Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Some packets as we move through, but you'll be on your screen there. Chairwoman Mitchell is not feeling well today, so you guys are stuck with me. So there it goes. All Lexington County committees are being broadcast live on the Lexington County Spectrum Channel 1302 and Lexington County's website meeting portal. As such, this meeting will be filmed today and will be available for viewing anytime on demand at our county website with some disclaimer.

Mr. Chair, we are experiencing technical difficulties with our online streaming service. So for the folks in general public who are watching online, it will still be available on 1302 if there is any interruption in service. The meeting is still being recorded. So after the meeting, it will be available online through our meeting portal site.

All right. Would you please join me for an invocation? Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your grace. We thank you for your blessings you give us each day. We ask that you guide our hearts and our minds in everything that we do today. Pleasing to you. Lord, please bless all those who serve us in uniform at home and abroad. Be with them and their families and keep them safe. All these things we ask in the holy name of Jesus Christ. Amen. Please join me 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. In your package, you have the minutes from July 16th meeting. Do we have any comments, corrections? Do we have a motion to approve?

I'll make a motion to approve.

Do we have a motion? Do we have a second? Second.

All right.

Please call the roll.

Commissioner Cox.

Yes.

Commissioner Shealy.

Yes.

Commissioner Pike?

Yes.

Commissioner Hutto?

Yes.

Commissioner Campbell?

Yes.

Vice Chairman Frost?

Yes. All right. We will move on to activity report.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We'll come back to the special recognition when Administrator Sturkey is able to return. So we'll jump into active reports. In your packets, active reports for the last month for housing and mobile home permits. In front of you is the spreadsheet or the graph showing the traditional trend for those permits over the last 10 years. Zoomed in version of it. They appear to remain consistent over the last three years. Third quarter so far, we've had 182 single-family home permits issued. Doing some rough calculations, we're on track for potentially 1,800 single-family homes permitted within this calendar year. Obviously, that's just taking the average from the last few months. It will probably change in the latter part of the year, but just in using the revolve average, it looks like around 1,800. Mobile homes, we're at 46. Again, it remains on consistency with the previous year for those permits. Pipeline lots for the past year, we've had no new pipeline submittals in July. So this is basically the historical information from July of last year through June of this year. Concurrency maps, we've had one concurrency, and that is the Willow Track. This is actually located in Lexington School District 4. We do have one more in the pipeline under review currently. but that is where we're at with concurrency. We are almost ready to deploy the new map to update the pipeline and concurrency maps. We are very close to hopefully within the next meeting or two, we'll be able to get that planning commission for your review. All the other active reports are located within your agendas. If you have any questions, please let me know.

All right. Any questions? All right. At this point, we're going to kind of back up on the agenda and would like to recognize Administrator Sturkey for a special recognition.

Can I have Megan come down, please? You know, I want to present you this plaque today in honor of your service to Lexington County. Twelve years is my understanding on the Planning Commission.

But they got it.

We're certainly appreciative of everything you've done, your participation. You know, when you're asked to sit on these boards, you have no idea what you're really getting at. They have no idea the decisions and the impact this group makes and others makes. And thank you today for your 12 years of service. Also, thank you guys for what you do as well. It's not easy sitting up here listening and being presented data and the data you're given. You have to make decisions that impact people. So just wanted to say thank you. Thank you for your service. If you ever need anything, please give me a call. Okay.

Just to piggyback on Administrator Sturkey on behalf of staff, we thank you for your 12 years of service. I know several of us on staff have worked with you a lot longer than 12 years. It's always been a pleasure. You do have a passion for what you do here as well as what you do in your private entity. We look forward to continue working with you. We'll definitely miss your fashionably late entrances, so there's always something to look forward to every month. But we can't thank you enough for everything you've done for us. Thank you.

Okay. Yeah. Thank you, staff. I don't think we could do these meetings without y'all and all your hard work that goes on behind the scenes before we even get here. I wasn't nervous, and now my sister's here, and she's staring at me, so I apologize. You guys have a lot of fun and exciting stuff coming up over the next year, I hope. I think the land disturbance manual is going to be a really, really cool thing that you guys get to review, and it'll help y'all a lot when it comes to, you know, road design and the way that these private roads are done. And I think that'll help us or Planning Commission a lot moving forward. And I'm kind of sad that I don't get to be a part of that, but I'm pretty confident that you guys can handle it. So thank you, everybody.

Megan, real quick, on behalf of the Planning Commission, we do thank you very much for your service over the last several years, 12 years, and it's been great getting to know you. And I'm sure you'll be involved. We'll have opportunities to talk.

I'll be around. Don't worry.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Minister. All right, we'll move across.

Y'all want to gather and get a quick photo with Megan? Yes, sir. Lynn, you want to?

You're sisters. I'm okay. Okay.

All right.

We'll move on to our next item on the agenda, a private road variance for property of Mr. John Sutton.

So the private road variance this morning is for Robinson Court, which is an existing private road. It is the property of John Sutton, identified by TMS number 011900-02-015. Mr. Sutton owns three acres on Jasper Sutton Road in Gaston. Robinson Court, which is the existing private road, travels through this parcel. Mr. Sutton would like to deed a one-acre portion to his niece, Ashante Gordon. This portion would be accessed from Robinson Court. This is on your screen the survey that they had prepared back in June of this year. You'll see that the survey refers to an existing 25-foot easement that is recorded and provides access to a landlocked parcel. However, that easement was only shown on a deed and has never been approved on a plat. You'll see the highlighted section is where we've discussed with the owner and the surveyor. If the variance is approved today, then they're going to adjust the survey so that that entire easement would be on Ms. Gordon's portion so that it would be compliant with the access policy. However, Robinson Court itself was established prior to the adoption of the private road policy. There are currently 11 parcels that have access to this roadway. There are several parcels that have been created by deeds and not plat references. There's one parcel that the assessor's office is identifying as unknown ownership. There has never been a road maintenance agreement established, but Mr. Sutton has submitted a draft of the agreement. We do have some aerial photos of the parcel. You'll see that red star is where this portion is. This is Jasper Sutton Road here. And then you'll see that Robinson Court does continue along the property. That's just showing approximately where her one acre portion would be. We do have some site photos. This is at the entrance to Robinson Court. This is, you're looking at Jasper Sutton Road. There is some signage in place. It's kind of hard to see. It does identify it as a privately maintained road. These are some photos at the driveway location of Robinson Court. And this is looking into where that portion would be. You'll see there's already a driveway established that's going to the existing landlocked parcel. We do have a video of that private road. Robbie, can you start that for me? While that's playing, I'll go ahead and read their standards into record. A, I am needing to access my property via Robinson Court where a current easement already exists that my cousin uses to access her property. B, there are multiple families living off of Robinson Court that use an easement access to get to their property, specifically one that will be on the one acre being deeded to me as referenced on the plat. C, because of these conditions restrictions currently in place that is causing me to not be able to subdivide the land as needed to place a home for my family. D, approving this variance will not be a detriment to my other family members or anyone else living around me. It will only deserve to improve the area and bring newer builds into the community and elevate home values around me. E, this request is not just due to financial hardships. I am a mother that works two jobs and recently got out of the military. I need my mother to help me with my children while I provide a place for them to live, and she lives next to this land. Ms. Gordon also submitted a letter to the Planning Commission. I'm not sure if you had a chance to read that already. I can read that into record since I know you're having some issues with your iPads this morning. Would you like me to read that into record as well?

Yes, please.

Okay. And this was submitted by Ms. Gordon. Dear Planning Commission, I'm writing to you with a hardship request to allow my uncle's property to be subdivided as he is wanting to deed me over one acre plus or minus from the address at 114 Jasper Sutton Road, Gaston, South Carolina, 29053. We have a survey that was completed and was told we could use that for now with a slight adjustment that will be made as advised by Donna Hoover once you all are needing it. I am fully approved with my lender, which is why this is so important for me to be able to get this done. I just got out of the military and my mother lives next door to my uncle, and I need her assistance with my children while I work two jobs to support them. My mother is also retired from the military and understands the help needed since she has also had help during her service in the Army from her family. A portion of the property I'm hoping that I can get is required for me to be able to utilize an FHA mortgage. It also serves as my down payment. The portion of my property runs off of Robinson Court and already has a recorded easement that my cousin uses as well. This is the same easement that I am needing to gain access to my land. John Sutton owns the portion of the private road that I will be using, and he has also agreed to fully maintain this road himself like he has done over the years as needed. Please consider this request that would greatly help my own family and will allow me to live amongst my other family members that me and my children rely heavily on at this time in our lives. This home is a new build by Clayton Homes of Lexington, South Carolina, and will also enhance the community as a whole and will not cause a hardship to any of my neighbors. Thank you again for assisting me in this manner. And Ms. Gordon and her mother is here today if you have some questions for her. All right. Thank you. Yes, sir.

Any questions of staff? I guess the only question I'm going to ask, and I know there was not a road maintenance agreement filed previously, and there will be now. It appears from the video that the road is not in great shape. Is there some upgrade or something that will need to be done as this is filed officially, or is it just up to the property owners to make sure it's passable?

That would be up to the property owners. Now, I mean, my understanding is that you can make some conditions on improvements that would be needed.

Are there, back to standards, are there acceptable turnarounds? Is it sufficiently wide? I'm wondering if there's things that need to be done in order for this to move forward.

I think that this parcel is probably only between 300 or 400 feet from Jasper Sutton. So those portions, I think, are wide enough. And there are several homes along the roadway where someone would be able to pull into to turn around or allow someone to pass if needed. When we went out there, it was after some pretty significant rains, I believe, in the Gaston area. So you do see a lot of standing water.

What about address addresses? I mean, as you're going down that driveway, you see lots of poems, but I didn't see any addressing taking place. What?

I didn't take note if everyone had their addresses posted appropriately. I'm sure that for this parcel, whenever she does, if she's approved for her mobile home, then I believe building inspections would require certain postings as part of their permitting process for her particular home.

On the dwelling itself, but not necessarily like the fire department, blue ones by the road? I don't think that those are required, no, ma'am.

I think they're only required if it's a certain distance away from the road where you can't see it on the house. Am I looking at this right? Do we have an easement that leads to a private road?

Or am I missing something here? No, it's just that a portion of the road is owned by Mr. Sutton within his three-acre parcel. I'm going to go see if I can get back to the aerial.

But it's still considered a privately maintained road?

Yes, the road actually travels through his property, and then once you get past his portion, it is mapped separately. Is that the part that you're referring to?

I think so. What about the land where the rest of that sliver, where the rest of that sits on? Who owns that portion?

I believe it's in the same family, but I don't believe it's under John.

It doesn't look like it. By the tax map lines, it doesn't look like it belongs to any lot specifically.

Ms. Gordon is here. She may be able to answer that question better than I can.

I don't know that it's really even relevant. I just wanted to...

Yes, I believe it's still the same family, but I think it is separated. I don't know why that was done that way.

The road maintenance agreement that's going to be filed is responsible for the entire length of Robinson, correct? Yes. Not just the portion that's on Mr. Sutton's property?

Correct.

Okay.

That means that all other 11 or 10 lots will have to sign off on that? No.

Since the subdivider is the one making the request, they are the ones that would be required to sign off on it. And Mr. Sutton has put in that agreement that he will maintain it.

Other questions? So the road maintenance agreement covers the entire private road beginning to end?

Yes.

Just the portion that's on that three acre parcel?

It would be the entire parcel. And it's not recorded yet. We only have a draft.

And he can sign off for the road maintenance that goes to all the lots?

Yes, because he owns the portion that's on the three acres, and then the rest of the road is owned separately. It's not individually owned by the separate property owners.

Any more questions? Have a motion?

I would. It's my last day. Yeah.

Commissioner Shealy? All right. So we have a motion to approve.

I'll second it.

Second.

All in favor?

Commissioner Cox?

Yes.

Commissioner Shealy?

Yes.

Commissioner Pike? Yes. Commissioner Hutto? Yes. Commissioner Campbell?

Yes.

Vice Chairman Frost?

Yes. Thank you, ladies, for your service. We do appreciate it. All right. Next item on the agenda is access policy variance.

Yes, the access policy variance is on property of James and Mary Cato. It's identified by TMS number 009700-01-056. The Cato's own approximately 21 acres on Old Charleston Road in Pillian, south of Windywood Road. Their grandson, Zachariah Moore, owns the mobile home, which is currently at 1399 Old Charleston Road. Mr. Moore would like to subdivide a one-acre portion around his mobile home so that this portion can be conveyed to him for the purpose of refinancing the mobile home. You'll see the aerial photo there. I'm going to get just a little closer there where you'll see that portion. So the Cato property is accessed by an existing flag lot driveway that is 50 feet in width. On the same day that a plat was recorded for this parcel, they also recorded an 18-acre parcel that established an easement along the flag lot driveway for access. Some history on these parcels. There was an adjoining parcel that established a 20-foot easement to the 10-acre portion that you see that has the 1469 address. And then there was an additional portion that was approved for consolidation but was never consolidated. So I'll kind of try to show you what that is. I'll go back to this one. So the plat that was recorded for the 10-acre parcel established an easement along this line to get to that portion. And then you'll see this piece here was approved to be consolidated, but that never happened. So now we have four parcels that are using that same 50-foot flaglot driveway for access. And it also appears that two parcels with the road frontage on Old Charleston Road are also using the driveway for access. Mr. Moore's request is that he would be able to establish his legal access for his proposed one acre portion along that same flag lot driveway. And this is the condition that the mobile home is actually accessing for their driveway access currently. He hasn't had a full survey done yet, but it does appear by using the measurements on one map that this driveway potentially exceeds the 2,000 feet in length. So for this to be approved, it does require several variances to the access policy. Item 2 states if an access easement is used to provide a driveway for a land lot parcel, that access easement may only be designated over one parcel. Item 3 states if an access easement is used to provide a driveway for a landlocked parcel, that access easement may not serve another landlocked parcel. And item 16 states neither an access easement nor a driveway portion of a flag lot shall exceed 2,000 feet in total length except on the basis that the access parcel shall not be further subdivided. Again, back to those aerial photos, you'll see the proposed portion for where his mobile home is currently located. We do have some photos along Old Charleston Road at the driveway location. And this is looking into that existing driveway. Mr. Moore did submit a letter and standards. I'll go ahead and read the letter and then we'll follow up with the standards. I am seeking a variance to survey off one acre from Mary Cato's property using the existing easement to access said property. This is my grandmother's property and is where my home is already located. We have lived here for over two and a half years. Our goal is to be able to have the new property in my name and refinance our home. To do so, the new parcel will also need to be accessed by the existing easement That crosses Mary Cato's property and David Moore's, which is my father's property. This is already used as access for our home. This is all family property, which no one is ever planning on changing. All parties involved have given their full approval and written consent. Thank you very much for your consideration. I hope you find this to be sufficient and acceptable. Standards for variance. A, there are extraordinary and exceptional conditions pertaining to the property or properties. Our home and the surrounding properties are all owned by family. We all share the same main driveway, which happens to cross over multiple parcels. All of these parcels will remain in the family. B, these conditions do not generally apply to other properties in the vicinity. Other properties may not be surrounded by exclusively family property. Other properties may not be locked in by the surrounding properties, preventing it from being accessed without the use of the existing established driveway. C, because of these conditions, the application of this ordinance to the particular property or properties would effectively prohibit or unreasonably restrict the utilization of the property or properties. The application of this ordinance would affect more of the property by cutting a new driveway. All of the affected parties would like to remain using the current driveway, which serves as the access to all of the properties. Without the approval of this variance, we will not be able to purchase the one acre parcel our home resides on and will not be able to refinance our home. D, the authorization of this variance would not be a substantial detriment to adjacent property or the quality of life for the residents of the county. The authorization of this variance would allow all affected parties to remain using the current driveway already established. In doing so, the quality of life and use of the properties could remain in good standing as nothing would actually change. Controversially, if the ordinance were upheld in our situation, it would affect all parties and decrease the quality and usability of the properties. E, when deliberating a variance request, financial hardships alone cannot be considered for the basis of a variance. Financial hardships are not the basis of this request. We are trying to purchase the acre of land our home is established on. In order to do so and have it recorded, we must resolve this ordinance issue. I don't believe I've met Mr. Moore in person, so I'm not sure. There he is. So he is here today if you have some questions.

All right. Questions? I've got one question. I think you touched on this. 1469, the property in the back, you indicated, I think, that it had an access that comes around the large undeveloped piece of property.

Yes, sir. Is that how they're accessing? No, sir. They're using the driveway that Mr. Moore wants to use.

It looks like there's a well-defined access.

Yes, sir, it is. It's in great shape, and they do have all of the addresses posted there, like you'll see on that photo, for all the dwellings and accessory buildings that are using that.

And just the access that's, I guess, the easements that's deeded for 1469 looks like it's there and well-established. Yeah, the 10-acre.

The 10-acre, yes.

that they're using this driveway.

Yes, yes, they are using the existing driveway to the 1469.

Yeah, I'm just wondering why they're not using the thing around, the access that's deeded around the top.

I understand what you mean. So the legal easement was established when that big chunk of property in that sliver was all one ownership, and then they got subdivided later. I believe that easement to the top is also serving property at 1475, maybe 1477, so it does look very defined. Those properties are historic. They will probably predate the access policy.

Okay. All right. Thank you. Additional questions?

I'll make a motion to approve it.

All right. We have a motion. Do we have a second? Second. All right. I have a second. Commissioner Anderson, do we have any discussion?

Hutto and Campbell, correct?

Yes, ma'am. Thank you.

All right. Commissioner Cox?

Yes.

Commissioner Shealy?

Yes.

Commissioner Pike? Yes. Commissioner Hutto? Yes. Commissioner Campbell?

Yes.

Vice Chairman Frost?

Yes. All right, next on our agenda is a presentation and discussion of larger common plan regulation.

Eric. Mr. Chair, for Mr. Rowland kicks this off. As a request from the Planning Commission over several meetings, I know there's been a lot of discussion on larger common plans that we staff refer to as LCP. So Matt Rowland, who's our land development manager, has some representatives from DES with us today. I'll let him introduce our representatives with DES. The intent of this is to introduce what larger common plans are, the definitions of larger common plans, some examples of larger common plans, and potentially how they're enforced. I will say this, that staff is in constant contact with both DES and our stormboard consultant trying to figure out different avenues and ways that we can apply larger common plans in different scenarios within our review process, especially with larger and smaller lot development. So with that, I'll turn it over to Mr. Rowland. Good morning.

I did want to introduce Ms. Roxanne Stiglitz and Mr. John Poole from South Carolina Department of Environmental Services. Roxanne is the Stormwater General Permits and Industrial Section Manager, and John is the Dam Safety and Stormwater Director at state level. So to get started, it's a really short presentation, and we won't have room for discussion on it. So I want to start off with the definition of large common plan, because that's really kind of what we're here. As you can see, it's broadly defined as any announcement or piece of documentation or physical demarcation indicating construction activities may occur on a specific plot. It's very broad. And further, it says it's including a sign or public notice or hearing or a sales pitch or an advertisement, a drawing, a permit application, a zoning request, computer design, or physical demarcation, including boundary signs, lot stakes, and survey markings. Again, indicating construction activities may occur on a specific plot. So I just wanted to show you Like I said, it's very broad. It's very challenging for our permitting staff to tell somebody if they draw a line on their piece of property, they may be being forced to have regulations to where they'll have to hire an engineer or somebody to develop a plan to regulate their stormwater runoff off of their lot. So I've got a few examples in here of what they'll look like. Obviously this one's what the regulation is really for right right, so you got individual lots there. They would definitely impact each other There's a whole master plan to take care of stormwater quality and quantity Look at here. We got four lots They could impact each other or they could not we don't know well the regulation says they have to develop a plan if one acre of this overall plan is disturbed and If you're the first one there, you could probably get your house in there with one acre of disturbance. But everybody else that comes after you would have to hire that engineering professional to submit plans to us to make sure your stormwater regulations are here too. For reference, what are the sizes of those logs? I thought I had them in there. I think they're around two and a half acres, I believe.

The little squares, it looks like where the disturbance is going to be is marked with one.

It will in a case like one and a half acres Breakers it could be five acres. It could be ten acres or a hundred acres Yeah, I was just talking about this specific one Another one you went and was looking at that you wouldn't think that this is a big you know example somebody just their family trying to split up a piece of property, but again Her that one acre when this plat is approved then I They'll be required to do some.

What would be the disturbance of the land, like putting a single dwelling in, putting a driveway in?

Driveways, the actual disturbance of the property to construct the home, you know, in the backyard or a pool or any property that could create a difference in a stormwater runoff. That's what it's trying to regulate. Okay. I believe that's a commercial piece of property here. But even if it's commercial, it's not exempt. So you're going to start to buy two parcels. Well, one of them will get an acre. The other one, you're going to have to figure out what you've got to do with your stormwater. Even just, like I said, one line down a piece of property, just to make it a flag.

It all applies. How do we really justify that that is a plan to indicate construction just because a piece of property has been divided?

Right. So if it's just a plat, if you come to us with just a plat and it's not a construction drawing, well, to me, you're not disturbing a piece of property. So you wouldn't have to have a land disturbance permit. However, we did develop some verbiage to put on the plat just in case that does happen somebody's going to disturb at least one acre, then those rules are enforced.

Can we go back to that one you mentioned? Go back again. That one. So, for example, if a plot was turned in, you know, that's property lines, clearly. That's now a common plan of development or sale?

Right. That meets the definition. And we know, and I saw this, I believe, yesterday, folks are going to go into those eight-acre, nine-acre lots, buy those and subdivide them as well. Then you'll have a common plan within a common plan. So it'll get kind of confusing.

One of the questions I had regarding this was the process. So let's say, for example, someone... They sell these off. A person buys lot three, 8.81 acres. They come and they want to build a house. What happens at the county? What's the process? What do they have to do?

When they want to build a house, they'll first start with the building department. The building department has certain approvals within that permit, digital permit, that sign-offs have to happen. It could be flood, land disturbance is one of them, land development. At that point, our staff member go into the research, the piece of property, to see if there's a plan on it already and to see if there's any permits already on it. And if that one acre has already been disturbed, then the permitting is enforced at that point. If not, we just submit what we call an EPSA, just saying that you're going to take care of your BMPs on your own.

Let's say parcel four had already been through that process. They were the first ones. They didn't have to do anything because they were first. And say they disturbed less than an acre. Now the person who wants to build on parcel three comes along and push the aggregate over one acre for the area. And now they have to do stormwater protection. First person didn't. So it pays to be first in this situation.

Yeah, it does. And I believe in the regulation it says it's best to take all this up front to an engineer to make sure that doesn't happen, but it does give lead way to do what we're doing.

Well, in an example where a person may divide this up, whether it was for the family purposes or to sell it or whatever, you know, they don't know what's going to happen on any of these lots. One person come in and buy lots one, two, and three and use it to hunt or something. It may never be a disturbance.

What's the solution?

Well, the solution, really, when we looked at this, we were thinking everything that came to us in a platform like this, we've got to stop and look at engineering, right? But as we found out, we're not doing land disturbance. We're not. We're just putting lines on pieces of property. So that's when we came up with a verbiage saying if you do do land disturbance, then you will be having to meet the regulation.

But only on your specific parcel, or is it going to be like, if we're looking at this one, parcel four, who bought it first, he has no issues, but now three, he has to cover everybody? Just his portion? I mean, engineering-wise.

Yeah, it'll be just his portion on the lot boundary, so basically you can't drain on it. proven that you're not doing it.

The difference between what it was before is any single lot, if they disturbed over one acre, they had to request a permit. Now it's one acre in aggregate for the entire year. So if parcel four builds and they disturb three-quarters of an acre to build, parcel three comes along and... They're going to have to do engineering, and they have to do stormwater protection now in accordance with that engineering.

Right, so it's not just your lot. You have to take the whole disturbance.

It's an aggregate of the total amount of disturbance up to that point.

Is that right? Yeah, if you're looking at one lot, that's your site. You're in the middle of the slope. You've got to take into account everything coming to you. So you've got to make sure that's taken care of. And if the person above you had the free one acre, then you're probably going to have to take care of that too. Obviously, it'll be a little bit more, maybe an increase in runoff. Maybe not. But the folks that are doing the engineering, there won't be any more coming to them. They'll just take care of their own lot. Now, the traditional way is like the first example we had. Go ahead and get the permitting up front. In that case, each builder could have a secondary permittee status, which is a little bit more simplified.

Right, but we know what's going on there. But this could be family land that gets devised between four children.

We're at a crossroads. Like, what do we do? Obviously, you don't know what you're going to do with it. The only thing we could do to protect ourselves with the regulation was to put that piece of information, the verbiage on the plot to cover us if that does happen.

What is the time frame that this encompasses? You divide this piece of property among family members. It may be 20 years before somebody does something with a piece of property. 20 years later, are they coming back to do engineering because they've crossed over an acre? No time frame.

No time frame, there's no size limit.

Any subdivision of that single parcel whether it's they build a house year one and then year five somebody comes and builds on parcel three different name it just goes back to like the mother parcel

There will become a point where every single house is built. We'll have to have engineering and a stormwater protection plan. If you consider every piece of land is a piece of a larger parcel at some point in time, and every future parcel will be a piece of a larger parcel. So there will be a point where every single house has to have engineering. The thing is, one of my biggest things is, how much does engineering cost on average? I've asked several people, and obviously not enough to get an average, but I've asked several people, and they're looking at $3,000 to $5,000 just to find out how much money you have to spend on the stormwater.

You have to pay the engineer. You've got to pay to get it installed.

But you've got the engineering alone, $3,000 to $5,000. Professional fees, yeah. And then I've heard ranges from $5,000 to $20,000 on stormwater protection. So you're looking at $10,000, $20,000, $25,000 on a cost that can never be recovered from anything, not when you sell the house. It's not considered during an appraisal for the construction loan. really a benefit to the larger builders because it pushes more people out of the building their own house market and into go buy one for somebody who can recover this cost a lot easier.

And another unintended consequence, if you have to have a BMP like a little small pond or something in your backyard or if you end up having some kind of LID practice underground, that stuff has to be inspected every year. I've got a septic system I've got to get inspected. But that's an added responsibility that you have to have an O&M plan recorded here and get it inspected every year.

Stormwater is such a pleasant experience anyways. I mean, add some more inspectors.

Also, the common exceptions will be individual lots that were planted prior to 1992. They weren't required to do the stormwater management reductions.

So what is the solution then? Because I hear what Chris is saying and that's insane. I mean, anybody except for the first guy is going to have to start paying these costs, no matter how big his lot is.

At this point, I'd like to bring up our representatives from the state.

You could have all these lots sitting there and they all have their own stormwater pond in the back.

Right. And then you've got to maintain. But, you know, dirt work is not cheap.

Not sure what the fix is, but we've had plenty of discussions. I think it's been the statewide.

John, if you please step to the microphone and please introduce yourself. Yeah, absolutely, Mr. Frost. We have had a few of these type of subdivisions come up here recently where very similar type of plat as what's shown on the screen here now. And, you know, they did not come through. They did not get permitting. ahead of time, so they started construction, and they were actually in areas where we do the reviews, but what had happened is downstream, because they didn't have the controls on their properties, they were silting in a pond down below. Actually, I think it was four houses, too. So these smaller subdivisions can have impacts, so it's not out of the realm of possibility. The larger common plan of development or sale that we're currently using hasn't really changed, I think, since, like, 2005. We've been using this same definition. I think maybe some people's application of it may have changed over time a little bit, but the intent and the letter of law has not. So I think that's where you have a little bit of situational changes that's occurring. I think especially with what most people consider minor subdivisions, that those usually were flying under the radar because they just weren't going through the preliminary and final process. So that's how you get a lot of those. If you look back and you're like, oh, well, my cousin didn't have to do this or – You know, I know this other developer that didn't have to do this. It was because they didn't really get caught by the net.

How do they not get caught by the net?

That's a county issue. So that's where, you know, at the state level. We're basically permitting things that come to us, and we do have inspectors, but we're not approving the land development, and we're not approving the split of the parcels. So we're only catching a little bit of what comes through. But I guess, do you all have any questions? Because I can sit up here and ramble for a long time. I do. Is there any kind of a...

Larger parcels, there is a chance they could impact something, right? Absolutely, yeah. But, I mean, the likelihood is a lot less than a very small, say, a quarter acre or half acre lot. Right. Right. So is there any kind of standard measure you could put in instead of doing the expensive engineering and all this other stuff, say, you've got to have a silt fence around anything you disturb, and that's it? Because, I mean, you really have to weigh in – What are you spending and what are you getting? And if the risk is low that you're going to impact something, is it really worth spending $25,000 for something that probably won't happen in the first place?

Yeah, so that's where, you know, going back to what we were talking about, you know, the way we operate at the state is you can split the land up, and let's say if each one of those, we got four potential houses there, if each one of those were disturbing, you know, a half acre or less, they wouldn't have to come to us for, well, they wouldn't have to come to us with an engineering report for permitting. because we don't require engineering until two acres. And then, you know, they could have a simplified SWIP and things of that nature. So outside of the MS4 area, you do have that one to two acre that can be done by the property owner.

Aggregate or per lot?

Aggregate. Aggregate. So every time I talk about like a disturbed area, I'm talking about not just per project, but per LCP. So if I go from like one to two or two to five or five to ten, I'm talking about aggregate. That's the way we measure it.

So in this specific example that we were using earlier where parcel four disturbed three-quarters of an acre, they didn't have to do anything. Parcel three, they disturbed three-quarters of an acre. We're up to an acre and a half. We don't have to do engineering at that point.

Not for a DES review.

I think you would for mats. But parcel two, if they go and disturb three-quarters of an acre, they're over two now, and now they have to do engineering?

Yeah, and that's the issue that comes up with things that are actually residential subdivisions that come under as rural land splits is that you usually have, you know, the in folks are kind of penalized more than the initial folks. And that's why our regulations are written to do it up front. If you believe that this is a residential subdivision split, that's going to be a residential development, Just go ahead and do the engineering up front. That way you can sell these things off as developable land. If you're splitting it for hunting land, of course, we don't apply to that. But if it is a residential subdivision, the regulations do recommend that you get this engineering up front. It doesn't require it, but it does require it. If you read it, it does say if they fail to obtain, then they have to do it on a lot-by-lot basis later.

That works for small lots, you know, a quarter acre, maybe even up to an acre, I would think. But larger lots, for example, these where you have eight acres, for the person who divides this to do it up front, their house is going to go. They don't know what's going to get disturbed. If anything is going to get disturbed, I see a lot of these. person coming by, three of those lots, build one house, build no house, maybe put a barn, put some horses or something out there. It's all rural stuff.

Yeah, unfortunately, there's not like a minimum lot size where the LCP applies. It could be, unfortunately, like 100-acre lots. You could have 1,000-acre lots split up into 10, 100-acre lots, and the same rules would apply if it was a 10-acre lot split up into one-acre lots. So there is that discussion that's been had, but there's just not any – There's not any standards currently for that at the federal or state level.

Is there a way to get a variance for unique situations like this other than the unique situations I think that were listed in here? There was like a couple of them.

Yeah, Ms. Soto, that's a really good question. And I would say, you know, if it's coming to us, a lot of people are complaining about the improvements that must be made for the stormwater plan. And that's where, you know, you can look at waivers and variances. But unfortunately, a lot of those have to be done through a review of engineered calculations and things of that nature.

It's not just, you know... That's probably just specifically for that infrastructure. But what about for situations like this where it's putting two lines on that mother parcel is now created, the need for that LCP?

So I will just kind of... reiterate or discuss maybe. We haven't really went down this path yet. We talked a little bit about the state definition, which is actually from the Federal Register. We kind of just incorporated it into our permit. The EPA actually has their own definition, too, of common plan or development. And they basically apply this rule to, they say common plan or development is any contiguous area where multiple separate and distinct construction activities may be taking place at different times on different schedules under one common plan. And then it says the common plan of development or sale is broadly defined as any announcement or piece of documentation, including a sign, public notice, hearing, sales pitch, advertisement, drawing, permit applications, zoning requests, computer design, et cetera, or physical demarcation, including boundary signs, lot stakes. Very similar to the same definition we have.

Or a maybe. It may be happening.

Right, right. Activities may be taking. Basically, the way that is read is if the activities may be taking place, Doesn't mean that the activities must be taking place, may be taking place. So it's actually a more broad definition because of the word may instead of must.

Or maybe it's not at all, but it would still fall into that LCP category no matter what.

It could very well if you're going by this definition. That's right.

Okay. Going back to the variances that... I know you're on the state level there, but can we have our own variance procedure for our people?

Larger the lot, normally, engineering-wise, it's not going to probably have to have a whole lot. When I say I've seen engineers develop numbers, it being the numbers, the curve numbers is not enough to produce enough front off to go off the lot itself. Eight-acre lot, probably not. So the cost goes down, I would think, for that engineer to tell us that. So that would be a waiver they're not having to do physical BMPs for stormwater. The more the lot shrinks, the more engineering costs would go up. Thought has to go into it to make sure.

I think just from the variance aspect, the land development manual and the stormwater ordinance do lay out a path for possible variances. For a land development variance that If it's stormwater-related or environmental-related, it goes to the Stormwater Advisory Board first as an advisory review. If the SWAB determines that it's not a negative impact to our environmental programs, then we bring that before the Planning Commission to review for reverence. It goes to the same standards for reverence as what the subdivision regulations go through. If the Stormwater Advisory Board makes a determination that the proposal has a negative impact to our environmental or our stormwater program, it does not advance any further. There is a possible aspect on that, but one thing I'll add too is, as Matt alluded to, we've had meeting after meeting after meeting with state folks, with local industry, with local elected officials and administration on this. There are some jurisdictions that are doing a little different in the larger lots, but unfortunately what we have found is there's still engineering involved. I think Greenville County is an example that folks keep bringing to our attention. Greenville County has pre-engineered design. So they are engineering designs that the staff meet with the developers or whomever is cutting the property up to review. As Matt also alluded to, if there's any type of infrastructure in place, whether it be swells, whether it be an attention basin, LID, they have to have post-construction BMP inspections every one to five years. So even with the larger lots, the ability to get them out quicker, there is still an engineering aspect, whether the county takes over that aspect, the developer takes over that aspect, or the individual property owner takes it. The other thing we're working on is I think one of the last meetings that was held, and John and Matt, you can correct me on this if I overstepped. is we were asked to put in some measures in place that could potentially have DES review for some policy changes or some recommendations moving forward. We have another meeting coming up next week as part of that. We've been doing a lot of research, especially with WSP as our stormwater consultant, trying to get some avenues. So we're in that process working through it. I think once we get some draft language to go to DES for their review, it may add a little bit more clarity to this. Trust me, behind the scenes, both state and local staff are working to try to figure out means to address this. Like Matt said, larger lots generally are not going to have a big of impact. However, there are certain situations, whether it be topography, whether it be soils, whether it be proximity to water bodies, proximity to joining properties, obviously those throw in a whole new animal when we're trying to deal with these sites as well. So it's a lot of factors we're trying to take into consideration to get some suggestions to DES for their... As soon as the driveway gets put in on one of these, that triggers it.

Fine line.

As far as that waiver is concerned, we really doubt into what's required. If it's actually required to have an NPDES coverage at that point, I'm not sure we can waive that. Going back to the simplicity of design, if it's a larger lot and if it's under a certain acreage, then there's no BMP. I think that would be the type of waiver. He doesn't need anything.

Have we looked at this requirement from the perspective of this was never meant for this kind of situation? Because what it looks like to me, you know, whatever my interpretation means, is exactly the first slide you showed. A developer wanting to buy a block of lots, and it's a way to close that loophole from a developer being able to hack them up and get away from stormwater.

That's a great way to do that.

And even through some of the examples, I think it's what, fact sheet 3.0 for the small water construction, it gives an example, a developer building three houses on three different lots. That's not the exact verbiage, but it lays out that example specifically under where it says what do we mean by larger. So I don't know that this was ever written and intended to be for large rural type lots, you know. It's just a large expense for someone wanting to build their own home that they can't recover and probably never needed in the first place, probably. Not in all situations, obviously, but probably wasn't needed.

I don't have an opinion. I don't sway either way, obviously, but as John alluded to, they have some issues with small subdivisions. I just had one yesterday. This lady's still draining. She's got one where a silt fence up. This lady's pond keeps getting sediment. It's probably going to go to a litigation. No permit was required at the time. She was going to disturb less than one acre. So we said, okay, here's an EPSA. That's for less than one acre. Make sure your VMPs go up. It didn't go up. So we go out there and take a look and said, okay, make sure there's some silt fence up. Had to give her a permit because she actually disturbed three acres. Happening. So now we're like, okay, what do we do? Now we're going to have to hold up her building permit. I don't like doing that because you're the CEO, you've got banks involved. So that's... You have to fix your sediment. Right, fix it, right? And we have issues with big projects. We can't get some enforcement done the correct way. That's citations, and that seems to... That's a different problem, though.

Enforcement of what people are supposed to be doing versus making people do something they didn't need to do in the first place.

Mr. Poole, I guess I'll ask you, we've talked about this, and this is an EPA definition, EPA rule that the state's adopted, and then of course the MS4s have to follow. I'm assuming this isn't unique to Lexington County. Has there been any discussion with EPA over clarifying where this should apply and where it shouldn't?

The EPA will tell you that, well, actually they don't tell you much right now. But Just based off EPA guidance documents and their permits, that they're just as equally as restrictive as what we're talking about. South Carolina is a delegated state, so we get to implement that federal program here locally. And then we have to meet or exceed their requirements. And the same thing with the MS4s. Like Matt, he gets to implement the state program here locally. So he has to meet or exceed our requirements. So we try to stay very close to the federal requirements so we're not overly restrictive statewide. We will see often where local communities will actually increase their requirements a lot because they're seeing issues and they're actually a lot more restrictive than what we're talking about right now with just meeting the state requirements. But that's – it's kind of – basically what I'm seeing is it's going the other way when you start talking about conversations, not relaxing the requirements but actually tightening the requirements is generally what happens. We looked at what other states are doing. We are in the process of – Going out to do a study to see how we kind of stack up against other states. We're one of 54. Wrapped under the same rules. I will say that we're probably not. that much different from any other state just from talking to other stormwater managers and directors from each of the different states in the area they have their own little quirks i know like georgia will have one group do the review on the stormwater plans and then another group will issue the mpds where we kind of do it all under one house And we just did that for convenience for the applicants who I had to apply twice. We'll just do it all here. And North Carolina works similar to that, too, where they do two different things. But the thresholds are relatively the same. I'm just talking to folks. Like, I haven't – we haven't went through and, like, ran all their permit numbers to determine that. But just from talking to them, that's –

So who has the ultimate power in Lexington County when it comes to making I guess what we're trying to do is look at this for the land disturbance manual aspect that's coming up to like make some changes to that. Is that where this could take place or we could define them better?

I'm not sure these specific changes but more changes other than this.

These changes are already done. We're just

I've even asked about has it ever been challenged in court? Is there any case law? Any references there? I've researched. Our consultant's research hasn't really come up.

Good enough time there will be. I do want to follow up because that's where I was headed. And Mr. Poole, I want to ask you, has this been an issue of concern with EPA when they've come in and either reviewed your state program or any of the MS4s? Has this been something they've raised as we're not applying it appropriately?

No one said that we have not applied it appropriately based off of my knowledge. We We have not been audited in quite some time on the permitting program. I think they came in here recently and did our MS4 audits. I believe there were some EPA representatives that went down to Aiken area that did that. I don't know if they had mentioned anything specific to LCP. I don't remember hearing anything about that and considering how much of a topic this has been. If they would have mentioned it even a little bit, It would have been all over my desk, and I would have been in like three or four different meetings. So I doubt they said anything about LCP, Keith, to be quite frank with you. I can check with the compliance folks because I was not personally involved in that audit. but that was more of a compliance exercise.

Yeah, I'm just trying to get back to, you know, this is a 1998 rulemaking, so it's been around for a long, long time, but it seems like maybe the application is evolving, and I'm just trying to figure out what the nexus for that is. Why has it become such a big issue currently?

It's difficult to say. I mean, I've got my own personal beliefs on that, but it's not anything I can share with the group. I think it's just better accountability through more advanced systems and more people getting caught now in the net is my personal belief.

And no doubt there, that happens very regularly. Things that have been overlooked in the past are now getting visibility. But I do think there should be some common sense approach to this, and hopefully our consultants that we're working with can help identify some of those that make sense across the board and doesn't unduly punish folks.

And I would like to mention too, like Matt, I don't have a personal opinion on this. I just read the law and give you the interpretation that the state's currently, or the interpretation that I'm currently implementing with my staff. Let me just put it that way. I can't even really speak for the department. I can speak for my program.

In that interpretation, I struggle with finding the commonality in a common plan. If you go back to the other example we were looking at, the other eight-acre lots, when they're all owned by different people, no one knows what their neighbor plans to do. There's no common infrastructure. There's no common grading. There's no common streets in between them, obviously the one on the road. What's the commonality that determines this is a common plan?

Yeah, I would say that Initially, I would have to agree. We would not require any MPDS coverage on that for the actual split of property. Unfortunately, the way the definitions are is once you start going in there and doing construction and you do start meeting those thresholds, then MPDS coverage would become required, and it's based off of the fact that all this laser pointer. Okay, it just makes a flash. But, yeah, so, I mean, if we were talking about, I think, one acre parcels here, I don't think any of us would have had any questions about it. But with the aid, I do get that because these are large rural lots. You're not going to see this inside of a city or anything. Chances are that the impacts will not be as severe downstream. But often what you'll see, especially when you see these crooked lines like this for property, that's usually like the center of a draw or a ridgeline. Right. And that's a creep, right, right. So that's where the sensitivity would come in is as we start developing on one, that starts, you know, if they're not using proper controls and they're not being regulated, that that's where the larger common plan mindset came from is that, you know, the cumulative impact would be the harm.

Matt, does it have to be permitted? Let's say it was, you know, me at my home and I was, I don't know, doing something disturbing the land in a field behind the pond. And it started running into the pond and going into the neighbor's pond. I'm just farming and doing whatever. You know, I'm not permitted at all, but I am disturbing land.

So there are exemptions from this, and what we're talking about is construction-related disturbances, or at least that's what I'm talking about. When you're talking about plowing a field or making a paddock or something like that, that is completely exempt activity, the same with silviculture.

So the sediment that I'm putting inside that pond is also exempt? No, PCA. The sediment that I'm putting in my neighbor's pond is also exempt?

That is not exempt. Okay, so then what's

how does my neighbor fix her pond because I don't have a permit, I don't have a problem, you've got a problem.

Right, so you would still be in violation for the release of sediment into the water.

Right, so the same would happen here. There's a violation and you'd have to correct your situation without having to have all these engineered whatever take place in this situation. If I were causing a problem on my neighbor's property and I've got, you know, parcel... any one of those parcels, then I'm going to have to correct it.

The difference...

I'm sorry.

Oh, sorry. Basically, you don't have an engineering, you don't have a permit, but if you cause a problem, you're going to pay for it.

Right. But, you know, what's the problem with that? You either take that risk and you're not causing that problem on your eight-acre piece of land.

Well, that goes back to what is the likelihood of you actually causing a problem? Exactly. I mean, if there's slim, then...

But if I do cause a problem, then not only am I having to fix my problem, now I'm going to have to correct it to make sure it doesn't happen again because I don't want the cost of me having to fix this problem over and over. But who takes care of that? Is that stormwater for the county level?

It could be considered an illicit discharge. It could be a PCA violation that our compliance staff would look into. There's different ways that could be handled depending whether it was in the MS4 area or outside of the MS4 area. I think there's an important distinction too that has to be made is that farming is an exempt activity. Construction is not. So construction is a regulated activity. So if you were to have that PCA violation, not only really would the homeowner or the contractor that's creating that discharge, would they get in trouble? There is, you know, that also, well, it should have been permitted and designed appropriately, so this did not happen. There's that aspect to it.

Okay, what if I'm taking down dead trees in a creek? In the creek?

In the creek?

On the creek bed, I mean, enough to where I'm not going to say it's farming. Let's call it anything else, and maybe y'all can come up with another scenario. It's not farming, and I don't want to call it land disturbance because, you know, I don't want to think about the fact that I'm building something, but I'm causing a problem.

So the Forestry Commission has some standards that are set for silviculture. If it is silviculture, it is exempt. I think they do require a crown's width. from the the edge of creek beds um so if you were cutting in the creek there's a good chance you would need some other authorization for that um it's not a stormwater issue at that point but it could be considered a violation of some law. And to be more specific, you could need 404 permitting for that, which would be Army Corps, because you're basically talking about a stream restoration project.

Maybe that was a terrible example then. Just trying to get away from defarming and getting away from construction.

Clarify me if I'm wrong. The PCA, if you have a discharge from your property that impacts a waterway or someone else's property, that can be a violation of the PCA. Absolutely. So regardless of what you're doing, it can be a violation. There you go. That can be addressed. By who?

By state.

By state. I assume you guys have some of the same language. You don't have any language about discharge? It goes back to the state. It goes back to the state. So that would be a DS issue.

If you had a violation and it was construction-related, what are some of the potential repercussions?

Well, we generally try to get them to correct the damages. And if it goes long enough, we could put them under an order or a consent agreement or something like that that would get them to repair. We're looking for corrective action is what we're looking for. There are some fines that could go along with that, too, to just avoid future occurrences. But it's more the corrective action and getting back into compliance is what we're looking for when we do that. It's not... As far as I'm aware, the fines that we collect are not anything to fund our program. We don't go looking for that. So it's just a penalty to avoid future occurrences. So they'll remember, hey, I had to fix it, and I had to pay a fine.

Yeah.

Corrected before it happens again.

John, just to piggyback on Commissioner Cox's question, from a local level, if we are found as a county in violation of not enforcing our land development manual as part of our construction general permit, what repercussions would fall upon the county for not doing what we're supposed to be doing?

I mean, you could – I hate to talk for compliance because that really is – I think that's a big piece of what we're all talking about.

Yeah. I think this is a key aspect.

But, I mean, if you're found to be out of compliance with your MS-4 permit, there could be some issues with that. And we would treat it just about the same as we would with a contractor that was out of compliance with their permit. We would try to get you back into compliance. Eventually it could lead to potential fines and things of that nature. That's – really not something for me to talk about. We would need to get a different director or maybe even a bureau chief in here to talk about that.

And I guess to kind of follow up on that, Delegation, implementation at a local level, at the lowest level possible is always preferred. At the state, we prefer for the state to run things, not EPA. At the county, I think we prefer for the county to run things, not the state. So that delegation is an important piece for our developers and for our folks in the county. So losing that is not something you ever want to broach. But I do think there has to be some discussion and common sense applied where it's sensible. I would maybe, the consultant can look at the potential for putting some standard BMPs in there that may allow certain projects to move forward without the necessary engineering as long as you're following certain BMPs. You know, and at least have that discussion. I don't know if that's a possibility, but at least having a discussion of, you know, because we've got that somewhere in our stormwater regs now of, you know, there's certain things that are standard that are required across the board. And maybe that's an avenue that avoids some cost. I don't know. But hopefully a consultant can evaluate what's done here in South Carolina and maybe in other states and find us an avenue forward that doesn't unduly punish, cost folks money. We're developing, building a house.

And I don't mean to show my hand too much, but we are looking at modernizing our regulations. So, I mean, I'm sure we're going to have conversations here very shortly with both MS4s, with other states, and with the EPA in that effort. We are operating under regulations that were initially passed in the early 90s The latest major update, which wasn't really all that major, was in 2002. But like I said, we are looking at things that were federally passed in 1988. So technically we're still a little bit newer than the things that are causing us to need those regulations. And the long and the short, I think we're going to have a lot of conversations, especially with Robbie and Matt in the near future, and hopefully we can get some good feedback, and maybe we can incorporate some of these standards that could be applied to larger lots so it's not such a burdensome thing for a homeowner. The thing that really... I guess if I do have a personal opinion for anything, it's when folks get – they buy into these large subdivisions that have been just split up like this one, and they get to the point to where, okay, now I need engineering done. And the engineering shows that, hey, you will cause impacts, and you will have to install these ponds. And then they're stuck paying the cost, and they might end up with a lot that's not marketable. And then you've got a whole spinoff of things that can occur from that. So there's a lot of different things or different perspectives you can look at this issue. But at the end of the day, I want to protect the environment, but I also want to protect the people who are purchasing these homes so they're not getting something like I hate when somebody thinks they're buying something in good faith and then can't use it.

Or that they're being penalized by four and three, and now he's got to collect everybody's...

They're being penalized for not using a high-volume home builder who already has to do all of this stuff and recover their costs.

And then he can distribute that across 400 lots, and it's affordable.

All right. Well, and I think, as Mr. Derrick pointed out, I think we've got a consultant engaged. We are working to try and find some language, hopefully, that alleviates some of our concerns, some of our builders' or property owners' concerns. So, yeah, I don't know that we're going to get to initially an agreement and answer today, but I do want to say thank you to the DES folks for showing up. Thank you for providing us some information. And, John, I assume, Robbie, that we will get some feedback once our consultant has – come up with some recommendations?

Definitely kept up to speed on this. If you change any policy, any change in text, it will definitely come before y'all.

All right. Thank you very much. Ken, I don't think we ever finished the process. If Matt could kind of finish that up. I might have interrupted you in the middle. Talking about the process of what has to happen whenever you want to build a house on any particular lot.

So the initial contacts made with the building department, they work up a permit in our system. There are several approvals that have to go through, maybe zoning, maybe landscape, something like that, or flood, if you're touching water. And us, we're land disturbance. So what our staff does on our side is we look at the lot, and then we'll go through our references. We'll go through our files and make sure it's not one of these. And if it is, we'll say, okay, who's been having activity in there? And that determines if they need engineering or not. At that point, we'll check ours off, and then they just go to the back. And I could hold up a building permit.

Thank you. All right. Well, thank you very much for the discussion, everyone. And like I say, stay tuned. I'm sure there will be much more to be had as we move through this. Thank you very much for the presentation, guys. All right. Next item, subdivision bonds.

Yes, sir. We have a couple of items, and these didn't really show up correctly on the report, so we're going to work on making sure that's corrected for next month. But I did want to point out that we had two projects that came to the end of their three-year agreement. Those were Primrose Estates and Reserve at Midway. They are both still active projects, so we do now hold certified funds and trust until these projects are completed. Primrose Estates was $101,422.63. And Reserve at Midway is $78,289.50. And that's all. All right. Thank you. All right. Last item is road classifications. I make a motion to approve. I have a motion. Is there a second? Second. Second.

Commissioner Cox.

Yes.

Commissioner Shealy.

Yes.

Commissioner Pike. Yes. Commissioner Hutto. Yes. Commissioner Campbell.

Yes.

Vice Chairman Frost. Yes.

All right. Anything else for the good of the committee? Hearing none, we will stand adjourned. Thank you very much.