Planning Commission - workshop

Good afternoon, fellas, ladies, and gentlemen.

This time, we're going to call the Airfield County Planning Commission Web Session, April 9, 2026, to order. Tonight, we have our guest speaker, the one and only Rick Green from the Upper Savannah, COG. New business, we're going to have an old business, so we're going to discuss regarding the proposed major subdivision .

If you look in your folder, I do have the ordinance for major subdivision. It's really just the application process is what we have. It's not very big. It's a short little instruction for what they need to bring us in order for us to start bringing the subdivision to y'all and what they need up to the time of final.

We'll let you take it away.

You can sit here or you can sit up there, wherever you're most comfortable. It's fine with me.

Thank you all for letting me come today. I made some notes and it looks like you got those notes that I had. As I had gotten a few questions about subdivision regulations, I sort of went through and did some research and pulled everything together and put it in this stack of notes so that it doesn't flow Completely perfectly, but it is just a little reference for you to use. I had had questions about specifically about phasing in and how that would impact the phasing question would impact subdivisions. And you can make phasing rules for one developer on his property, but you can't phase in surrounding properties with different developers. That would be, you could say you can't start phase two until you finish phase one with one person, one developer on his property, but you can't let that impact other people. That was one question I had. Another question was about keeping the entrances or keeping subdivisions developing from one distance from one area to another subdivision for a distance before that second subdivision started. So I don't think, could do that. Maybe you could. That would be almost a legal question. So that's a possibility, but I would want your attorney to look at that more. I don't know that that would be something that would be beneficial to you long term. That would certainly keep the number of subdivisions down depending on the distance that you put. But I don't think that's something that you would necessarily want to do to work. But I do like, we had talked about previously ideas about making the initial entrance to subdivision, more of a landscaped open entrance rather than starting houses right there at the beginning, having a distance before the first house starts. I think that's a good idea. I think the tree ordinance and the landscaping that you're working on, doing those updates, I think all those things are good. Those are good things to keep in mind and always will help the appearance as you have more maintained landscaping. Sometimes those They'll do landscaping great in the very beginning, and then it'll die when the first hot summer comes along, and it looks pretty bad later on. So you want to make sure that that is maintained over time. They're coming back and checking on those subdivisions.

I remember in the tree ordinance that there's a 50-foot buffer all the way around. Now, the entrance way requirement is an excellent idea, but I don't know if, you know, Further than 50 feet, what would you recommend a house would be from the entrance?

I think that distance is up to what you all want. 50 feet would be a good standard to start. I think 50 would be a good start.

Because the only frontage, I think, you should see frontage would be a buffer on one side and then houses on the other side. You know, Columbia County, they got something like, somewhere out there, you know, you go in here and you go all down the whole, when you get back out of that unit, you come out of another unit, you can't go to that buffer.

Do we have a maintenance requirement in our tree ordinance for the I'm pretty sure we do. Wasn't it five years?

Or was it five years? Something was five years. Yeah, it gives you a whole list of what.

Yeah, it's a building. If it's dead or not.

Yeah, I think it was. What you have to go through to remove it. If they plant, you know.

I don't know if we added, I don't think we added like a, we did in parking lots, but I'm not sure about the irrigation for newly planted buffers. We could require that in the entryway as well.

I think the five years is if land is cleared for timber harvest, it cannot be developed for five years.

subdivision for anything they plant is subject to inspection and replacement. If anything dies within the warranty period of the subdivision. Along with the roads, rest of the infrastructure.

Do you believe our warranty period is five years?

Well, in some cases it depends on how long it takes them to do the roads.

And just like Heritage, we went out there and they wanted to begin construction and they had not planted the buffer along the corridor. And we said, look, now you need to do that. Let's put up a bond. And they put up a bond. And then when they were finished with that, we went out there and made sure it was what it needed to be. And then we, of course, gave that money back to them.

Because it basically, when you develop and go in and begin with it, I already got, you know, that with trees and that. Don't instill that at all. Just go, you know, offset, go down, and I don't know. I don't know if a number of years back, I don't know if they ever developed it. I was hard on them about that one. They would leave a frontage, a tree. I got to look back and see. I don't think there would be a flag because they had a problem. But if you don't listen, you go in and develop it. Just don't. Just do it. Every time you back up, you just go.

We could kind of do the same.

Unless it's already cleared. It's already cleared. Right.

With the retention detention ponds, instead of having them at the front of the subdivision, require them to have them towards the back?

Yeah, I mean, with certain situations, it may need to be at the beginning, depending on how the lay of the land and how the water runs, it may need to be at that beginning.

Can we require them to landscape it a certain way so it doesn't look like it's not a chain leak fits? Right. So it would be more than a retention pond than a detention pond.

Right. And you can be very specific about the types of plants, trees. You don't want trees that aren't going to grow and live here. So you want things that are going to be viable for a long time in this climate, that can handle this climate, and not just random things that somebody's bought at a I think those two things, the tree ordinance plus setting back your subdivisions will make a big difference in the general appearance as you go down the road and look at the different types of subdivisions. to just improve it and make it look more like a rural area instead of cookie cutter same subdivision happening side by side by side by side. So I think those are both good things and those are good things to start with as you look at your subdivision regulations. There are some state laws that are in the kind of percolating around about it's called concurrency where the local government would have the ability to look at a new subdivision and say, based on the roads, based on the number of people that would be moving into the subdivision, based on the impact on the schools, based on the impact on the emergency services, that this would need to be either shrunk down smaller or not allowed at all. So that's in process in the state. I don't know if it'll get passed or not. But that's part of some DOT regulations as well, DOT reorganization bills. But that's something that I think you probably do to a certain degree with road improvements on your subdivision. But this would be a bigger looking at police, fire, schools, all those type things and the utility impacts on your subdivisions. So that would be something to keep in mind as well.

Is that still in committee?

It's still in committee. And it may not come out. You just don't know. I feel it's the main committee. We can talk to you.

We can ask you some questions about over a certain number of lots, you would be required to then be hooked up to county water and sewer.

Right. Yeah. Yeah, I think that would be a good thing to keep. Keep large-scale subdivisions off of all septic tanks and that type of thing, or wells. to require that connection to water and sewer if it's available. And you could put within a certain number of feet that it has to be hooked onto that. Those things are all good to keep in mind. I found, after we had talked initially, I had found an ordinance from Indiana that required houses within a subdivision to be different styles and types rather than just the same house over and over and over and over. And I forwarded that on to April. So that's something that you could look at and see what you think about.

I like that.

Yeah.

And requiring windows in every side.

Windows in every side. Requiring, again, that landscaping buffer so that it's not just a, a road and then the backside of a house that you see on the backside of a siding house that they put up, that it would look different. Each house would be a little bit different. That would be something that would have to be managed by the planning office, and that would be something that would be an extra job for you to do.

That's my only concern about that, and I don't know how we would effectively manage that other than going out At what point do we go out and say, oh, you put the wrong side in on this house. I mean, that's going to be tough. We could put architectural stipulations in the ordinance. I wrote up a sample ordinance, and I was going to send it to y'all, so y'all could pick it apart, take stuff out, put stuff in. But I don't, unless you have suggestions, I don't know how I can.

I would think something more general. not specific colors or siding or anything like that, but... Different layouts? Different layouts. Layouts, like I said in the other meeting, not all traditional... Not all the same. Not all the same. Not all craftsman style. But say, okay, you need to include craftsman, Cape Cod, colonial, federal...

architecturally really different looking not just moving gables I'm wondering track builders typically they stick with maybe a handful Windsor I think there's four or five they have more because they have the town houses and then the duplexes and things like that they do but driving through there it's homogenous looking because you've got the same

You got a single-story and a two-story.

Yeah, and you got the same gable. It's steep. The steep of the gable is the same. The only thing they change when you go in and select a house, and you can only select if you go under contract before they break ground. Otherwise, they've already purchased everything for that house. So when you go in there as a buyer, the only thing you get to choose is color of siding, whether or not you want... brick or stacked stone on the front or not, whether or not you want something added to a gable, whether or not you want a different shingle. Not roof shingle, but sometimes they'll do the cottage-looking shingle under the gable and then the vertical or horizontal on the side. But, I mean, you're limited in your choices, but it's the same house. You just get to pick the colors.

But if you stipulate that the units must be architecturally diverse. That totally, they have to be different. Totally different. Because architecture is going to change.

I think we might have to be a little bit more specific. Yeah. Because to me, well, they are diverse. No, they're not. But to you and you and you and you, they're absolutely not. It looks like the same house.

Right. It looks like the same house. You just picked different colors.

Everyone will get the same garage and the same studio. Unless they flip it around. Okay.

And flipping is not architecturally diverse. It is the same. And we are not. Right.

And the single stories look like the two stories. They're the same style as the two stories. They just happen to be the one story. And the townhouses, the only thing that makes them different is instead of there being 20 feet of space between the houses, they're side by side. Otherwise, architecturally, they're not different from each other.

So I think that's what... And that might, like, invite people who, builders who are interested in having something architecturally different, you know. There may be somebody out there, who knows, that wants to set themselves apart.

Cooper places, they're like that. They are all craftsmen's stuff. But the... The siding and the colors, it's more diversity than there is in, say, Governor's Landing or Copperfield.

True, but they're not diverse enough where the architecture is really different.

And that's where we're going to have to be. If we're going to write something, we're going to have to somehow be specific where it's up front when developers are reading the ordinance or they're talking to us for the first time in a pre-application meeting. They understand the assignment.

Yeah, it needs to be in the beginning. But they need to present at least five, I'm just making this up, five different architectural styles that don't, they can't be side by side by side. They have to be alternate with color and style difference. And your developers are probably not going to like that.

No, they're not going to like that.

Well, if they want to build.

Custom homeowners wouldn't like that much, but trackers would.

That would attract a community to tell you, when you build it, All right, could we go? Custom.

We could select custom homes and with custom exteriors. Custom seems to be the word that.

If you do custom, it's not going to be a track builder, then?

Custom structural design. Then you get structurally designed. I mean, you're going to structurally design a subdivision, and it's going to be the same structure. We don't want that. We want multiple. I think architecturally diverse might be a better word. Yeah, I like that. I liked it better when I said it the first time. I said, yeah, I like that.

Architecturally diverse is a good phrase to use. I think so.

I've got teaching her back at our homeschool class. I found a big old 11 by 17 poster of different architectural styles as we were teaching.

I think our names like say Hilton Headers or a neighborhood that is designed like that would have or a county would have it in their ordinances. I don't know who.

I don't know, but if you're familiar with Somerville and Augusta, you could ride through that. And it's an old neighborhood because it still has the cobblestone roads in it. But that, to me, is an architecturally diverse neighborhood because you will have a federal revival, a Greek revival. You'll have a Cape Cod. You'll have a bungalow. You'll have a Tudor. you got a second empire, you know, all those different, it's just different. You could have a bungalow next to a 4,000 square foot second empire, but there's not a single home in that neighborhood that looks like another house in that neighborhood.

Where I live, before we lived here, back in the day, we had a neighborhood, and it was older, it was built in the 50s, and not one house in that entire neighborhood is the same. And my house, the house next door and the house next to me, we were the model homes. I didn't live there then, but all throughout, I mean, we've got federal, we've got a Georgian that's up on the hill and all down through there. And it makes for such a nicer, you know, it's homier. It's, you know, our lots were bigger, you know, We had acre to acre and a half lots. But still, you're not looking in the neighbor's window five feet away. You're not looking at a blank wall. And I'm not living in the past, but sometimes the past had better ideas.

Yeah, I think we need to increase our side offsets.

Side yards?

Yeah, instead of 10 feet per house, it would be 20 feet per house.

I've said that all the time now. I've been talking to that 20 years. When you got independent contractors, there were all those different contractors. At the time, we had five contractors that would be working on one whole fit. We all did different. But you got that mass of the guys that come in. That's where it came from. Back in the 60s, We had about 15 contractors in this kind of deal. And we could just kind of call them the same way. So I would bid on this one, I'd bid you on that, and then I'd bid you that, and then you pick your plan, and you pick your plan. But see, now they say, okay, you pick one of these options. That's it. Yeah.

So far, we want to put a number on the amount of diverse, like you have to have, Five. Six. No less than five. I don't know. Maybe we need to look at separation of the like.

Maybe I need to bring in that little poster act from my class and look at it and see how many.

It should depend on the size of the building. You've got 20 houses, five different ones a lot. You've got 100 houses. Five a lot. So can we do a

Can you say if it's so many lots, five different ones? If it's so many lots, it's ten different ones? We can only do that.

I don't know about ten different styles for a subdivision, but I would think the most you can do would be five for a builder. Beyond requiring more than five different styles in a subdivision, probably it's not going to fly over. Yes, it would be very limiting. They're not going to like it. Not that we do it. Not that you're here to make them happy, but they're, that's.

That argument, I guess, could be that we can get to a point where we make it impossible. Impossible.

Yeah.

No.

But, I mean, you know, just, what, 50 houses, 100 houses, and you said don't go over. I mean, I think five would be a good number for even a smaller subdivision, wouldn't it?

Yeah.

That'd be a plan to go. You'd give up. Okay, so here we go. We could do something. One, two.

So we don't necessarily want it every other house. So we could spread it out. You might have three houses, and this one and this one, and then this one flips back into this, and then you go back to this, and on down the line until you have your five different houses. But it would break the eye. That's the whole thing is just to break the eye of what somebody sees when they're going down the road. But if you see the same old thing, it's a detraction from our land here, what we have to see.

It looks like a military base house. It does. At the end of the subdivision field, it's not like it was presented. I mean, I don't know. I just don't know how I would... Yeah, we trust that you're going to do what you say, other than when they turn in the plans, we look at what y'all approved.

Yeah, it's going to put a lot more burden, as we said, a lot more burden on you if it's architectural.

Because it may be worth to a developer, what's it worth to a developer to be able to build what they want, and at the end of it, well, you can keep my $10,000. You know, because I I profited more than that was just a drop in the bucket.

Right. Well, and I would think, too, if we do, if we pass that ordinance and we get a developer agreement to do what we're asking them to do, that they cannot turn around and sell it to a track home builder. They're going to have to put those custom homes in. Because that's what happened with Tavern Hill. We were promised custom built homes and lots were sold to Stanley Martin.

Can we require them to be custom built or just different designs? I mean, I think it would be hard to require them to be custom.

Each individual one custom built. It's not really a spec house or a track house if it's custom built. Because if it's custom, really that means the end buyer gets to pick out everything. That's a true custom home. But what these tract builders are doing is we give you limited options.

So how does that affect affordability if we're requiring a home?

You know, I said we could just get them to sway to this way of thinking that, you know, this would be the better way to go, you know. If you're able to build this house, then you should be able to build this house. And you should be able to build this house.

I don't think the ability is the problem. I think it's I have to order each custom. But you're going to order the same amount of lumber to build one.

It could be the same house inside, just a different facade. Right.

There may be a coffee factory. You've got your roof bungee. When you got, you know, we have to have them, you know, custom made. They said, they got, they got a set of, you know, your rack to put the, make the trusses and all. That's where the cost comes. I got to take this out and build another. If you want to have it like this or that, it couldn't cost about.

Well, they're going to build, let's say they're going to build 50 homes. And of those, 10 are, you have, 10 that are this size, 10 that are this size, 10 that are this one, 10 that are that one. You're still, you know, you see what I'm saying?

There's a concept called a form-based code. We talked about it now, we looked at that. Form-based code is basically, instead of worrying about the use of the land, and it's less so in residential, but more in commercial, is where this would apply. The way the building looks is the primary thing. The way the building fits in with the structures around it is the primary thing that you're trying to control rather than that use is still controlled and there's still minimums and maximums and all that stuff, but the primary focus of that form-based code is what it looks like. More so in commercial than in residential, but That sounds like it might be something that you want to look at and consider, something like that.

Because inside, you can take a Georgian and you can take a ranch and still have an open concept. You can have it however. I mean, it could be the exact same thing.

The floor plan can be the same, but your facade is different. But you're also going to have to change the roof lines. The roof slopes make a difference in that architectural style, too.

But it still would be beneficial. to us and not, you know, to have to look at that.

Yeah, at this point it would be helpful to have.

Some input.

Some input on this. Yeah. To see if you knew somebody that could provide some architectural input to it.

I know an architect in North Augusta.

I wouldn't hurt if he was willing to do that.

I think he would be. He's in North Augusta. He does own land in Edgewood County, but he works in the city of North Augusta.

Who was that man that was on planning commission that was an architect?

Mr. Brown.

In Augusta. Todd Brown.

Right.

Yeah, Todd. I can see his face.

I don't remember his name. He was the architect. That was his name. I want to say that his name was David. David. I got to thank him. This was a long time ago. This was before my time, for sure. He got out of the zone a minute.

Yes, that's him. That's the one. I don't know if he's still around or not, but at one time he was on the planning commission.

Rick, what we're talking about is architectural diversity. We can put that in our major subdivision ordinance. We can put that in our PD ordinance also. That would be a requirement for PDs too.

Very much so. And you do that anyway in a PD because you get a lot more input about what the buildings look like and how they fit on the property and what the uses are. So that's kind of built into the PD. So that concept, you would be more expanding it into your residential district developments.

So we would just have to make sure the language is there in our PD for architectural diversity.

With our tree ordinance, that would kind of lean, have someone kind of lean to, oh, this, this, spot of land leans more to a Cape Cod. The tree ordinance may be in conjunction with the architecturally diverse work together to our benefit.

I think the tree ordinance is going to change a lot of what we see.

Or you may just put a ranch there. Nothing else would fit but a ranch.

But there are some that can't cut down. I'm trying to think. Right, so they can't masquerade for more than so many lots, I think.

We haven't even had to use that word.

And you can't go in and just go in and masquerade the entire development.

So you can live with my building?

No, it's the one that I think even within that masquerading, you have to leave something. I think Anderson County did that recently.

That's the one you're using? That's the one we used. What was that?

the foundation wall and the concrete pad at that home there is there's no length there's nothing level right there it immediately drops off to the next house

And I know the building superintendent told me, several buyers asked the builder to put in a retaining wall and fill it in to give that home a little more support. And they refused to do it. So the concrete path for that home, there's not even six inches of level ground. And it's steep. Like you You cannot walk in that side garden.

Yeah.

It's too steep. And there are several houses right there that are like that.

And as that land settles. Oh.

Have you, that's one in Mount Vintage?

No.

Have you seen the one in Mount Vintage? There's one in Mount Vintage. It goes out, what, maybe 25, 20 feet? And it's straight down.

No, this was, it's a Stanley Martin neighborhood, but it's Claiborne over near.

It's up there in Augusta. It's near Middle Valley. No, no, no, it's up there in Stanley.

It's near Midland Valley High School. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Over there. Off Mustang Drive. Off Mustang Drive. They've done that step grading in there. I mean, the only good thing is they have a 10-year warranty on the foundation. All we need is one more 15-inch rain delusion one day. Because they put sod in, but on top of red clay sand. Right. It's not like there's, you know, enriched topsoil that the sod's on.

Sod will slide off that and go down the hill. Trophy tree.

So I think that's what we're trying to do is not allow that type of writing.

I think your trees and your setback in the beginning, I think that's going to do a lot for the appearance and help you. And it's not really going to impact the number and type of developer. But when you start talking about architectural, that's going to change some things.

What constitutes a trophy?

They're specific.

But there's a list. There's a lot of them.

And then the diameter.

The diameter and species.

And that's what, I mean, I would like to not get over to where we're totally limiting any affordable housing. I mean, how can we also accomplish what we're trying to accomplish.

Yeah, it's between the houses. I think. But it's between them, it's a big difference. So your life bet is, I can open my window and pee in your bathroom.

You know, you were talking about windows.

Once you take them, once they can have them, your utilities can be divided up between four people, so the cost is less. I mean, you've got a million dollar... that I can divide it 200 times, it's going to be cheaper, you know.

Well, I think we've talked about that, right, is allowing that along the Highway 25 corridor and within the municipality, allowing those.

So that's where we could talk about, we could separate the ordinance and say, in these areas,

Right, we'll allow it in these areas, but you're not going to take up a hay field that's surrounded by cow farms and put in a high density network.

That's a good point.

And I think our next step should probably be to get the maps back out and start looking where, okay, these are your water sewer lines. This is where connectivity to things. And more they build up to, people are going to start

multi-family apartments and things like that.

But those have to be within three miles of a grocery store walkability. So if we can kind of keep those things and keep that in mind when we do those things. I think a good place would be between Turkey Federation and You get all that land up and down that main strip between there and Trenton. You've got water and sewer. And it's within three miles. So, I mean, we can start in places like that. We just have to figure out how we're going to write that ordinance to differentiate. Would you do that with zoning?

It's already solved for commercial.

A lot of this corridor, that is. But you only get this strip. And if we expand... zoning for more density come out from the corridor, you can kind of cluster that together. I mean, if you're going to have it, have it here. Then you can go as far out as you want to go from the corridor. Or you can keep it.

Before you get to Martin Marietta, that land, you know, in between there, it's been for sale forever now. It's like years for sale. Yeah, well, when you go around the corner right there.

Do you have any suggestions on how we could separate that? Put it in the ordinance that this zoning and this zoning and this zoning requires this.

I would create a new zoning district like an R. One of your R's. How many R's do you have?

R-R-R-D. And R-A. R-A.

I'd put another R. With something. R-U.

Like residential urban or something.

We could go with U's. And go urban residential.

The comp plan already has...

If you can tie it into that, that would be great.

Yeah.

And I think we need to start looking at that, too. Really look at the comp plan and see what's what, and then kind of make it match the zoning that's there. Because some of it's way off. Like, way off. Complete opposites of it.

Wasn't there a draft then for you when you had that comprehensive plan done? Wasn't there a draft subdivision or zoning ordinance? Maybe not.

When we had the comp plan.

And it's not me, but if it is somewhat on the outskirts of Johnston, maybe we need to reconfigure. But we can get to that later if we're going to focus on this.

You could do an RU, UR. I would start at an R, though. I think RU, something like that, would be more relax your architectural requirements. Keep the side yards tighter. And then in your other areas, it would be more strict. But still have the buffer, right? Yes, I would put the buffer on all of them.

Yeah.

I'll put your pantry there.

I think since we're coming down, you know, going right into town, that buffer would be very important.

And I think people would, I would prefer within the neighborhood or along the corridor that does not have you know, that I'm not right on it. I look out my window and I just see cars going by because it helps with noise, helps with light and all the things. And I think the buffers are a good thing.

I think that's a good start. Get your maps out and start thinking about those areas and where you would put that RU if you go with that. And then more strict R's.

All of these are this, and then the RU would be that.

And when you create, update that RD, you could put in there about architectural diversity. That could be the purpose of that district.

And then they can pick it apart. So you said Indiana?

I'm so sorry. You said it was Indiana.

Yeah, it was.

County.

Can't remember the name of the county, but it was adjacent to Indianapolis. Do you remember the name of that county? Right now, most of the home builders

have changed their plans from building townhouses to building detached single-family homes because the townhouses aren't selling.

The Heritage Place, they asked, they actually cut out where their townhouses were, where it would have been two or four lots. They just made two out of it.

So they made bigger lots. They did at Windsor Square and then that development that the city annexed on Martintown Road next to the Brown construction. Those are supposed to be townhouses, but they're all detached. 20 feet apart. Might as well be a townhouse, but they're 20 feet apart.

That county is Hendricks. H-E-N-D-R-I-C-K-S. Hendricks County. It's in central Indiana or west of Indianapolis. It looks like it's probably a more well-to-do county, which would be why they would be wanting to do that kind of a regulation with And they could afford to do it because they've probably got a huge staff there. But they're the ones that were looking at altering those styles. I couldn't find any stuff there. I couldn't see it. Not that it's not here, but I just couldn't find it. That's the one that popped up first that I found.

Well, I can see that as housing spreads out to our whole area. It's something like that, but it does make sense for affordable housing. And you said the affordable housing has to be within three miles of the grocery store?

Yes. If there's going to be like government housing, they would give grants and things for the supplemental.

Did that lot across from KJ's, did it ever, did it sell? I have no clue. Because that's where something, track bridge was supposed to go in.

So we can legally zone it to that type of housing because it's an urban, residential urban area and not out in the countryside.

I asked that question if it's a dollar general market. I asked them if they would accept that and they said they would. So like in Johnston, as long as it's within three miles of Johnston, the Dollar General Market in Johnston, they would consider that.

And the one on Bettis Academy. The one that has to have the market.

Yeah, it has to. Yeah.

Bettis Academy's market, too.

Is it? Yeah, that's crazy down there. I never would have guessed it would have exploded like that down there. But with Bridgestone Firestone, it was bound to happen.

Well, it was so much cheaper. The land was so much cheaper than Aiken and Morpheus. That's right. the track home developers you know picked it and of course people moved to grantville the only thing is they have to go to aiken to market us to the grocery shop i don't quite understand that you would i would think now they would have enough rooftops to bring something over there well they left a lot of road frontage open over there and reached out to these commercial developers to bring a grocery store to retail and they're like no population's not there you're too close to aiken or you're too close to Augusta were not going to come. So they wouldn't build there. So now they're building houses right up to the road.

Grocery stores are a hard business right now. A lot of general type things coming in, but the bigger grocery stores, like we used to have Bilo here, the Bilos and Ingalls up in the northern part of the state, There was more of a variety, and now there's not so much. Well, even I always wasn't interested in telling you.

Well, really, when you look at it, you got to, you don't have that larger markup like some things. You got some, like furniture business, you got 100% markup on that. You got to have a big investment in that.

stores. I remember when Office Depot opened up in North Augusta and I was talking to the manager and I said, I'm so glad you're here. And he's like, yeah, we weren't real sure. We figured we'd try it here. And they found out they were actually getting more business than Aiken, the Aiken Office Depot and the Augusta Office Depot because we were convenient to downtown Augusta, Georgia. So people that were in that part of Richmond County were coming over to North Augusta to the Office Depot And he's like, we're basically carrying the other two stores. And Belk Department Store was the same way. North Augusta Belk carried the Aiken and the Augusta Belk. It also has better merchandise than they have in Aiken, too. Yeah. So, I mean, I really feel like some of those box stores don't really consider, you know, they're not looking at the entire population. They might look at the population in Graniteville, But what they don't understand is they've got everybody in Trenton.

Trenton would go to Graniteville to get groceries in a minute.

Right. Everybody down Venice Academy would head that way to get groceries instead of to North Augusta or Edgefield. But I don't think they consider that when you're looking at it. Probably not.

And Walmart, and there's that concept of the little marketplace, but they're not opening it. which would be perfect for an area like this.

Yeah, I know they were reached out to for Bettis Academy down in Graniteville.

I heard the Lidl in Greenwood closed and the one in North Augusta closed.

In that little Walmart getting it closed in Greenwood. Which one? The old one. I hadn't heard of Walmart.

Yeah, but that Lidl's gone. It has been gone.

The Lidl's in North Augusta closed. Advanced Auto Parts bought it. And they're using it almost like a warehouse distribution center. Not just retail, but it's...

The hospital, Greenwood, bought it. Or retail. They're doing all their retail there. Because it's a nice looking building.

It is a nice looking building.

Now, I do have one question about clustering subdivisions. Cluster subdivisions for... nature preserve subdivisions, things like that where you would cluster and then you would preserve walking trails and a pond or whatever. Should we write a separate ordinance for those and have those in specific places? Because I know we're trying to get away from the high density. But clustering, how could we, and I think we've talked about this, if it's 100 acres, and we allow the clustering, that the 75 acres that is preserved and the 50 acres that is preserved will, for all of perpetuity, you speak, remain that way.

Yeah, it would have to be specifically spelled out somehow.

But is it possible?

It's possible. It's possible. But there again, that's putting a lot more work on you to do that type of thing.

So right now in our PD, we say designated green space, and that's not to be developed on. But we're told that any future county council or planning commission can change that green space, bring it with the PD, and allow them to build on it. But if we wanted to truly conserve it, then would it be putting it in a conservation easement?

A conservation easement, land trust? sure that it's permanent.

So what liability would that put on the county? If it was in a land trust? Would we be responsible if something happened out there?

The land trust is going to monitor it every year to make sure that whatever the agreement is, is kept up with. So if there was at some point that something happened and the county had assumed ownership of that, it would be county liability But as long as it's kept up and the standards kept up in that initial agreement, I don't think there would be anything.

The county would have to buy that land up, right? I mean, how would you?

It would have to be attached to the deed. That piece, whatever you want.

What I'm saying, what would the owner of the property be?

I'm just saying, if you don't put it in a land trust, how would the owner, would he benefit from it unless he would want those?

An individual gets a tax break because it reduces the developable value of the property. so your tax burden would go down. But a developer owning the property wouldn't get as much benefit from it, but an individual would. And it could be, that property could be held by the county, but then somebody's going to pay for it.

So it would probably be a better idea just to leave the debt to go under a PD, just if they wanted to apply for that, just... Do it under a PD, I mean, because they can do anything, present anything, as long as everybody thinks it's a good idea.

So what's the difference between a conservation easement and a land trust?

A land trust would be the organization that holds the conservation easement. The conservation easement would be attached to the deed, and it would spell out what happens on that property forever and ever. And the land trust would be the organization that would come in and monitor that annually to make sure that it's being done.

So you wouldn't just have a conservation easement agreement filed and then that's the end of it. You'd have to have a land trust. It has to be put in a land trust.

That would be the way to keep it. If you're looking for tax benefits, if you're not looking for a tax benefit, yeah, there wouldn't necessarily be a point to it. But for a long term for an individual owner.

And council would set the tax benefit for all of those.

Would that be for like a situation where you have like, let's just say, you had Civil War or something grades right there, and you're going to put that in the land trust and have a conservation easement for just that property, so that would be the purpose of it?

You could.

Okay.

And I guess we would talk, maybe talk to David and the road crew, because they would be the ones maintaining things if it got turned into walking trails or if the county owned it.

But could you turn it into a walking trail if it was in a land trust?

If it was part of the original agreement for the property, you could. But if it weren't, you couldn't.

So who has to take care of it, say, whoever owns it? Whoever.

Who runs it?

But what if they're dead?

Well, somebody's got to own it.

There's no family left. It's just...

It's got to have somebody. Not yet.

All that land, 25, you know, 25, all that's sold. It's self-placed. All that's under trust. All that does, you cut 10 to pay taxes. It goes off 3,000, 8,000, 25,000.

Land trust development, it's up to the owner. Some people want it to be preserved. I know an elderly couple, a brother and sister, not a couple, but the brother and sister in Abbeville that owns, They're a family farm, and they don't want anything to happen to it. They don't have children. So when they die, somebody's going to buy that land and own it. And they don't want anything to change on it. So they have frozen it, basically, in the land trust. That's what I'm saying. But you can also go in and say, well, I've got three kids, and I've got 30 acres. I want each kid to have 10 acres and have a building, have a house building here, here, and here on that property. You can structure it that way and put your land in the land trust. It's up to the individual and their attorney and the land trust about what they'll accept and what they'll monitor, continue to monitor. But that's supposed to be forever to be monitored and held.

I remember in one of the real estate schools, we were told that a person could put restrictions on the deed. So when they pass, that land can only be used for certain purposes. purposes and not for any other purpose. And they just put it on their deed so it stays with the land even after they pass.

They could just keep it as undisturbed.

They could.

I mean, if the county, it'd probably be easiest on the county because there would be no liabilities or anything else.

There's land trusts in Aiken. There's land trusts in Greenwood, too. If you ever have anybody interested in doing that, property owners, there's There's options available both places for that. There's probably some more. I think the Farm Bureau, the State Farm Bureau, does some land trust now, land trust work.

I want to be the land trust inspector.

I can put you in touch with some people if you want to do that. This is the time of year that they're going out and monitoring the properties. So if you want to do that, I can put you in touch with somebody. You can send me to all the farmland and the cows.

Yeah, when the snakes are coming out.

That's when you get all the land trust. That's why I said the fall and winter. I don't want to be out there when the snakes are waking up.

That's what it is. That's why they can't keep people to do that. Don't they get it on February? That's when you should do it.

You don't want to do it on February. You can't get it on February. oh yeah if they presented it to us in a phase yeah this is one developer on his parcel that developer's parcel they would you would

set out in your ordinance that phase one has to be... Like 70, 80%? 78%, I would say 80% complete before you can start on phase two with that partial. And that way you don't have a couple of houses here and then you move on to phase two.

And never finish.

And never finish.

With all the infrastructure.

Could we get 90%? Or is that pushing it?

Everything I've seen is 80%.

You just give them time to go ahead and as they're building out, that would go ahead and start grading for the next one.

But can we give them a specified amount of time before that last 20% is done? You know, so that they don't leave the 20% until phase two is already done. Because you know people push.

They're going to push it.

See?

They're going to push whatever you try to do, they're going to push it.

For a lot of developers, well... What I've seen, they may opt out of doing a phase two, but they've got to start selling.

Okay, so they opt out of phase two. When are they going to finish 20%? They'll never finish it.

So that's what I'm saying. That's good. I mean, more land is there. Right.

Or something left undone that should have been done. Imagine taking care of that. Who would? A man. So what would prevent that from happening?

They turn in permit by permit, you know, and there's nothing if they decide, you know, I've got it 90% complete and we can't sell no more, so we're not putting another dime. We hadn't sold the last six we built. They can actually, you know, the market, it's just not there for them.

I don't think you can force them to build the last 20%. They're going to want to do it to make money. is the only thing that's going to drive that last 20%.

Now, could we, if they get to the 80%, all your infrastructure, water, everything's the way it should be as far as infrastructure. You get to that percentage, and if they don't build the rest of it out, we could hold them to the requirement to clean it up, landscape it, plant it, make it a usable green space or something like that.

Right, yeah. We need to have that specified because I can see people doing that every other day.

Just make it a green or just plant it green space or either or?

Maintain green space, yeah. But if they build 80% and they can't sell that last 20%, they're probably not going to come back. But they can plant grass, something like that.

So how would we do that? How would they be required to present us a bond at that point?

as part of that original bond agreement. With the roads and whatever you do in that original bond, make that part of it.

Didn't we talk, was it you that was talking about the pump stations? And it puts the burden on the county water and sewer. Could we not also write something like that in our ordinance? Or is that kind of out of our control?

To do what with it?

To require the builder to have them, to maintain them, fix them up to a certain, because it's like anything. They make something last up to the end of the warranty or up until they're finished building. done, and that's about half the time when stuff fails, breaks. I just know the Water and Sewer Authority has had issues with that. And then the county has already assumed responsibility for everything.

Once you turn that responsibility over to the county or the authority that controls that sewer water, it dies. That's what I'm saying. It may die. It's like electrical. It may die. Once they sign it out, everybody will return to them with the responsibility to maintain the partnership.

And it may be something that we really can't deal with.

That might be something to talk to John here about assuming control or assuming that function at some point.

Because I asked him if they would consider requiring a bond.

And if you're going to make everybody connect to county water and sewer, they need to be involved from the beginning as well.

And we all talked about a certain amount before you is required. What does that amount look like to be connected to water and sewer? If you have over how many lots, you have to be connected to county water and sewer. We talked about that. I need a number for you all to start playing with so I can write it.

I mean, number of lots.

How many lots can you, before you are required to hook up to both county water and sewer?

If you have 100 lots, you're not nothing. But I know, I don't know the probability of this. If you have a developer coming in, what would I put in if I was a large tract of land? The developer believes in rural style living, and so it's like, I'm going to take this big tract of land I'm going to put in five acre lots and it ends up being five or six hundred lots, right? But they're five or six acres.

I don't see requiring... No, I'm just saying.

If you're talking about a set of lots requiring to be connected to water and sewer, but if you've got somebody designing a five acre subdivision, I don't see requiring them to connect

So we could stipulate depending on the amount of acreage.

So many lots that are under this amount of acreage. Yes. Yeah. You are required to hook up with county workers.

Right.

And we'd have to look at how close we require as far as density to be able to come up with how we require that. Yeah. But yeah.

Because I mean right now county wide you have to have at least two and a half acres if that lot needs water and sewer.

And I don't think anybody would have issues with somebody wanting to

Nobody would, I don't think. I'd rather have that than a high density, but I can't see requiring that type of development to put in water and sewer.

Like I said, see, entry of county, we don't have water and sewer available anyway.

Right.

See, like the north side, you could go up there and put in a system. You could put in a well system if you need DHEC. DHEC designed well systems. So like that, and you've got a sewer like that too. You can do that. It can be done up there, but you've got to be cautious. You can see DX right now. We've got about, let's see, one, two, three. And there's water. We've got, we're going to have to weigh it. So we've got a few small ones. But DX has to meet the expectations. The pump system, the other thing in the corner, you've got to have something to do with that. And then there's going to be water.

It's a fool book. So why don't we develop something in that site?

Well, they can. It's just that they're a developer that wants to do that.

There's no demand, I don't think. Because north side of Edgefield and then that southern side of Greenwood County, there's nothing there. Why would anybody be living there except someone that really wants to know what it's all about? Eventually it will.

Most of their own large tract of their own, they will be sold no time recently, in our lifetime, all the way from Salula County to McCormick County. On to McCormick. Never be sold. You got the dump. You got the dump. You got the cell. Cell never be sold. In Boat County, you got that log creek. You got that 300 acres over there. But they want so much, they're not going to buy that. No way. You know, I read that. Control team's not going to sell you. You got like a home timber. They got about. They're not going to sell you that. So most of that over there, the wall, we already talked about it. Do we have anything that would prevent someone from

If they want a large tract of land and subdivide it in large lots, basically all they need to do is cut in a road and put gravel down and start selling lots. Is that still allowed in that county?

Yeah. Okay. I mean, places where there's no water and sewer, of course, you have the two and a half acre minimum. Right. And in R.A., it's two. With no water and sewer, it's still two and a half. They can absolutely do that as long as They need all their stormwater requirements and de-hexes. I'll get everything perked right. I mean, they can design it. Okay.

Because, I mean, because we're just talking to other people about not being able to afford to buy a piece of land and, you know, have some problems, put your house on it. I know when Richard got off, it's because all it was was a gravel road divided and divided to make a lot. And we were all, the only thing the developer put in there was the road and the electrical work. And then when you bought the lot, you had to put in your own well and your own septic tank and you could build your house. And that was an affordable way.

You can build a subdivision on a dirt road. As long as it is a dirt road and gravel, we would require, we wouldn't take ownership of it. It would have to have a private road maintenance agreement. And if you had 100 acres and you wanted to put two and a half, five acre lots out there and not pay you.

Is there anything to keep from like Aiken Housing doing what they've been doing out toward Windsor out here and what else?

RV is the only thing that stops it. That's the only zoning that we have that restricts manufacturing. You can do modular.

What's it restricted to?

You can't have it on RV. Residential development, you cannot have mobile homes. You can have modulars, but no mobiles.

And the banks and the insurance companies have the modulars as if they're site built. They're not the same classification.

If we don't have zoning for it, it's kind of hard to enforce. We can make all these blanket requirements and then zoning without zoning. So if we could just zone everything and have it very, very, very, very basic as far as these are the requirements out there on the north side and you can't do this, this, this, and this and just leave the rest of it alone. We can enforce that.

Could we have a manufactured home community ordinance where if you're if you're going to develop this as a manufactured home community I think Aiken County did it years ago and like you can have a manufactured home community however they have to have um they can't have a metal skirting the skirting has to be brick or stone you have to have a front porch with a covered front porch you have to have a deck you can't just have a lap you know a I mean, you have to make it look like a site-built home, and you have to have landscaping.

But in unzoned areas, that's kind of hard to enforce.

That would be hard for your unzoned areas. But definitely in your zoned areas, you could do that.

But could you do it under just a manufactured home?

Ordinance.

Ordinance, where you're allowed to bring a manufactured home into the county, but you must do... Yes.

That's going to increase the cost of them.

Right.

And make it what would have been an affordable option for some, it would be out of reach. I know, they're very expensive.

You might as well build a site builder instead of buying a manufacturer. That's right. Because they're not that affordable.

But you could put that in a county-wide mobile home ordinance, manufacturer housing ordinance.

And the modular home cost. Yeah. But a lot of those modular homes look like a manufactured home.

You can deal on that. If you haven't gathered the money, you can get those easier. Although they cost more, but you can afford to get one because it's down payment. You get a packet deal. Got a lot of them out there, you know. They own the home, but the land is rented. Greenwood County got a lot of them out there. With Greenwood lawn and Richland County, all of them.

There's some in Aiken that are like that, too. And it's hard to find financing.

Unless they're buying a few bit of acreage, I think the major subdivision, either way, requirements are still going to stick. I don't see Aiken housing.

There is no trees.

Then your tree ordinance, I'm sorry, you're going to have to still maintain that bumper. Is it anything over, if they're less than five acres and they're more than five watts, it's a major subdivision.

So they have to plant trees. If they buy a hayfield, they have to plant the trees to put the bumpers in.

Unless they do over five acres, then it's exempt. It's stated it's exempt. From our rules and regulations as far as over five acres? Mm-hmm. Is exempt from the tree ordinance? Is exempt from subdivision requirements. It's not considered a major subdivision. I'm saying that correct, right? If it's over five acres, it's over five acres. And if you split out 10, six acre.

So if you do 100 acres, you do five acre lot. If you had a 100-acre hay field with 20 of them on there, you're clear.

That's not a major subdivision. It's not. Again, it comes back to I don't see developers at that being a very desirable, you know, feasible. Yeah, I mean, you're just going to look at that and say, there's no way. They're not even going to entertain that. I wouldn't think. I could be surprised. People surprise me every day. But, yeah, I just don't see that because just the infrastructure costs, just to put the roads in there and all the good things. But, yeah, they're like, no, we'll pass on that one.

Aiken County got some of the business out there. All of this pays to the New York City guys. And then the development went in, and they built the nice up, and then you put paved everything, curves, and gutters. And you come out and hit the kind of dirt road that's going across. They got a lot of them like that. I didn't believe it when I found it. I said, I go around, I troubleshoot for the company. And I said, what? I'm going down that dirt road, and all of a sudden, I hit this paved and all.

Sable lanes is as dirt road as it can get, and that subdivision's out there.

Mm-hmm.

Well, Aiken County allowed subdivisions to create landlocked lots. And they gave easements to the lots that were on the road. So I know there was one neighborhood, the builders and the owners weren't aware of their easements, and they had wells in the easement and garages sitting on top of the easements. And those lots were landlocked. I'm going to tell you no. I know. They can count and allow it in a few years. They don't need any more.

And I would prefer if you're going to have an easement, take away the easement and just have the property like a flag lot.

Right. It should have been flag lots, but they didn't do that. They did easements. Because people go.

Y'all got some good ideas to think about. Some good direction. Some good things to think about.

And of course, we'll run it by you before we get too far into it.

Is this the existing order? That's the existing order.

Isn't this real? builder is required to give us during that process in order to start a major subdivision. Number of plats, pre-application meetings, going before planning commission, things like that. So that's where this would be a new actual subdivision ordinance. All right. Y'all don't have anything else? Well, we got him. Ask it now.

We'll just invade his office.

I can come back, too.

And before we get too deep into it, I mean, we should definitely have you back.

Sure.

I'd be glad to do it. Whatever I can do to help you, I'd be glad to do it.

We definitely appreciate you. You ready to call it, Beth?

John. Atlantic Coast. They financed it. He financed all of his lot. He must have 500 of them in the state. Greenwood County, they're all Greenwood County. Allison County, Lawrence County.

He keeps it up.

He keeps it up. Yeah.

Do y'all want to keep? These are the colors.

Oh, okay. I'm going to take them with me.

It goes back to him, see? It goes back to him. Where's the? I didn't bring it. I just shoved. I just shoved it. Somewhere with that. Okay.

Oh, that goes over there. In that little corner of the desk.

All right.

I'll take some of these cookies and these muffins and stuff that I brought. And there's drinks back here if y'all want to take one to go. Y'all are welcome to.

You want me to carry your life with you? Carry it with me.

Carry it home with me.

I had a friend of mine, just serious though, a friend of mine, his wife passed about two months ago. He had 17 credit cards maxed out.

Oh my God.

And he found out about it.

Thank you.