Blythewood Online 691

Tag: Golf Club of South Carolina

  • Dickerson leads vote to defeat TROS

    COLUMBIA – Without providing documentation guaranteeing a promised 250-foot buffer between Crickentree residents and an undetermined number of homes proposed on the adjoining former Golf Course of South Carolina, Blythewood’s representative on County Council, Joyce Dickerson, led the charge on third and final reading Tuesday night to rezone the golf course from Traditional Recreational Open Space (TROS) zoning to Low Density Residential (RS-LD) zoning.

    The vote was 8-3 with council members Calvin “Chip” Jackson, Allison Terracio and Jim Manning voting against. The county planning commission voted last spring to recommend that council not approve the request.

    While the property owner, investment firm E-Capital, has proposed no more than 170 homes on the property, the zoning designation allows for several hundred homes. Robert Fuller, attorney for the firm, has said it plans to flip the property to a developer.

    Over the last year, Fuller and the developer proposed deed restrictions to protect the environment of the Crickentree neighborhood from what could be a much higher density of homes on the golf course property. Those deed restrictions never materialized.

    During 20 minutes of discussion, Jackson, Terracio and Manning said they were dismayed that Dickerson had not produced documentation that would establish the 250-foot buffer in perpetuity as residents had been promise.

    Jackson reminded Dickerson that the meeting had been deferred from July to September to allow her and E-Capital sufficient time to finalize plans with the neighboring Crickentree community and provide documentation of those agreements.

    Dickerson said it was her understanding that the 250-foot buffer would be placed into a conservation easement. When Manning asked if that had been done, a member of the county said no documentation for the easement had been filed with the conservation commission.

    Several county council meetings over the last year have been marked with dissension between some members of council and the residents who pleaded their case. At one point Dickerson accused the residents of sending her threatening emails. She dismissed the emails as not that important, however when asked by The Voice to produce them.

    Jackson said he had hoped council would do the right thing. He expressed concern with the out-of-control growth in the northeast and said he had hoped for a deferral of the matter until everything had been properly worked out.

    “This is too important to rush this kind of decision through,” Jackson said.

  • E-Capital files for new zoning request

    BLYTHEWOOD – Texas investment firm E-Capital has filed a second application for a zoning change of the Crickentree Golf Course. The request this time is to change the golf course’s current Traditional Residential Open Space (TROS) zoning to Low Density Residential (RS-LD) zoning.

    Low Density zoning allows for 3.63 homes per acre on the 183-acre property.

    Two weeks ago E-Capital withdrew a request before County Council to rezone the TROS to Medium Density Residential (RS-MD).

    The new rezoning request will first go before the Richland County Planning Commission on June 3 at 3 p.m. That body’s recommendation will then be sent to County Council on June 25, for a public hearing followed by the first vote on the issue.

    “That meeting will be the only time that citizens can voice their opinions in person to County Council,” Crickentree resident Michael Kosca said.  “If Council votes for RS-LD, we could end up with 600 homes in our back yard.”

    Both meetings are held at the Richland County Administration Building at 2020 Hampton Street.

    “Our primary concern right now is to reach out to the other golf courses who are also at risk of losing their TROS zoning and being developed – Woodcreek, Windermere and others,” resident Russell St. Marie said.

    The TROS ordinance was passed by Council in 2007 when golf courses in Richland County began to struggle financially, and developers began eying them for residential development. The purpose of TROS, according to the ordinance, was to ensure “the preservation of conservation, recreation, and/or open space; and to lessen the diminution of property values from the loss of open space commonly provided for in a community; and to provide opportunities for improved public and/or private recreation activities; and to provide for a community-wide network of open space, buffer zones and recreation spaces.”

    For those reasons, residents say they want Council to leave the TROS zoning in place.

    Planning Commissioner Heather Cairns also clarified that TROS pertains to golf courses with a neighborhood component, not to golf courses in general.