Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

I'd like to call this meeting Columbia County Planning Commission February 5th, 2026 to order. Uh please stand for the invocation by Mr. Russell Wilder and the pledge of allegiance by Jamie Lester. Y'all would bow with us. Dear Lord, we want to thank you for this day. Thank you for this time to be together. Uh this opportunity to to discuss and and the county's business and make decisions. Uh we thank you for the many blessings you bestow upon this county, this country of ours. Uh we ask that you look over all of the first responders that protect us, our law enforcement, our fire and rescue, and of course our EMS. We ask if you would a special blessing tonight over uh Director Sterling's family and the health issues they're they're dealing with at this time and you speed your healing angels to them now. We ask all this in Jesus name. Amen.

Amen. To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. We do have a full quorum tonight. All present. Gentlemen, you've had a opportunity to review the January 15th minute uh minutes um and the January 29th, 2026 special call meeting minutes and I need approval for of these minutes.

Mr. Chairman, I make a motion to recommend approval of January 15th agenda of the minutes. Second. I have a motion and a second. All those in favor raise your right hand. Motion carries. So that was both of them. Correct. I January 15th. I was not present for the January 29th. Okay. We I need a motion for January 29th. Mr. Chairman, I make a motion to approve the minutes from the special call meeting on January 29th. Second. I have a motion, a second. All those in favor of those minutes, raise your right hand. Motion carries. do it or not. I need approval of the agenda this evening. Mr. Chairman, make a motion to approve tonight's agenda. Second.

Have a motion and a second. All those in favor, raise your right hand. Motion carries. Before we begin, I'd like to take a moment to clarify that the planning commission is a recommending body to the Columbia County Board of Commissioners. The decisions made on reszoning and variance request tonight will be forwarded to commissioners for final action on February 17, 2026. If you wish to address the board of commissions at at their meeting, see Mr. Butler to obtain a request to speak form. Any request with the public hearing will have a minimum of 10 minutes permitted per side for presentations of opinions, data, and evidence by proponents or opponents of a request. The applicant will be allowed to speak first and any member of this public may speak after. Either either side may seed their time during the hearing if they so desire. getting into the agenda presentation of the 2025 year in review and multif family report. Danielle,

yes sir. This is our annual um year-end review and multif family report where we kind of look at um what all we dealt with in the last year. So you can see we were um a little lower than normal on resoning requests and quite a bit lower than we've been in recent years on variance requests. Uh, of those resoning requests, um, 18 were revisions to existing zonings. Um, that is usually, uh, our one of our largest categories for resoning requests we deal with are revisions to the plan districts. Um, we also had 14 new S1 requests and seven conditional uses. Uh, so when we look at it by type, you can see um 22 of these requests were change of conditions or revisions. Um, so again, changes to existing zonings. Uh, 14 of them were planned or special districts. Uh then we had uh seven residential requests, five commercial, those seven conditional uses and one industrial request. Uh as compared to other years, um we had a kind of fewer commercial requests than normal. Um we did have uh fewer conditional uses than 2024 for sure. Um and about the same number of kind of planned uh or special zoning districts. Again, uh is very typical. We the major revisions were the largest category for those resoning requests followed by the S1's and the conditional uses. Uh overall 73% of those requests were approved. Um 12% were disapproved. Uh 13% were withdrawn by the applicants. Uh and we have one that's postponed that is still pending um into uh our next meeting. compared to other years uh we did approve um fewer requests than as compared to other years. Uh so we had been trending around 78 to 80% on the three preceding years. Uh we were about 5% lower at 73% uh for last year. Uh we

also had a slightly higher percentage that were withdrawn um as compared to previous years. In terms of our residential zonings, um we did not have very many residential zonings in 2025. So there were very few additional residential units approved last year. Uh of those um they were in entirely uh single family um were all approved. We throw setbacks and buffers on this slide. Those are the normal two most requested variances. Um this year's setbacks stayed consistent uh but signs made it to the the second spot. And so if we look at variances by section um you can see uh 90-53 and 90-98 there um have the highest number of requests by section. Those are the setbacks for uh residential and commercial projects. Uh and then signs comes in at five requests. Um 139 and 147 which are our buffers and our use provisions that have traditionally been higher. Uh we're a little lower last year just three requests in each of those sections. Uh similar to the resoning requests, um the majority of variance requests were approved. It's about 77%. Uh we did have 20% of them that were withdrawn, uh which is a pretty decent percentage of those that that didn't make it through the entire process. Uh and just 3% that were disapproved. On the residential side, we had three conceptual plans that we reviewed for an additional 132 lots. Uh we had 609 lots receive preliminary plat approval. Uh so they should be under construction and we had 404 lots uh that received final plat approval. So they're now ready to be sold and have houses built on them. Uh we're still on kind of an overall downward trajectory with the number of residential lots that are getting approved per year. Uh so you can see the uh linear lines there, the trend lines

for both preliminary and final plots are still kind of on an overall downward trajectory. Um, as is generally fairly common, uh, we saw we tend to see the preliminary and final plat kind of flip back and forth. Which one is higher? Uh, this last year we were a little higher on the preliminary plat um, and a little lower on the final plat. On the building permit side, uh, we did issue building permits for 506 new single family homes and 54 new town homes. Uh that means about 90% of those permits were for single family and just 10% for those town home units. Uh that is a little lower um permit number wise than we've been in in most past years. As you can see the single families the the lowest on the uh graph there. Townhouse numbers pretty typical um closer to an average there. Uh so total residential units we're at 560 between those uh two numbers. Uh that again is lower than we typically have been. Uh so we had fewer new construction permits issued last year. Uh some of the additional things we deal with um we did have 216 sign permit applications that were processed last year. Um issued 48 zoning verification letters, 16 temporary use authorizations, and nine provisional home occupations. On the multif family side, uh not any major updates to this one. Uh we did have a couple reasonzoning requests uh that one of which was disapproved for the apartments um off Washington Road. Uh as far as what's under construction, we have a couple townhouse projects that are underway um in existing neighborhoods. Um but no no major updates on on this end. Uh we did do one design recognition last year as well. This was for the uh bureau's Elijah attorney's office. Uh

that was completed in 2024. It was intended to be recognized in 2024 and the hurricane kind of delayed that. So it it made it to its recognition last year. Um this is a shot from the drone video that was taken as part of that um design recognition. Thank you, Danielle. Getting into the debate agenda. do business. Uh, public hearing H1 A1 VA26021. Dylan.

Yes, sir. This was a uh request for a variance applied for at 10:15 Carla Court. Uh, this shows the location of the property uh little southeast of White Oak Road in the Grimmod Farms subdivision. And as you can see, this parcel and all the parcels surrounding it are zoned RA. And this is an aerial uh view of the property. And uh the original request with this uh was to reduce uh the setback along the lot line shown uh plan I guess the to the furthest left on your slide that we're looking at. Um that lot line actually does not intersect with the roadway. So it is technically a rear lot line which would have a 25 ft setback in the RA zoning district. And so the proposed shop being only 10 ft from that lot line, while that does line up with typical side setbacks in this zoning district, it didn't line up with the setback uh technically from that lot line, and that was the request. Um, however, the applicant uh reached out to the neighbor uh on the other side of that shared lot line uh seeking support for their request. Um ultimately uh that neighbor uh generally opposed the request and the applicants therefore uh altered their site plan and are now proceeding with their plan already. Um they've uh begun applying for building permits with their shop the full requisite 25 ft from the lot line. And so they are now requesting to withdraw this variance request. And uh given that that would keep all the county's uh normal lot requirements intact, uh staff is supporting their request to withdraw without prejudice. Thank you, Dylan. Would the owners of James or Amy or the applicant on behalf of Set Apartment Custom Homes would like to come forward and speak? Okay. Any other member here would like

to speak against? Can I get a motion, gentlemen? Mr. Mr. Chairman, I make a motion to accept withdrawal without pre prejudice of file VA26-2-1 variance to reduce the building setback at 10:15 Carla Court. Second. I have a motion and a second. All those in favor of the withdrawal without prejudice, raise your right hand. Motion carries 4. We have no legal matters. Uh no attorney here tonight. Staff and commissioner comments. Any public comments and participation? I have any public comments or participation tonight? Okay, gentlemen, can I get a motion for adjournment? Mr. Chairman, I make a motion to adjourn. Second.

I have a motion and a second. All those in favor of adjournment, raise your right hand. Motion carries. We are adjourned.