Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

All right, we're live. Good afternoon. At this time, we're going to call our work session, Entry Account Planning Commission for July 9, 26, when I'm going to call it to order. And we're going to our agenda. Mr. Speaker, over to our final review of the land development application submitted by one doula regarding the proposed boat and RV storage to be located up Highway 23. ID 30302, double out, double out, double out three, triple out. It's time to get on that. It's time for me.

So staff doesn't really have anything to add. We obtained all of their documents. We have their, the last thing that we were waiting on was their DOT, which we have now.

So we're good.

So nothing's changed. Everything's still the same.

OK. Any comment from anybody on the commission up here? Any discussion on anything concerning that project? You have anything on that project?

I mean, just over the last month, I was just wondering if the developer had considered any more vegetative buffer along the front for the neighbor to block the neighbor's view or?

So we're still contemplating on what the options would be for that, but just really haven't landed on anything. We just kind of wanted to see what the process was going to be for it, but still not out of the question. Just kind of getting an idea of what we can do economically and, of course, suitable for what we can do as far as the process, too, because they are still clearing stuff there, so the hate would be to put something there, and then, of course, it'd get pulled up or sprayed over again, and it just costs us more money to put it there and get it damaged. So, again, just looking into the options.

Maybe a privacy fence or something.

Well, with being able to do that, again, all options are available.

Okay, yeah.

I want to make sure it's comfortable for everybody.

Yeah, just to be a good neighbor and help him so he's not looking at that from his home. Yeah, that was my only concern, my only question.

willing to do whatever is necessary. Again, just looking at some options that are going to be suitable economically and, of course, environmentally.

No more questions? Staff don't have anything in order, so we'll have a new business recommendation for future work session discussions.

So before we go into that, we actually have a couple of, well, They're not applications yet. So one of them you've probably seen on Facebook. It's on the north side of the county. He's doing like a Christian camp where you can you pick and go glamping and stuff like that. Right now, he doesn't have any permanent structures. He's not building anything. So staff doesn't feel that they need to come in at this time. But once they, you know, start building an event space or putting, you know, something that's going to require utilities or something of that nature, then, you know, we'll bring that back to your attention. But we got one. I think it came in the day before yesterday. And this would be in the RA district. And you can see the examples, just pass them down as you go. It doesn't really fit into any category in our zoning ordinance. It has a lot of moving parts in it. So instead of trying to pick it to pieces, I thought I would just introduce it to y'all and let y'all get familiar with it and sort of take the temperature as it were. It's not really camping because they will be permanent structures. They intend to build like four or five cabins. and then, you know, have hiking trails, an event space, you know, like a, I don't want to call it a clubhouse or a country club, something like that, but, you know, a place where they can host events. They're going to have a little miniature, well, it's not really miniature. He's going to have a golf course, basically, but not like an 18-hole golf course, like a, you know, like a putting green and a little golf course. And so it kind of checks a whole lot of different little boxes, multi-use things. You can't really call it a campground because there's no RVs or tents or anything like that. You can't really just classify it as a golf course because they host other events and they have cabins and things of that nature. So just kind of look through it and think about it, and when we know more, we'll give you more. They have not applied to us yet, so this is not an official application. But like I said, since there's no real NAICS code for me to classify this thing, I thought I would just bring it to y'all early and let y'all sort of brainstorm it a little bit. Where's it at? I know you gave me the question.

Is that off of Walker Road? Is that off of Walker Road?

So it's more like a retreat area.

It wants it to be more of a Christian retreat. Like if your youth group or your church group wanted to rent the whole facility, you've got it to yourself. You can utilize the clubhouse. You can play golf. You can do the walking trails. And you can also have cabins to stay in.

Are you thinking we need to come up with an ordinance that would cover a property like that?

I mean, I think, so golf courses are allowed by the ordinance in RA. A lot of, you know, like clubhouses are allowed in RA. So, there are aspects of it that are already allowed, but we, I don't know how you even would classify this. So... To me, I think this is one of those things where y'all are going to have to look at it holistically and sort of consider it a multi-use complex, and y'all just have to decide whether you feel like it's a fit for the area or not a fit for the area.

So are they going to write a law?

I mean, we can write a law for it, but Something like this is not likely to be something that comes up often enough for us to really need to put that much into it. So, my feeling is, you know, we'll get them in here for a couple of work sessions and let you all go through it with them.

It's mainly a resort.

At the end of our conversation today, he was going to center it more around a golf course. So it would be more like a golf course, a clubhouse, which are all submitting an RA. But the thing about it is, it will have the cabins on it. So that's where we had a...

If you call it a golf resort and retreat, that encompasses everything as far as the golf course, the golf course, the cabins and everything else.

Yeah, and I'm fine with that. If that's how y'all want to view it and go with it, that's fine. I just figured, you know, since it's got so many moving parts, just let y'all go through the project. And, I mean, I didn't see anything about it that would be controversial or, you know, an issue. Where's it at? Where's it at?

Who had the, remember that?

I haven't applied yet.

I mean, who had the owner there?

I'm not sure who the owner of the parcel is.

Okay, you know where the property is? There's some information. Is that the one off the creek right there?

There's some information we can't really share.

I think I know it anyway.

Because they have not made an application, so it's not public yet.

Yeah, as soon as they do, we'll...

But when we get their blessing... We will schedule them. Even before they make an application, we will go ahead and schedule them to come in for a work session. I just wanted to give you all a heads up and kind of introduce you to it since it will be a little different than the way things are normally done.

So are they going to rent it as a retreat for, like, youth groups of, like, 30 kids, you know, a group of 30? Or are they going to rent it also for, like, a wedding venue and have 200 people out there? Do we know?

Well.

So is it going to be a venue or a? Yeah.

Yeah, we've had one call, that's all. So there's more that we don't know than we do know. But when we were sitting down going through the ordinance, you know, she kind of asked me, how am I supposed to classify this? And I was like, well, it's multi-use. This is not one single use in here. So we're going to have to look at it a little bit differently considering that it's NRA. And that's why I said, you know, easiest way to do it is just take it to the planning commission, Let them see it for a couple of months before they apply, and then that way, you know, they'll already know kind of how the feelings are about it.

So are there, like, what will we do, pull bits and pieces of countywide ordinances, you know, that they can conditionally comply to approve it, like trash management?

Yeah, so anything.

Wastewater.

So as you go through it, the easiest way I think for you all to do it would be to break down the uses and then see what conditions need to apply, you know, for those. Obviously, if you've got a clubhouse and it's meant to hold 150 people, you know, there's going to be some conditions you need to set on that. But cabins, which are going to have, you know, trash cans, heating, air, electricity, plumbing, all that, they're not going to be treated the same as you would a campground or an RV, you know, spot. So, you know, you're just going to have to kind of go step by step through it. And, you know, if there are areas like if they decide to put trash cans in one area, you can say, okay, you know, even though there's not really a code specifically for this. In every other instance when we have something like this, you have to have screening around your cans. So put a privacy fence around it. I mean, y'all are just going to have to go section by section and do that. I don't think it'll be very difficult. Like I said, it looked like it was going to be pretty nice, and none of it looks like it would be controversial. It doesn't look like it's going to have anything in it where You know, people are going to freak out or anything. So, I think basic precautions will be.

It could be an asset to Edgeville County.

I mean, it looks like a fairly nice idea. But right now, it is just an idea. Like I said, we've had one phone call and email about it. So, we don't really know that much yet. But we're going to try to talk them into just coming to a work session before they even apply and go through it.

And you said no plans for RV hookups? It's going to be cabins?

No, it's just permanent cabins. A few permanent cabins is what they want. They don't want any glamping, camping, RVing, or any of that kind of stuff.

So they're showing two different clubhouses. One's small, one's huge. Did they? I think those are concepts. This is just concepts, and they're just going to, okay. Because this one has stadium seating.

Yeah, and things would change depending on, you know, an event space for 50 people and an event space for 300 people are very different. And those are the only two items that we really had that are kind of in a gray zone right now. Other than that, we can go back to the new business on the agenda and discuss anything that y'all want to bring up for future sessions.

Yeah, I asked you last month about us revisiting section 2475 on communication towers and antennas. I took the time to read through it. I think the only changes I want to see are some of the distances we have in our ordinance. like distances from residential properties and the screening around it.

There's 1,000 feet from a residence and there was limited screening. Were there some around the base?

I didn't see the 1,000 from residence in here. I must have missed it. I see it 1,000 feet from an existing tower or antennae. The only other distance I see is before definitions in Section B that landowners within 500 feet of the property have to be notified. But there's, I didn't see anything in here about how far it has to be from a residential, you know, from a residence.

So you wanted to establish?

Distance from residence.

Okay. And what sort of distance?

And again, that's something I'd like to research when we bring this up.

We'll look up some other places and see if they have that.

And what type of screening would you like to add to what's already on there?

Let me see.

I mean, I think a possible recommendation there is to – consider it a commercial use and then tie them to the buffer yard table. So it depends on what's next to them. If you're going to be next to, you know, an agricultural field, you would have a different buffer requirement than if you were next to someone's home site or a business or an industry or whatever. You know what I mean?

Yeah, because in Section J, it just says effectively screen from view, the base, but we don't have any specifics there.

So, I mean, we could classify them as something in our proposed use on our buffer table. And then, or we could add them specifically to the buffer table, and then y'all could go through and mark what kind of buffer you want in each category. Or, I mean, it's not really a, they're typically very small footprints at the bottom. So, I mean, you could just say, look, it's going to be class four, class five, and that's what it is. You know, you're going to make the base invisible. I mean, I'd be fine with that, too. Okay. And not to say anything bad about our cell phone companies, but after about 15 years, they're invisible anyway because they never go and cut them.

Did we put something in there about maintenance? Required maintenance?

So the only thing, I mean, I generally don't care if outside of the fence grows up, but I do prefer that they have a well-maintained entryway and gate because Well, you all know technology changes weekly. You know, you got 4G this week, 5G, 6G, you know. And then they have to change all the antennas on the tower, and our guys have to go out there and do all that. And finding the tower is easy because you can see it. Getting to the tower, however, can be a bit of a different story. Now, some of the bigger companies, like American Tower Company, you know, the huge company that owns thousands and thousands of antennas, They do keep their stuff well maintained and nice, but that's not always the case.

Environmental Health Services recommends 1,500 to 1,640 feet between homeschools and macros.

And the antenna.

Yes.

So if you consider that a tower is 400 feet in the air, then you would be looking at a 1,200-foot distance horizontally.

Right.

So, it depends on the tower height, which we can write that. We can write it up that way, too. I mean, it's not impossible. You just have to specify.

And we're, at this point, we're 1,000 to 1,200 feet between towers, so. Yeah, we're 1,000 feet. We're 1,000 feet between. It's 1,000 to 1,200. That's what the website says on HPL. I'm pretty sure. It's on the ishfieldcountysouthcareline.gov website.

And they recommend how far?

1,200, 1,500 feet.

So, the law says 1,000 feet. So, send me an email where you found that, and I will check that out. But 1,000 feet is the minimum by code. We haven't really had a problem with that because, obviously, if there's one already there, they don't need another one 100 feet from there. You know what I mean? They need to space them out enough where their signals are working. It's all about RF mapping. I will say that the biggest change and the reason we've had so many applications was the change to 5G. 5G is a much shorter wavelength, so they had to add towers to get the same coverage that they had for 4G on their existing towers, which is why you've seen so many new towers go up. The next new thing could change that again, but until that happens, I don't know that we really need to adjust for it.

Have we had any decommissioned towers that were not dismantled within the 120 days?

No. So, it's a huge insurance issue for a tower company to have a defunct tower. So, they usually take them down very quickly. The only two defunct towers that we have had in the county, one of them was ours, which we took that one down. And then we have another one that's not in use, but we actually pay to maintain it. So all the rest of the towers, as far as I know, are active.

What are the taller towers we got in the county?

The tallest tower in the county is the WBBQ Tower in North Augusta, right there next to the Fox Creek High School. The second tallest is the Edgefield County Emergency Services Tower on Star Road. The highest above sea level would be our tower. But I think in terms of tower height, the tower height on the WBBQ tower is a little over 500 feet, so it's a really tall tower.

That's the one that got cut down that time. That same one that got cut down. Do you remember that?

I don't remember that, but it's a guide tower, and it's, I think, 536 foot. And then ours is 420 feet, but the land is sitting 500 feet above sea level. It puts it a little bit above the south side. And, of course, all of our emergency radio equipment is on that tower, all the school's radio equipment is on that tower. So we don't have any cell antennas or anything like that on that tower. That's all emergency communications and police radio, fire radio, EMS radio, school radio, all that stuff is on there. And we do have a section in our ordinance that if we need space on a cell tower, they have to provide it to us. So if we had a dead zone somewhere and we needed to put emergency services equipment on there, they do have to provide that to us. We already have that in here.

Too bad Eureka's not in Edgefield County.

That's Aiken County. I think Aiken County just switched everybody except the fire departments to the Palmetto 800 system. So their police and EMS are now on the state system. We considered doing that in Edgefield, but the price tag went from 2.1 million to 4.6 million. And that was just a little too

Having them prove what it used to be, it used to be a bad system, wasn't it?

Well, they have improved it, and that's mostly because they're charging jurisdictions $4.5 million to build new towers. But I have heard that they're working on that a lot in Columbia now, trying to work out a way that's economical for us to get on the same system because interoperability is important, and it would be nice for our sheriff to just be able to key his radio up and talk to the FBI, CIA, ATF or whoever he needs to talk to. Whereas right now, you know, we have a handful of Palmetto 800 radios that are basically kind of like roaming on your cell phone. When you hit the button, it charges you a fee and it lets you talk on that system. And only the command staff of EMS and Sheriff's Office have those. It would be nice if we could be interoperable with all of the agencies all the time, but right now it's just too expensive. And yes, I did offer them to just go on to our towers that we own, but they still wanted us to pay for all the equipment. The radios cost three times as much as a normal radio system radio. I mean, there's a lot of parts to it. Yeah. Now, if the state calls us tomorrow and says, hey, we'll give you the radios, yeah, we'll switch. But each radio is about three grand.

It's a lot for taxpayers to – Well, it's not only the radio, the handheld radio. You've got your radios in your cars. Bars. Each. And it's –

Now what Aiken County did is I think they left their fire departments on their old radio system, and then they moved their EMS and police shares and all that to the Palmetto 8. But Aiken County is much, much bigger, much bigger than we are.

The fire people can't communicate with EMS?

Oh, they can. They can't?

Okay.

So dispatch can connect, you know, like an old switchboard operator. It's just not radio to radio direct communication.

And it is much easier that way. I mean, it's so much better.

And, you know, a highway patrol comes into your territory. and pull somebody over or there's an accident or whatever the case is, when they key up, yes, our dispatch can absolutely hear them and communicate that to our officers. So, yes, our dispatch is completely modern, just like anywhere you would expect, but they can't key that mic up and talk directly to another patrol officer. It has to go through dispatch and to the officer. It's nice when they can come into the county, flip it over to Edgefield County's Palmetto 8, and talk directly to anybody they want to talk to. And that's what, that's our ultimate goal with our radio system. But, you know, right now we just, you know, financially can't do it.

You know, I don't think that system is good anyway. You know, you got it up and down, but remember...

It does have a lot of You know, am I really your dealer and all that? It's just not. When you got everybody can just keep it. But the key is, if you can get all of the jurisdictions on board, on the same system, all working together, then that would change almost within a year because we would start putting their antennas on our towers. We would start putting... their trunking system in our systems. Everything would slowly convert over, and within a year, that system would improve by leaps and bounds compared to what it is now.

I can attest to it. We've done all that. And it was a pain at first, but when you're on the scene and you're on the highway and you need a helicopter, you need this, you need that, and they're wanting to talk to you. We could talk to everybody. It was great. I mean, it was like coming up from kindergarten to a master's and whatever. It was great.

Yeah, it's definitely nice to be interoperable. And when we call mutual aid, it's also nice for the person who's our first responder who's on the scene to be able to talk to the ambulance that's coming from McCormick, Aiken, Sleuth, or wherever they're coming from. But right now, they have to talk to dispatch, and dispatch has to relay.

If you have a mass casualty, say, on I-20 somewhere that's in Aiken, I mean in, well, yeah, Aiken County, Edgeville County area, and you have mutual aid coming in from everywhere, I mean, those situations happen. But those were the fun days.

But we already paid for a $2 million system upgrade, so we're done for now. We're not doing that anytime soon. Not unless the state makes it cheap for us. Are there any other items that y'all think y'all want to put? So, I have talked to county council. We are going to schedule. David and I are about to schedule a joint meeting with y'all and county council at the same time, and the subdivision ordinance will be in that joint meeting, and we'll have Rick back down here for that. Are there any items? other than general updates and subdivision ordinances that y'all want in the meeting, the joint meeting. I mean, obviously, it will be a work session, not a vote meeting, so y'all can say what, y'all can talk about whatever you want to, but we do like to have as much on the agenda as possible so that the public will know what we're, at least some of the key items we're going to talk about.

And you can always, if you think of something, we can always put it on the agenda for you.

We hear y'all scheduling this.

So I don't know, but I'll let y'all know several weeks in advance.

Is there anything else that y'all would like us to get a guest speaker to come at a work session and talk about? We always have Rick Green. We can find anywhere from attorneys to

some point with like the water department John because I think a lot of what we're planning for do we have the infrastructure for where where is our water system you know what what capacity do we have yeah no water we have sewer

Well, when I say water, I'm... Yeah, it's not going to change anytime soon, I don't think.

But I think everybody needs to hear that.

Yeah, but the last update I got from John on that is the state did allow Aiken Horse Creek to release some capacity, but North Augusta bought every drop of it instantly. And we buy through North Augusta. Now, we've talked to North Augusta, and they're not against selling us some limited capacity for, you know, things that are already kind of in the works, but the chances of them selling capacity for anything new short of, like, maybe a major, major industry that came in that would benefit the whole area, they might would consider, but I don't, until they expand the Horse Creek plant, I don't foresee any capacity being released. Now, they have moved some things around. You know, they took some of the capacity off of the Force Main and moved it over to the Brook Street plant, and we have the plant in Johnston, but those go into tributaries, so their outfalls are extremely limited compared to you know, Horse Creek.

So, we're going to continue to see that affect the south of?

The south side, I mean, maybe for some small-scale stuff, you know, like a commercial business comes in or something like that, and they just need 1,000 gallons a day or something like that. But major subdivisions, multifamily housing, stuff like that, that's not going to. I mean, we just can't buy that much capacity.

Same thing with the assisted living center that was proposed down there. Correct.

That's just. So, residential, you know, assisted living facility, nursing homes, stuff like that use tons of water. And we just can't buy that capacity right now.

Where was that?

So, we actually had two of them.

Sweetwater and 25.

The Campbell property. on very, very end of Sweetwater Road that the gas line goes through, and it's got, you know, Joyner's Automotive is there.

The Frito-Lay distribution.

Frito-Lay distribution city is right across the street, that big parcel there. That field, yeah. And then you might remember a planned development that applied that was on Highway 25 right, right, Right across from, near Trailside, yeah. Huge property. We denied them, told them, yeah, that's not going to fly. They went to council. Council denied them. Well, they came back with a multi-stage senior living complex that would have been a much more positive thing for us, but again, there's just no way we can supply something of that scope right now, so.

What happened to the deal on 25 out in front of the old camp that the farmer, you know, I know it, you know, the building that kind of owned right there, the lady was involved in. Oh, on 25 north?

So, yeah, we got ourselves out of that. She owns it free and clear, and we maintain the ownership of everything around it and behind it. So, the county still owns it. I want to say it's right at 300 acres behind it.

She still owns the building. She owns the building.

She owns the building.

And she's not doing anything with it.

But we still own everything around it. We still own, you know, we'll always own the old chain gang camp. How many land have been in that chain gang camp? How many acres have we got there? Well, hold on. It'll be easier for me to measure it than.

She's not going to develop that because of the sewer. There is an old septic tank there, but she was going to have to, she was going to have to spend so much on the septic system out there, it just was not even feasible. I think she's kind of abandoned that idea.

All right, there's Simmons. So, we own this. There's the old chain game camp right there. It's, you know, we don't tax ourselves, so hold on just a second. It's 12 acres. 12 acres. Yeah, for the old J. And we cannot get rid of that. So back... You know, however many years ago the camp was in operation, you know, a lot of people that ended up in the camp were from who knows where. You know, they didn't have any family. They didn't have time. They didn't even know who they were. And when they passed away, they went into a commoner's grave. And those graves, those commons graves are back behind that camp. So that will forever be protected property. We can't ever do anything with it other than, you know, keep it for historical purposes. Plus all the other unknown graves out there, right? I'm sure there's a lot of them. No problem. But I assure you there's more than a few. And we can't, I mean, there's nothing we could possibly ever do with it. Now, we do maintain the old Chang Gang Camp building, you know, just from a historical standpoint. We keep the roof intact and all that stuff, but that's about it. That's all we really do with it.

I'm curious. By law, could you allow, if someone wanted to start a nonprofit and raise money to turn that building into something like a museum, something historical, Yeah, we could. Could the county allow a nonprofit to do something like that on the property?

We could, as long as they don't go behind it where the actual graves would be.

I was just curious.

So the actual building is like right here.

How big is it? It should be in good shape. Well, I mean, it's indestructible.

It's three foot thick steel reinforced concrete. It's massive thick walls like this. And the doors are wrought iron. You know, when they say go into the slammer, that's what they meant. Because that thing makes a terrifying noise when it closes. And then you walk in and it's a sloped concrete floor that goes to a giant iron bolt ring in the middle of the floor where they were chained to it. So, I mean, it's not a big building, but it's not going anywhere. You would need some major equipment to try and take it down if you wanted to.

So we could have a museum and take school children out there and scare them to death. Yeah.

Yeah. That's what we need. Take them at night.

They'll scare themselves to death out there. You know, it should have been before all the hardware got stolen out there. We got some stuff to deal with the pet. It would have made a nice museum.

Yeah.

I mean, the old wood stove's still in there. All the, like the old kitchen where they cook their meals and stuff. It's all, I mean, it's all still there.

You could open it up for Halloween, charge tickets.

In fact, up to, Up to a few years ago, it was full of all the old wanted posters and all that kind of stuff, and we took that and put that in archives so it wouldn't deteriorate and be destroyed. But, I mean, it's really not in bad shape. During the hurricane, a few trees fell on the roof, and we had to deal with that.

We had a place to come. It was called Stonewall Jackson Training School, and that's where the worst of the worst children went It was a horrible place, but it was an entire, I mean, it was like a little compound, but it was going right in the town, you know, and it fell in disrepair. And now, you know, people have always, you know, snuck in and all like that, but there's so many buildings and so many horrible tales, but it's still there. They're talking about tearing it all down now, which I think is really, it's good, but it's bad. You know, it's one of those things where you could save it for posterity because it was something.

It is very historically significant. And so, I mean, I'm sure plenty of atrocities took place.

Oh, God.

Even in the chain gang camp. I mean, you know, Edgefield County has a very bloody history. And I'm sure that there was a lot of people who just weren't liked that ended up on that chain gang whether they did anything or not. But that property can't really be used is the point. It will never be sold. It will never leave county hands.

And how much is around the nursing home?

It's a massive property.

It's a lot. Okay. You don't have to measure it.

Well, I mean, it won't take me but a second.

So what will the count, what can that be used for?

Anything we want.

They cut timber off it. Yeah, it's timber land right now.

It's all timber property right now. Yeah, it's 280 acres. 25. We're the old.

Assisted living used to be on the left going towards Greenwood. It's grown up.

Yeah. We were going to put the animal shelter out there at one time, but there were some issues with dog hair and septic systems and stuff like that that it got really expensive and complicated, and so we didn't. We put it on the same property as the LEC. But if we, the next, well, actually, I think we just ordered it to be thinned. But, I mean, you could do hiking trails through there. I mean, there's all sorts. I mean, there's really not a limit. It is public property. You can go look at it if you want to. This is just a pine forest. There is a creek right here. that goes through.

Has that always been county property? Because I remember.

So, from what I understand, there was a land swap deal and the person who had inherited the old commons here also had that and there was a donation and it became tax free and adopted by the county and it's just been there. It's been ours ever since, basically.

I remember when a lady disappeared from the nursing home and turkey hunters found her that spring around the creek. I just want to know.

You remember that?

Yes, sir.

We went on that case until, I still don't, I can't figure out how we missed that lady. At that time, I was charged with search and rescue at that time.

Mm-hmm.

But, yeah, it is a big property, and we haven't really ever historically done anything with it. So, I mean, you can always discuss that with council if you have ideas for.

A park on that side.

Huh?

A park over there. Since you have trails and you have the water.

Yeah, you could put a park in there. That's a good idea.

You could put a nature park.

Yeah, given the size of it and its location, it would have to be some sort of nature-oriented theme.

Any other guest speakers that you can think of besides the water department?

I can have Scott Neely with Electric come. Oh, I was thinking, that's what I had in mind. I forgot.

How is the transition on the Power Company.

Is anything happening? As far as I know, I mean, you know, they don't really report that to us, but as far as I know, everything is smooth.

You don't think we're going to have any change?

I don't think so. Okay. That's what I was wondering about.

You know, when the other change was made, we had a few that kind of. get hard in some places.

I think they're going to stay in Dominion. Okay. And if y'all have, if y'all want to talk about power, I can get Scott from Dominion to come talk, too.

I think that'd be a good idea.

You know, not maybe, you know, not pushing it. I mean, he would, he would have a, you know, he knows where all the transmission lines, their capacity. I mean, he knows all that general information.

The bill will be ahead over there.

I think they buy their power from Santee Cooper, though. They're not producers. They just co-op.

The acreage that the county's looking at purchasing for the industrial park, how many more acres was that?

So we don't actually have the survey yet. We estimate it to be About 130 acres, I believe. But one of the parcels is going to come out smaller than what it says it is.

So how much closer is that going to put?

So this 100 acres is probably closer to 80 acres.

Well, how much closer is that going to put it towards existing residential homes out there?

I mean, so this is already part of the industrial part. So that's not changing. We're just... We're buying primary interest. So right now, Stately Oaks is the physical landowner, and there's a contract for it to be part of the industrial park. We're simply buying him out. So this is all already the industrial park. It's not going to expand the industrial park. We are buying this, this, and this.

So you're saying the state already owns it, but we're buying it from the state?

We're buying it from Stately Oaks, which is a farmer.

I couldn't hear you. Okay.

Yeah, and we have a contractual agreement with him, and we have an industrial park board that he sits on along with us and Western SC Economic Development Committee. And we're basically just buying his interest out in this. So we'll be the sole owner. And then we're going to divest this property from the industrial park. It's very hilly. And he uses it for agricultural purposes, which is perfect for it. So the amount of dirt you would have to move to try and flatten that would be problematic. So we're just going to divest that altogether from the industrial park.

And will that return to like general commercial or it'll stay industrial?

Well, for now it'll stay industrial probably until we, you know, decide to rezone or do a comp plan update or rewrite. But I would probably recommend it change to RA or GC.

My other question is with the data center ordinance, we have it allowed in that industrial park only, right?

The only land available would be the 80 acres right there.

I can't remember. Do we have a distance for the data center from residential?

Yes, we do.

Okay. Is that going to be enough distance for the existing homes?

So this, there's a home right here and there's a home right here. So this little corner right here would not be available or buildable for a data center.

Because it's too close to the homes?

It would be too close to a resident. So they would have to just use basically the little 50, 60 acres in the front. So it would be very small if they were going to do one. But it doesn't matter. We don't have the power or water or anything right there to do it.

And there's no residents on the other side of Highway 25 that would be within that distance?

Yeah, that's all stately Oaks peaches right there.

Okay.

And then right here on this parcel, this is what we will be given a portion of to Piedmont Tech for them to build their industrial tech education center or whatever. And then in this portion that's currently wooded right here, this is about where we want to put our EMS station to line up with Van Road so that they can go that way or take right or left.

Is DOT going to put like a caution light there?

So we, yeah, we will. We'll put a you know, put all the EMS signs up with the flashing lights and all that stuff that will go off when their radios go off. But we wanted it there because we do not want them to be dependent on Generac Way to get out because big trucks go in and out there, and we don't want an ambulance to get stuck behind a truck. So we wanted to make sure that whatever piece we picked would have direct access to the highway and band road. And we have two existing curb cuts right there, too. Not that I believe DOT would give us a fight on it, but we already have existing encroachments. So that's kind of where we were aiming from the get-go.

Long-range plan for power company is that when they get enough money to invest, they put all the high-transmission lines underground. Some of the states are already working on a lot. We got, let's see, one state now investing about, they're working on about 160 miles of high-transmission. They're putting them underground. And when they get the money, they're going to go nationwide on that. It's going to be years, but that's what they're looking forward to. So they're going to be cheaper than what they're investing in now. According to a good idea.

Okay. Someone to speak on Robert's rule of order. I think we need it. I think people need to know things about.

We can talk to Rick and see if he's got somebody, or we can get John from the state to recommend somebody.

So then we're going to adjourn our wet session and take about a six-minute break. At this time, we're going to call our meeting to order for the Airfield County Planning Commission. We'll have a regular session for July the 9th, 26th.

Heavenly Father, we come to you tonight to thank you again for us. a day that you've given us. Lord, I would like to ask a special prayer for the family in Aiken who this tragedy came upon. Lord, our hearts just go out to them. Lord, be with us and go with us through this meeting. And all this I ask in your name. Amen.

We stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance 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. Seated. This time, I need a motion for the approval of the agenda for tonight.

Motion to second.

Motion to second. All right, hands. Opposers? I need a motion for the approval of the minutes of our wet session for June 11th.

Second.

Second.

Second. All in favor, right hand. I need a motion for the approval of the June 11th meeting minutes.

Second.

All in favor, right hand. This time, our next item is vote for chair and the vice chair tiebreaker vote for the planning commission for chairman and then now I'm in the vice chair. So now it's in your hand.

So in the last meeting, you know, our vice chair, we did not have a tie. So Ms. Haddon is the vice chair, and I'm going to let her take care of the tiebreaker vote for the chairman. Abbott? I'm going to do it to the left y'all so we know which is which.

Do you want me to give you the tally, or you want me to announce this? Mr. Burke, there's three votes in Tracy Walsh, too. Mr. Burke is our chairman. You want these? Okay. Okay.

All right. I'll comment. Continue with what we've got going on. Appreciate it. All right. Now, we're having a guest speaker, so we're going to have a report from the staff to report.

This report shows the growth in the county all the way up to the month of June. Plat reviews, you have nine plat reviews, seven exempt, and two minor subdivisions for plats that were brought before us. And that's it. Well, this will be on this month's. This is Heritage Place. They actually changed some of the lots that were townhomes, and they're making them single-family homes. So instead of, what, 44, it's 22. They're cutting 22 lots out. And this is the plat. It'll be on next month's.

Is that for who?

Well, it'll be on next month's report about the subdivision. I mean, you're all welcome to see it. We'll get FAB to sign it. You can look at it.

Question. G. Road and Miner Subdivision. What was that at? Johnston? Oh, well, G. Rawdon. G. Rawdon on the Platt Review. Model subdivision.

So that's prop. Hold on a second. I'll pull it up. Make that easy. Oh. 167, 159. So he's splitting mostly exempt lots out of this bigger tract. You know, he's splitting, like, somebody wants to buy 10 acres, et cetera.

That's off of Long Cane?

It's off Weaver Road. Weaver Road, okay. But he had an existing house there, so that minor was just that. Okay, all right. And that's an existing private road, Tybee Place Road.

All right, let's see if I can get any more. Shadowfield still in the works. I don't have any more questions on that. All the way up here, we go to public comment section. The proposed vote on RV storage on product ID 032. Double out, double out, zero, zero, three, triple out, located off Highway 23. And it's posting a lot of comments. Anybody signed up for comments on that? No, no comment. So we'll move on to old business then. Old business, we vote and discuss. Question of the land development application submitted by Warren Doolittle regarding the proposed boat and RV storage to be located off Highway 23, product ID 32, double out, double out, zero. This vote is for the recommendation of a final approval, conditional approval, or denial of this proposed land development application. And we're going to open the floor for discussion with our commissioners about having conditional approval or anything that needs to come forth on this particular item.

So in the last meeting, y'all had the preliminary? Of course, during a preliminary, they don't have access to DOT and all that. So we've received all their paperwork. They're ready for a final approval. And that's where we're at.

Any comments? Somebody entertain a motion to for final approval on this? I'm sure. Motion second.

Second.

All in favor say a motion to approve this for final approval for this particular particle for land development here for the boat and RV storage. Raise your right hand. All those ayes have it. So be a staff. OK. We have a new business. We have a new business. No exact say, no problem. Any comments? I don't have any comments except I appreciate your confidence and I try to do what I can to tie them on. If nothing else, I'll get a motion to adjourn.

Second.

Motion to adjourn.