James Armstrong said what the land owner might have said was “hearsay” evidence not allowed to be submitted as part of the hearing.

A decision on Billingsley’s request for a conditional use permit was continued again.

Armstrong said even though the same property owner owned both pieces of property involved, they were looked at as separate pieces.

Billingsley now has the option of going to the county commissioners to ask for a variance with the arrangement with the landowner, or to have the landowner merge the two properties into one deed.

Later, sitting as the planning board, the board was told the planning staff was working on recommendations for a new tower ordinance.

Morris said Billingsley in his comments to the board about his tower situation made good arguments about bringing common sense to the ordinance taking engineering of towers into consideration.

Billingsley said construction of towers was not the only consideration that should be of interest to the county.

“Few of the towers are ever inspected,” he said. When many are “inspected,” it is done by his employees who are asked do work on towers owned by others. He said they have refused to climb some towers considered unsafe because of deterioration.

He said towers should be inspected every five years.

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A request to construct a billboard on property used for outside storage on U.S. 220 at Harrington Road was continued until the May 12 meeting.

Morris pointed out that there was a billboard on the opposite side of U.S. 220, and the county ordinance said there has to be 750 feet between billboards on either side of a roadway.

Armstrong was asked to make measurements to be sure of the distances, and present his findings at the May meeting.