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Council Insists on Traffic Study at Cobblestone

BLYTHEWOOD – After more than seven months of wrangling with Town Council over the proposed rezoning of Cobblestone Park, last week developer D.R. Horton made concessions that appeared to be the last major hurdles to amend the zoning map. Last month Town Council sent the rezoning request back to the Planning Commission for further discussion. While the Planning Commission did not seem anxious, as the Council had been, to impose a traffic study on the new project, as a result of their discussions, D.R. Horton agreed to drop its request for R-4 zoning and model homes near the gated entrance of Cobblestone Park and to leave the previously requested R-4 area as a permanent open or green space for the neighborhood. Councilman Eddie Baughman had said last month that he felt that if the developer would concede on the R-4 zoning and model homes at the entrance to the neighborhood, everyone would feel better about the proposed rezoning.

At a work session Tuesday, however, Town Council members gave the developer another mountain to climb – a laundry list of new reasons why the developer should have a traffic study conducted for Syrup Mill Road, which borders the development and will accommodate some of the neighborhood traffic, primarily that of the new Primrose Section, on to Blythewood Road.

The developer has maintained that a traffic study would not be needed since, under the proposed zoning, it is actually reducing the number of units it plans to build in the neighborhood by 506. The developer’s representative, Tom Margle, has said the developer gave in to the Council’s demands in order to move the project forward in a timely manner. Margle said that without the rezoning, he didn’t know “how much longer D.R. Horton can continue to fund the deficit of the Home Owners Association with the clubs, common areas, open space and private roads. It’s a very large ticket.”

Planning Commissioner Malcolm Gorge, speaking in favor of a traffic study, said he felt precedent had already been set citing the two neighborhoods and school that feed on to Turkey Farm Road with accelerating and decelerating lanes.

Town Administrator Gary Parker took a harder line, suggesting that under the Town’s Traffic Impact Study (TIS) Guidelines a TIS is required of the developer.

“To my knowledge,” Parker said, “a study has never been done at any time for this subdivision since its inception.”

Parker also said he had contacted the S.C. Department of Transportation (DOT) and, “I was advised that they recommend a TIS for Syrup Mill and would be glad to meet with the developer to go over that.”

But Margle said the developer’s engineers had already consulted with DOT staff, a number of Richland County road and planning officials, a traffic study consultant and others about the need for a traffic study.

“We explained the reduction of density (dwelling units) in the zoning map amendment, and none of them thought a traffic study would be needed at this time,” Margle said.

He also said that he, too, was concerned about traffic and that he had already set up a meeting prior to the Feb. 23 Town Council meeting with other DOT personnel, the encroachment engineer, the maintenance engineer who would approve the issue and the district engineer. Margle invited the Town’s officials to participate in that meeting, which would most likely be held at DOT headquarters.

“We want to be good stewards,” Margle told the group.

Parker said that even if the DOT has not reached a decision concerning the need for a TIS before the February Council meeting, that a first reading and public hearing could still be conducted. It was not clear, however, if Council would delay second reading until the DOT had reached a decision on the traffic study.

At the beginning of the meeting, Council held an executive session for the purpose of discussing the zoning proposed by D.R. Horton, calling the reason for the session “receipt of legal advice involving matters covered by the attorney-client privilege.”

Mayor J. Michael Ross, who owns a lot in the Primrose section and lives in Cobblestone Park, recused himself from the session and later discussion to comply with a ruling by the S.C. Ethics Commission advising against his participation. Two of the remaining four Council members, also residents of Cobblestone, were not required to recuse themselves from the discussions and voting on the rezoning. That decision was criticized at last month’s Town Council meeting by an attorney representing D.R. Horton.

WINNSBORO – County Council’s Policy and Development (P&D) Committee, chaired by District 4 Councilman and Vice Chairman Kamau Marcharia, met briefly on Jan. 29 to discuss a recommendation to full Council on providing matching funds to the Town of Jenkinsville to complete a sidewalk project.

Jenkinsville Mayor Gregrey Ginyard first brought his request for $50,000 in two installments of $25,000 each in 2015 and 2016 before Council during their Jan. 12 meeting. Ginyard said then that three-quarters of the project, from Buttercup Lane to approximately a quarter of a mile shy of Baltic Circle where the Lake Monticello Park is located, had been completed using Department of Transportation grant money. To take the sidewalk all the way to the park, Ginyard said Jenkinsville is applying for another grant and needs $100,000 in matching funds. Ginyard said the town only needed half of that – $50,000 – from the County, with the remainder coming from the County Transportation Committee (CTC). Ginyard said Jenkinsville didn’t need the cash right away, but did need a letter of commitment from the County by March to submit with their grant application.

Ginyard repeated his request at Council’s Jan. 26 meeting, worried as Council also that night discussed restructuring its committee system that his request would get bogged down in committee and drag on past the March 1 deadline. Council nevertheless recommended his request to the P&D Committee, which hashed it out last week.

Councilman Billy Smith (District 7) said during the committee meeting that he was concerned that Council might be setting a precedent by providing matching funds out of the general fund, locking Council into ponying up for matching funds for every local councils’ grant proposals. Instead, Smith suggested the Council take the funds from District 4’s portion of state money that is distributed to counties for road paving projects.

The Committee agreed and will make the recommendation, contingent upon the CTC’s willingness to provide their share, to the full group of seven at Council’s Feb. 9 meeting.

County Reveals Possible Third Option

RIDGEWAY – Efforts to determine whether or not a proposed County recreation facility, planned for a plot of land on Highway 21 S. near Smallwood Road, could instead be built inside the Ridgeway town limits took another step forward last week when Town Council sat down with County representatives at the Century House.

Town Councilman Russ Brown brought the issue before Council during their Dec. 11 meeting when he said the Highway 21 S. location came as something of a surprise to him. The majority of his colleagues said they had also been unaware of the facility going up near the recycling center, and Brown has since advocated for bringing the project into town, preferably on the site once occupied by Town Hall on property at Church and Means streets.

Milton Pope, County Administrator, told Ridgeway during their Jan. 28 joint meeting that while the Highway 21 site was the last site approved by County Council, the Council could change that at any time before work begins. However, Pope added, such a change could come at a cost.

“The specific costs that we’re getting (for the construction) are related to this site,” Pope said, “so if there are changes in the plans that we have there may be costs associated with that.”

The County has earmarked $3.5 million from their 2013 $24 million bond issue for recreation, with $500,000 allocated for each of the County’s seven districts. When Brown said that some Ridgeway citizens, during comments at last month’s Council meeting, had questioned whether or not the County should be spending anything at all on recreation, Pope and Chairwoman Carolyn Robinson said the County was all-in on the projects.

“It’s almost unheard of,” Pope said, “you don’t turn bond money back in. There has been no discussion as of yet to change or amend this portion of the bond of the $3.5 million for recreational purposes.”

“I think Council is definitely committed to this,” Robinson said, “and that part of the bond is only committed to recreation and nothing else. It can’t be used for anything else.”

Responding to Mayor Charlene Herring’s question of the County owning versus leasing land on which the recreation center would stand, Pope said the County would prefer owning any property on which it was “going to make a sizeable investment.”

Robinson said that if the move were made from Highway 21 to Church and Means streets and the County were to assume ownership of the Town’s property there, a clause could be built into the agreement stating that, should the County ever cease using the property for recreation that property would revert back to Ridgeway.

Town Councilman Donald Prioleau told the County that it might actually be less expensive to construct the facility on the Church and Means street site. The Highway 21 site, Prioleau said, would require a lot of tree removal and grading. The site in town, he said, specifically the portion of the property where the former Town Hall sat, was essentially ready to build.

While the Highway 21 site has water, he added, the site did not have any sewer connection available, “so you’re going to have to build a sewage station,” Prioleau said. The property in town, he said, had both water and sewer available, and the Town might be amenable to donating the water tap.

Prioleau also said that in spite of some concerns expressed by citizens, there was plenty of space on the Church and Means street site for the facility.

“We had three buildings over there,” Prioleau said, “the school building, the auditorium and the gym. So if we went back with one building, I know the space can handle it. There’s plenty of space in that area (where the old Town Hall was).”

A Third Option

County Councilman Dan Ruff, who represents District 1, said he personally did not have a preference on which site the facility went. But he did say he had received feedback from the community.

“People that have come to me, in town and out of town, prefer it out of town somewhere,” Ruff said, “but just about all of them don’t like the site by the recycling center. Most of them that I’ve talked to don’t really want it in town, but they’d rather have it here than out there.”

Ruff also said a third alternative may be available at Rufus Belton Park, which is located approximately 9 miles from town at 5087 Park Road. Ruff said the proposal at this point was “just talk,” but the site already has the necessary infrastructure, he said, as well as an existing ball field.

Brown, however, said he felt Ridgeway was more likely the most densely populated area of District 1.

“I understand the public’s concerns and the citizens’ concerns and I do value those opinions,” Brown said, “but overall is it going to be used if it’s very rural or is it going to be more practical to have it in an area where you also have utilities but also have access to higher (population) count and more visibility?”

The Next Move

Robinson said that before the County could act it would need an official recommendation from Ridgeway. But before that could happen, Ruff suggested that Town Council hold a public forum to poll citizens on their opinion.

“This will be the third meeting or fourth meeting, if I’m not mistaken, that we’ve had on this same issue,” Brown said, “so I don’t think it’s for a lack of meeting that people don’t know about it.”

But Herring agreed and the meeting adjourned with at least one more public meeting on the issue on Ridgeway’s plate before a decision is made.

BLYTHEWOOD – More than six months after developer D.R. Horton requested rezoning of the Cobblestone Park subdivision, the request is still being bounced back and forth between Town Council and the Planning Commission, undergoing intense scrutiny particularly by members of those boards who live in Cobblestone Park. But on Monday evening, an end appeared to be sight.

During Monday’s Planning Commission meeting Tom Margle, an engineer representing D.R. Horton, said the developer had agreed to the two boards’ requests to forgo the R-4 zoning it had requested at the gated neighborhood’s entrance. The developer had already backed off an earlier plan to build model homes on the R-4 lots, which members of Town Council had told Margle last week were not acceptable to Council.

Even though the item was listed on the agenda as a discussion item (not an item to be voted on), the Commission agreed in a pole (vote) to remove the R-4 zoning designation. But it was soon clear that there was no real agreement or understanding between the developer and the town government as to how that parcel would now be zoned.

In a memo sent to members of the Commission following the meeting, Malcolm Gorge, Chairman of the Commission, wrote that the vote to remove the R-4 zoning designation, “leaves those lots more or less as common areas.”

As common areas, they could not be built on but would be reserved for park-like areas for residents, Gorge told The Voice.

Immediately following the meeting, however, Ross Oakley, an engineer with Thomas & Hudson (representing D.R. Horton) told the Town’s Planner Michael Criss and Town Administrator Gary Parker that he was not sure whether the developer wanted the area left as common area or as it is currently zoned – TC (Town Center District) which, according to Criss, would allow multi-story buildings and commercial ventures at the entrance to Cobblestone.

On Tuesday morning, Parker told The Voice that the developer had contacted Town Hall, agreeing to not only rescind the request for R-4 zoning but to let that area be brought into the PDD (Planned Development District) and remain a common or open area. Parker said the zoning process would go to Council where it would have a public hearing and two readings, the first of which will probably be Feb. 23. The zoning should be finalized by the end of March, Parker said.

Commissioners Blast Council as ‘Anti-Business’

BLYTHEWOOD – The Planning Commission voted unanimously on Monday evening to recommend that Town Council adopt a new Limited Industrial (LI[2]) zoning district for the Town. The zoning was proposed last month by Richland County’s Director of Economic Development, Nelson Lindsay. But before the Commissioners voted, two of them took the opportunity to express publicly their frustration with Town Council, with one repeatedly labeling it anti-business.

When Malcolm Gorge, the Commission Chairman, asked if there were any questions regarding the rezoning, Commissioner Don Sanders, newly appointed by Town Council said, “It (the proposed zoning) boils down to providing more flexibility and opportunity for manufacturing so I don’t want to make a political statement about what I think about the Town Council, but I will say the details to address this (zoning district) would result in nominal setbacks and parking provisions. That seems like not a threatening thing to me,” Sanders said.

When earlier discussing the proposed rezoning of Cobblestone Park and Council’s call for a traffic study for certain roadways connecting to the neighborhood, Commissioner Mike Switzer said, “That whole traffic study thing is ridiculous. If (the developer) reduces the head count by 500, plus the road is going to be widened (through the Penny Tax road projects), for the topic of traffic to even be brought up is ridiculous. It’s anti-business. The Town Council is anti-business.”

Switzer also said that Council’s expressed concern about the location and sizes of swimming pools to be built by D.R. Horton in the new section of Cobblestone Park that were not related to the rezoning was “just another example of their (Council’s) anti-business attitude.” Switzer went on to say, “I think Council knows how we feel.”

When Lindsay proposed the LI(2) zoning category for the Town to the Commission last month, he said it would assure there are sites suitable for companies to locate in Richland County. He said the LI(2) zoning classification would bridge the gap between the Town’s current Limited Industrial Zoning District and the heavier Basic Industrial Zoning District. At that meeting, the proposal was tabled for further study after Switzer questioned whether some of the listed permitted industries, such as tire manufacturing and textile mills, might be considered heavy rather than limited manufacturing.

Gorge told the Commission that the zoning they voted to recommend to Council was for the text amendment only and would establish the zoning category for the town, but it was explained at the meeting last month that the target of the proposed zoning is a 663-acre area bounded by I-77, Locklear Road, Ashley Oaks subdivision and Northpoint Industrial Park. Gorge said that to apply that zoning to land, however, “we will have to also adopt a zoning map amendment.”

The Commission’s recommendation for the proposed zoning will now go to the Town Council on Feb. 23 for a first vote.

WINNSBORO – As the deadline for candidates wishing to file for a pair of seats up for re-election on Town Council passed last week with only the incumbents throwing their names into the ring, the Fairfield County Office of Elections and Voter Registration may be off the hook for once in what has been an unusually busy election season.

Debbie Stidham, Director of Elections and Voter Registration, said only Danny Miller (District 1) and Clyde Sanders (District 3) filed by the Jan. 23 noon deadline. Anyone wishing to notify the office of their intentions to be identified as a write-in candidate still has until Feb. 6 to contact Stidham’s office. If no one steps forward, she said, the Town will not be required to hold a municipal election on April 7.

That may come as a relief to an office that has already in 2014 tackled a special Democratic primary for Sheriff, a run-off in that primary, the special election itself for Sheriff, as well as the general election and a recount in the County Council race for District 3. In March, Stidham’s office will have to take on an unprecedented new election, by order of the Governor, for the District 3 seat.

WINNSBORO – County Council Monday night discussed turning from a work session form of governing in favor of hashing out business in committees, while also voting 5-2 to split the existing Policy and Development (P&D) Committee into two new committees.

Councilman Billy Smith (District 7) placed the motion on the floor to split P&D into the Public Affairs and Policy Committee, which would cover justice and personnel procedures, environmental and public safety, welfare and community relations; and the Public Resources and Development Committee, covering health, education, recreation, public facilities, transportation and land planning.

“Looking at the Policy and Development Committee that was presented to us,” Smith said, “there were a plethora of different items under that committee and I just felt that we should split that into two different committees so that we don’t only send that to three folks on Council before it comes to the floor.”

Vice Chairman Kamau Marcharia (District 4) said he was concerned that splitting the P&D Committee would ultimately send more issues into the hands of the Administration and Finance (A&F) Committee.

“And the two people up here who are going to handle finance for the next two years is (District 2’s Carolyn Robinson, Chairwoman) and Mr. (Marion) Robinson,” Marcharia said. “It’s taking from us and being placed in your hands.”

Carolyn Robinson, however, said that assessment was not exactly correct, and Marion Robinson said that an item would only go from one committee over to A&F if that was the recommendation of the original committee. Milton Pope, County Administrator, added that such would be the case only after the original committee had reported the item back to the full Council. An item would not, he said, go directly from one committee to another.

“We just felt like, looking at the Policy and Development Committee, this is an awful lot of different areas to cover for three people,” Marion Robinson said. “These three people are going to be in committee meetings all the time or they’re going to be in a two and three hour committee meeting.”

Marcharia and Councilman Mikel Trapp (District 3) voted against the split.

Carolyn Robinson also introduced for discussion a new process by which Council may take up items for consideration. Any matter initiated by a Council member, and that requires Council action, will be presented to the full Council in the form of a motion, she said, and if the motion carries the matter will then be assigned to a committee. Council would follow the same process on matters brought to them by the public, she said.

“That way we don’t have issues that are just hanging out there and not being officially assigned,” Pope said.

“It’s also you taking ownership of this Council,” Carolyn Robinson added to her colleagues, “and you work on it so that the Chair is not going to be the one who sits and puts on the agenda what’s going on.”

Smith suggested inserting the rules into Council’s bylaws, to which Councilwoman Mary Lynn Kinley (District 6) agreed. Carolyn Robinson agreed as well, but did not call for a motion Monday night.

“My recommendation to you all tonight is,” she said, “we’ve had two or three things thrown at us, take what was given to us, add these things and let’s be ready to actually vote on the policy and procedures at the next regular Council meeting.”

Quarry Update

Pope told Council he had received a letter earlier in the day from the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) regarding the County’s submission of comments and questions regarding the mining application for Winnsboro Crushed Stone, as well as the County’s request for additional public meetings on the issue. Reading from the letter, Pope told Council that DHEC does not plan at this time to hold any further public meetings regarding the proposed quarry in the Rockton Thruway neighborhood.

Jenkinsville Sidewalks

Jenkinsville Mayor Gregrey Ginyard, who appeared before Council at their Jan. 12 meeting to request a letter of support for his town’s S.C. Department of Transportation (DOT) enhancement grant application to complete a sidewalk, made a second appeal for the support Monday night.

Ginyard said during his Jan. 12 request that three-quarters of the project, from Buttercup Lane to approximately a quarter of a mile shy of Baltic Circle where the Lake Monticello Park is located, had been completed using DOT grant money. To take the sidewalk all the way to the park, Ginyard said Jenkinsville is applying for another grant and needs $100,000 in matching funds. Ginyard said the town only needed half of that – $50,000 – from the County, and in two installments of $25,000 each in 2015 and in 2016. Ginyard said Jenkinsville didn’t need the cash right away, but did need a letter of commitment from the County by March to submit with their grant application.

“I’ve sat here tonight and I’ve listened to the committee things,” Ginyard said Monday night, “and I’m hoping that we can get an answer for the town of Jenkinsville before it goes into a committee and it has to spend a month or so in that committee to get a decision back so we will know where to go with our enhancement grant.”

Marcharia later asked Council to supply Ginyard with a letter of support, but Carolyn Robinson said the matter should indeed go through the committee process.

“I think it needs to go to the committee because money is attached to that,” she said.

Marcharia moved to do so, asking that the matter be expedited, receiving a second from Trapp and the motion passed without dissent.