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Tag: Town of Blythewood

  • Commision endorses vendor ordinance

    BLYTHEWOOD – After more than a year of handwringing over whether to allow temporary vendors in the Town Center District, the Planning Commissioners voted Monday night to recommend that Council adopt the City of Columbia’s vending ordinance, presented by Town Administrator Brian Cook, with a few tweaks. That modified ordinance, basically, allows temporary vendors and food trucks the same rights and privileges as brick and mortar buildings, but with almost none of the costly architectural or other restrictions imposed on brick and mortar buildings.

    That modified vendor ordinance would allow vendors to sell merchandise, goods, services, or forms of amusement from a temporary structure, such as a tent, awning, canopy, umbrella, stand, booth, cart, trailer, from a vehicle, or from his person. A temporary vendor does not include a person who conducts the majority of his business from within a permanent and enclosed building located upon the same lot.

    Unlike brick and mortar buildings, vendors would not be required to provide handicap restrooms or any restrooms at all.

    While the Commissioners initially worried that aesthetics of temporary vendor’s vehicles, tents, trailers, etc, could become a problem, they concluded that aesthetics for vendors would be too difficult to regulate by ordinance and moved on. Brick and mortar buildings in the Town Center District are required to adhere to certain types, quality and colors of building materials, architectural styles, signage, lighting and landscaping. There are no such restrictions on vendor vehicles, tents, trailers, etc.

    Cook said he presented the same modified ordinance to the Board of Architectural Review two weeks ago and they expressed concern regarding the fairness issue when it came to food trucks locating within 100 feet of a brick and mortar food establishment.  The Commissioners responded by requiring a distance of 250 feet between vendors and certain businesses.

    Commission member Rich McKenrick suggested that multiple temporary vendors might want to set up on a single property.  Cook indicated that the ordinance itself did not prohibit that but that other restrictions regarding number of parking places, safety regarding ingress and egress would apply.  The modified ordinance also restricts vendors from operating within 400 feet of residences.

    After flirting with a few concerns, the Planning Commission voted unanimously to adopt the modified City of Columbus ordinance with the following tweaks:

    Allow the Town Administrator to have sole authority to give written permission for a temporary vendor to operate in the Town Center District,

    Increase the distance between a vendor and the front door of a lawfully established restaurant from 100 feet to 250 feet, and

    Limit occupancy of a vendor to no more than 10 hours a day (24 hours). At all other times the vendors must vacate the parcel they occupy.

    It was confirmed by the Planning Commission Chairman, Donald Brock, that the modified ordinance would not affect Grace Coffee. After Grace Coffee refused to continue moving its trailer off the parcel every night as it had initially agreed to do, Cook interpreted the Town’s zoning laws to confirm that Grace Coffee is now a business in good standing, compliant with the Town’s necessary zoning approvals.

    Town Council will vote on the Commission’s recommendation on the vendor ordinance at its next regular meeting on June 25.

  • Council pulls plug on clear cutting

    BLYTHEWOOD – After months of discussion and angst over what the town attorney said is a loophole in the Town’s landscape and tree preservation ordinance, council voted 5-0 last week to amend the ordinance by repealing Section 155.390 (H). That section exempted certain projects from landscaping yard requirements that allowed developer D.R. Horton to clear cut a number of residential lots in the Cobblestone Park neighborhood.

    While citizens in Cobblestone applaud the removal of Sec. (H), developers have rallied to keep it.

    “If, as a municipality, you start changing ordinances on a whim, investors, businesses and developers will lose faith and interest in this market for fear the rules will be changed on them during their projects,” D.R. Horton representative Jessie Bray said.

    Mayor J. Michael Ross, who lives in Cobblestone and whose property abuts some of the lots that were clear cut, said citizens in Blythewood don’t want clear cutting in their neighborhoods

    “You say if we do this, developers won’t come,” Ross said. “I’ll bet every one of these people sitting here tonight could care less if another developer came here. We don’t want that kind of development.”

    Cobblestone resident Lenora Zedowski agreed.

    “Developers come and go,” Zedowski said.  “We are the permanent residents of Blythewood. Please repeal section (H).”

    Council and residents say section (H), which was adopted in 2015, is an unintended loophole in the ordinance that allows developers to clear cut lots. The Planning Commission, however, agreed with the developers and voted to recommend Council not delete Section (H).

    Section (H) states that those projects are exempt ‘which have received major subdivision or site plan approval prior to the effective date of this subchapter and amended major subdivision and site plans.’

  • Planning Commission sides with developers against tree law amendment

    This photo was taken on Jan. 14, 2018, shows a clear cut in progress on five contiguous wooded lots between Links Crossing Drive and Golden Spur Lane in Cobblestone Park. | Michael Criss

    BLYTHEWOOD – During its February meeting, Town Council voted to adopt an amendment to the town’s tree preservation ordinance that would remove an exemption that Town Attorney Jim Meggs suggested is being interpreted by developers as permission to clear cut lots without a tree removal permit from town hall.

    On Monday night, the Planning Commission saw things from the developers’ perspective and unanimously recommended that Council reverse its decision and vote against adopting Meggs’ amendment when it takes a second and final vote on the issue at its April meeting.

    For years, Blythewood’s town administrator, with input from the town attorney, planning consultant and planning commission, has been interpreting the town’s tree preservation code to mean the town government can enforce tree removal permits on undeveloped, platted, single-family residential lots in established subdivisions or new neighborhoods like Abney Hill Estates, Phase 2.

    But when Michael Criss, the town’s planning consultant, recently tried to stop developer D.R. Horton from clear cutting five lots in Cobblestone Park next to the mayor’s home, the town’s attorney, Jim Meggs, examined the town’s tree preservation ordinance more closely and decided the ordinance contained a weakness that allowed another interpretation of the ordinance, one that developers were using to clear cut lots without a permit from town hall.

    That weakness, Michael Criss told the Planning Commission on Monday evening, is found in section (H) of the ordinance and states that, those projects are exempt from the permitting process for tree removal if they have received major subdivision or site plan approval prior to the effective date of this subchapter and amended major subdivision and site plans.

    “If Mr. Meggs’ interpretation of the current code is correct and would prevail,” Criss told the Commissioners, “the town’s hands are tied in enforcing permits for tree removal on undeveloped lots in most of our neighborhoods in the town – Ashley Oaks, Abney Hill Estates, Cobblestone Park, Blythe Creek, Lake Ashley, etc.”

    To remedy what Council termed a loophole in the ordinance, Meggs’ drafted amendment surgically removes exemption (H) from the ordinance.

    Jesse Bray, representing D. R. Horton, pushed back against that amendment.

    “We’ve cleared [clear cut] dozens of acres in Cobblestone and it wasn’t an issue, but now it seems to be an issue because it’s next to the mayor’s house,” Bray told the Commissioners. “You throw around ‘flaw’ and ‘loophole’. It’s not a loophole. It’s in your ordinance. D. R. Horton is not trying to get away with anything. We’re the largest builder in the U. S. We don’t skirt rules,” Bray said.

    “Look at the plot plans…we have a 60-foot x 120-lot, the average lot size in Cobblestone. It has a 15-foot setback, a five-foot side set back and we’re allowed to clear a 20-foot buffer around the 50-foot x 50-foot home site. That leaves you ten feet in back. If we have a swale for drainage, that comes out of the ten feet,” Bray told the Commissioners.

    Complicating the issue is that the current tree preservation ordinance, which was adopted in 2015 with the intent of preserving trees, would have done just that had the General Assembly not interfered.

    “In its wisdom, the General Assembly voted in 2010 and again in 2013 to protect developers hard hit by the 2008 recession by extending the life of the existing local development permits for nine years,” Criss said.  “That kept permits alive that dated as far back as 2007. Since then, Blythewood has adopted stricter tree preservation regulation and stricter storm water management regulations. But just about all of the town’s projects now fall under the General Assembly’s grandfathered rules,” Criss said. While the grandfathered rules continue projects previously permitted for roads and infrastructure, they can also thwart the town’s current ordinance by enabling previously permitted mass-graded projects to remove all trees from individual lots as well as roadways, storm drainage areas, etc.

    “Under the current ordinance, we felt the individual lots were protected from clear cutting in Cobblestone Park,” Criss said. “The town attorney felt there was a weakness in the ordinance and he is trying to fix it with this proposed text amendment.”

    Town Council is expected to take its second and final vote at the April meeting.

  • Blythewood to honor black history on Feb. 17

    BLYTHEWOOD – The Town and residents will take part in the annual Black History Month celebration this Saturday night, Feb. 17 with performances by the Westwood High School Dancers, the Round Top Baptist Church Youth Choir and EboniRamm and Band.

    The celebration, which will be emceed by performer EboniRamm, will be held again this year in the Doko Manor, from 1:30 to 4 p.m.

    This year’s theme will be Stitching History Together which has been coordinated by the Blythewood Historical Society and will feature an African-American community quilt made from quilt squares brought in by local citizens.

    The 5” x 5” squares will contain the name of the person associated with the square as well as a brief history of the piece that might be from a grandfather’s old work shirt, part of an old apron belonging to a grandmother, a piece of an ancestor’s party dress, etc. Anyone with a quilt piece they would like to be included in the community quilt can bring them to the Langford-Nord House (Blythewood Historical Society) through Saturday. The quilt-making will be showcased during the Black History event.

    Doko Manor is located at 171 Langford Road, and the Langford-Nord House is located at 100 McNulty St.

  • Freeway Music mulls move to Depot

    BLYTHEWOOD – After a year of planning, a year of construction and a year of searching for a buyer, the Town of Blythewood has found a potential purchaser for the Doko Depot, and if the sale goes through as expected, it may come with a bonus – Freeway Music.

    The music company, which offers lessons for guitar, piano and most other musical instruments as well as musical theater training, told The Voice in an exclusive interview last week that it is negotiating a contract to lease part of the building from Wheeler & Wheeler who is in the process of purchasing the shell building from the Town.

    “We’re in a holding pattern right now,” Freeway Music owner Don Russo said.

    “It’s a fantastic location if it works. We should know something soon,” Russo said.

    The company has five locations in the Midlands and provides musicians for many of Blythewood’s events including the Christmas parade, Carol lighting and warm up for amphitheater productions in Doko Park.

    Bravo Blythewood announced last month that it will be partnering with Russo to bring musical theater productions to the amphitheater this spring.

  • Gunshot fired through window of Blythewood home

    BLYTHEWOOD – A Blythewood family was not at home on the afternoon of Jan. 12 when a bullet came crashing through the breakfast room window of their home and traveled through a kitchen cabinet, into the dining room before embedding into an adjacent wall.

    Rimer Pond Road resident Gina Lee points to a bullet hole left in her family’s breakfast room window during the afternoon of Jan. 19. So far there are no suspects. | Barbara ball

    “It had to have happened between 11:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. that Friday afternoon,” homeowner Gina Lee said on Tuesday.

    “My husband, Pete, and my mother-in-law left the house about 11:30 that morning,” Lee said.

    When Lee came home from work at her hair salon in downtown Blythewood about 12:30 p.m., she started to make coffee and noticed a bullet hole in the kitchen cabinet, just above her head.

    “It scared me to death!” Lee said. “I could see inside the cabinet that it went through the wall into the dining room so I checked in the dining room,” Lee said. “I could see where the bullet lodged in the far wall of the dining room.”

    “We won’t know the caliber of the bullet until we tear out a place in the wall to retrieve the shell,” she said.

    Curtis Wilson, Public Information Officer for the Richland County Sheriff’s Department, said on Wednesday that the incident is still under investigation.

    Anyone with information about shots fired in the vicinity of Highway 21 and Rimer Pond Road on Jan. 12 should call (803)576-3000.

  • Council retreat set for March; Mayor invites community

    BLYTHEWOOD – Town Council’s annual day-long working retreat may be a little larger than usual this year, and a little different. Mayor J. Michael Ross said on Monday that he and Council are making an all-out effort to include resident participation in this year’s event.

    “The public has always been invited to our retreats,” Ross said. “But not many of them ever attend. This year, we want them to attend. Even if they cannot come for the whole day, maybe they can set some time off in that day to stop by and let their voices be heard. We can’t do what the people want if we don’t hear from them and know what they want,” he said.

    The retreat will be held on Saturday, March 10 at Doko Manor. The day will begin at 9 a.m. and continue until approximately 4 p.m. or until all items on agenda have been addressed.  This year will be somewhat different as an emphasis will also be on citizen involvement.

    That involvement will be an item on the Jan. 24 agenda, Ross said.

    “We’re going to look at including a citizen comment section after each discussion item during the retreat. And, as always,” Ross said, “there will be ample time during the meeting for open citizen comment, so whether a citizen comes for morning session or afternoon session they will be encouraged to engage with council.”

    As further accommodation for citizen involvement, Council is arranging a community lunch from 12 noon – 1 p.m.

    “We’re asking our local restaurants to help us out with a ‘taste of Blythewood,’ luncheon that day,” Ross said. “We want to sit and eat together and talk about the next year and five, even 10 years of ideas for the future of Blythewood.”

    While residents are encouraged to contact Town Hall with any subjects they would like to be discussed by Council at the retreat, Council has already sketched out a preliminary list of topics.

    “We’re going to talk about the plan of Columbia and Richland County to form a consolidated government and what that will mean for us,” Ross said. “It might be beneficial to our 29016 Blythewood neighbors to annex into the Town so they can vote and to pre-empt Columbia and Richland County’s plan that could possibly force the annexation of those neighbors into Columbia,” Ross said.

    He also wants to talk about creating a new baseball/softball complex in the Town to host tournaments.

    “Blythewood has some of the best players and coaches in the country, as evidenced by our recent State Championships and World Series successes,” Ross added. “The fact that they are training/playing on fields built in 1979-1980 should embarrass us all.”

    “The Planning Commission will soon be updating the Comprehensive Land Use Plan for our community,” Ross said. “This could include any insights we have from the Central Midlands Council of Governments regarding the realignment of Blythewood Road and Langford Road and maybe some renderings of what McNulty Road could look like after the Penny widening projects are completed.”

    Ross said the list also includes discussing a multi-use trail plan and a vending stand ordinance.

    “Another thing may be pre-budget development for some proposed budget items/projects that some members of the community would like to see come to fruition,” Ross said.

    Another topic that Ross suggested might be on the table for discussion is an economic development report on potential development of businesses on Blythewood Road vacant lots.

    “We just want folks in the community to make plans to join us. Let us know you’re coming so we’ll know how to plan. But please attend,” Ross said. “We’ll be shaping the next year and years to come.”

    Members of the community can email their ideas for discussion topics to townofblythewoodsc.gov or call Town Hall at 803-754-0501 and ask to speak to Julie Emory.

  • Council decides against refinancing 2010 $5.5 million BFC bond

    BLYTHEWOOD – After suggesting last month that the Town of Blythewood might want to consider taking advantage of advance refunding to refinance its $5.5 million bond issued in 2010 by the Blythewood Facilities Corporation (BFC), attorney Ray Jones of Parker Poe, returned to a Council workshop last week to advise the Town to hold off on the refinancing for now.

    To take advantage of the refinancing, Council would have to pass an ordinance with two readings and a public hearing.

    “To the extent that the market is not with us today, and it appears it will not be with us through the rest of the year, we will have to hit pause because we would not then be able to refinance this debt until June 1, 2018, at the earliest,” Jones said at the workshop.

    Town Administrator Gary Parker explained last month how advance refunding works.

    “It’s a financing technique that allows an issuer to obtain the benefit of lower interest rates when the outstanding bonds are not currently callable. The 2010 bonds are callable at the Town’s option on Sept. 1, 2018, or at any time within 90 days before that date,” Parker said.

    Jones told Council last month that because Congress is considering dropping advance refunding as part of their tax reform law proposal, and because interest rates were lower than they may be  in the summer of 2018 when the 2010 bonds are callable, they might want to act right away.

    “Originally, we were looking at a total savings of about $318,000 to do the advance refunding last month,” Jones said. “The rate estimate at that time was three percent. We certainly thought that was worth coming to talk to you about.”

    While Jones said Whitney Bank now offers two rates – 1) 3.05 percent with a catch; the bank would hold that rate if there are no changes in the tax law and 2) 3.75 percent, a rate the bank would automatically adjust if the tax reform passed. Jones said the 3.75 percent is a more realistic rate.

    “With that rate, however, the Town’s savings from refinancing would shrink by $60,000,” Jones said.

    “By going ahead and passing the refinancing ordinance now,” Jones advised Council, “we’ll be in a position to move when the market is there again.”

    Council will vote on the ordinance at the next council meeting.

  • Wildfire doused near Ashley Oaks

    BLYTHEWOOD – Much of Blythewood was blanketed in smoke last Thursday when a wildfire that was described as low-intensity spread over approximately 50 acres just north of Ashley Oaks.

    Several firefighters, a brush truck and an engine were sent from Columbia. The South Carolina Forestry Commission also assisted, bulldozing firebreaks around the northern and western sides of the fire. Fire officials said no homes were threatened, and the fire was contained.

    The cause of the fire is undetermined until the investigated is completed, officials said.

  • Parker Poe suggests refinancing $5.5 M bond

    BLYTHEWOOD – Attorney Ray Jones of Parker Poe, the Town’s bond consultant for the $5.5 million bond issued by the Blythewood Facilities Corporation in 2010, told Council Monday evening that it might want to take advantage of an opportunity to refinance that bond under advance refunding which, he said, is a financing technique that allows an issuer to obtain the benefit of lower interest rates at a time when the outstanding bonds are not currently callable.

    Jones told Council that because Congress is considering dropping advance refunding as part of their tax reform law proposal, and because interest rates are lower than they may be in the summer of 2018 when the 2010 bonds are callable, they might want to act right away.

    Jones said that under current law, the Town may do an advance refunding now when interest rates are low and possibly lower than in summer of 2018. Projections are, he said, that the Town could save several hundred thousand dollars by doing so.

    Jones said that if the Town does not act now to refinance the bonds, and Congress passes the legislation, the Town would not be able to do an advance refunding until the normal call date time frame, which would be within the 90 days of the Sept. 1 call date.

    “We felt it wise to put the question before Council and are doing so with a first reading of the proposed ordinance on this refinancing,” Town Administrator Gary Park told Council. “If Council agrees, there will be a public hearing and second reading.

    Council voted to pass first reading and has scheduled a special called meeting on Dec. 8 to meet the bond issuance schedule.

    Parker said Jones would be at the meeting to answer questions.