Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Chairman Barry, it's okay because sometimes it doesn't work. We good. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the town election and planning commission meeting. This board is comprised of town residents who are appointed by the town council and serve without pay. This is our regular monthly meeting on Wednesday, June 18th, 2025. The meeting is being broadcast live on the town of Lexington's YouTube channel. Speakers must sign in before 8:00 a.m. on the sign-in sheet posted at the door. Speakers will be called to the podium off the list collected. Please state your name, your address, and speakers are limited to three minutes and a timer will be set. I am Frank Barry, the chairman of the town election and planning commission. Other planning commission members present are Good morning, Jared Harelson. Good morning. I'm Brian Aik. Good morning, Rosco Kaufman. Good morning, Jamie Feight. Good morning. I'm Joe Robertson. Good morning, Betsy McCall. At this time, I would ask uh Commissioner Fight if she would leave us an invitation. Dear Lord, I pray that you guide us today and help us to make wise decisions during this meeting that benefit not only the town and its citizens, but also meet your heavenly goals. Lord, please bless our leaders in this town, our state, and our nation. Lord, also bless our men and women in military and law enforcement and all those who serve you in an effort to make life easier for all people. I ask these things in your name, Jesus Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen. Thank you very much. Please join me in 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. The meeting will now come to order. Um, no deletions or amendments to the agenda. So, next order of business is approval of the minutes from our April 23rd meeting. We did not meet in June. May May I'm sorry it is June. Make a motion to approve the minutes. I have a motion of a second. Second. And a motion in a second. Any com comments? All in favor, please raise your right hand. It is unanimous. Item number one, excuse me. Item number one under new business, uh, reszoning of Lexington County Tax Map 4, uh, 00432501021 located at 105 Thompson Street. Miss Jessica, good morning. Palmetto Renovations of Columbia, Inc. has submitted a request to reszone Lexon County Tax Map number 00432501021 located at 105 Thompson Street. The property is currently zoned limited commercial. The applicant is requesting to reszone the property to general commercial to facilitate the on-site temporary storage of storage pods to facilitate the loading, unloading, and distribution of project materials for the construction office that operates on the property. The properties adjacent to this parcel are zoned general, commercial, limited commercial, and protected residential. Per the zoning ordinance, temporary storage containers are allowed without time restrictions, but with stated conditions as listed in section 155.04. 04.02 3A C and D in the regular industrial zoning district or in the railroad industrial special overlay district. Temporary containers are allowed in general commercial district by

businesses subject to the following conditions. A permit is obtained. The property or business must be free of containers for 180 consecutive days per calendar year. The time period starts the day the first permit is issued for the containers. All containers must be removed by the end of the time period. The containers must be free of rust and all painted the same neutral color. And the containers cannot be placed closer to any street than the primary structure on the parcel. All righty. Is the applicant here and would like to speak? Yes, sir. All right. Please come to the podium. Um, state your name and your address and whatever comment you have. Yes, sir. My name is Justin Wright with Palmetto Renovations. My mailing address is 165 Herac Court in Lexington, South Carolina. The company's address is 105 and 107 Thompson Street in Lexington. Okay. So the reason that we have requested a reszone from limited commercial to general commercial is because the facilitation of storage units for our customers projects is integral to the scope of our business. We pride ourselves on putting the raw materials and finished materials together in a storage pod in a way that it is not inconveniencing the customer during the duration of their project which can be over the course of two weeks, two months or even longer. So the continual loading and unloading of storage pods at our warehouse facility is integral to ensuring that our customers are not inconvenience with materials in their home during the duration of their project which some projects can just be

a simple bathroom but some could be a whole home renovation. So the reason for the request is to make sure that we can still facilitate the temporary loading and unloading of storage pods that each time typically takes a day to two days to actually facilitate the load, the unload and the ship off. All right. My question is if if this was to move forward 180 days, I mean the temporary pods, you're only going to have one customer every 180 days. So, not one customer every 180 days, but if it were to move forward, we would plan not only with our customers, but also with our warehouse staff accordingly to make sure that the parking lot is free of a temporary storage unit for 180 days. Whether that means that we have to facilitate the material drop off with a box truck or uh with any of our warehouse or field staff. How many temporary storage pods are you looking at or are you all planning to have at one time? So, typically at one time it just comes down to one. The most that we've had on our property is three, but that's just because those have been returned from a job site that has been completed. Typically, job sites are completed in a staggered amount of time and the pods are brought back and released in a staggered amount of time. And currently I've we've noticed that the area that this is going is the parking lot for your business with seven parking spaces. How do you plan to facilitate around all that? So we have currently facilitated around it. We have I believe we

previously had four of our employees working at the combined 105 and 107 parking lots. Now it's actually down to two. So, the parking spaces would be open and available for any storage unit to be put in. And the only parking spaces that would be needed would be for myself and my warehouse staff. Okay. Anybody got any other questions they'd like to ask the applicant? Is there any other avenue we could go up other than reszoning? The only other avenue would be to appear before the board of zoning appeals for a variance against the um zoning ordinance. You do have to meet four criteria and prove a hardship per state law to be able to do that. Um, so that that would be the only a other avenue than a reasonzoning. And one more quick question. Currently, you're storing your materials offsite in a storage facility off premise. Correct. For each customer? Yes, sir. There are some customers where they're currently stored off-site. There are some where they're currently stored in our warehouse as we receive deliveries. Okay. And and that storage facility is 107 Thompson Street, correct? Yes, ma'am. Okay. I just wanted to make sure that was clear. All right. That's all I have. Anybody else? Mr. Chairman, I'm not clear. I I know you address a question that chairman asked, but I'm not sure what you do in the 180 days when the storage facility is not allowed on the property. So, in the 180 days that it would not be allowed, we would have the materials brought directly to our warehouse and facilitated to our customers home with a

box truck or with any of our other fleet vehicles. So, you're stating you're storing it at the customer's house? Yes, sir. Okay. So the storage facility or the temporary pods wouldn't remain on site for you know a period of a month or two months. They would remain for a period of 1 to two days for us to load the materials and then send them to the customer's home for the duration of their project. Is the pod that's there today was that already permitted? So the pod that was there today was not already previously permitted. That's something that we had a customer return their pod from their project and we were sending it off back to the distributor. Good. Anybody else? Thank you, sir. Thank you. Anybody in opposition? Good morning. Good morning. I am Constance Character Fleming. I reside at 64 Hendrick Street and the property in question. and I am the personal representative for 604 and a half Hendrick Street as the personal representative for the uh Mary character estate. This is a letter that was prepared. We the residents of the Hill community which includes all or sections of Allen Street, Clark Street, Duffy Drive, George Street, Gibson Road, Grey Street,

Hendrickk Street, Jesse Street, and Thompson Street are writing this petition to keep 105 Thompson Street, Lexon County Tax Map number 004325-01-021 zone for limited commercial only. We are coming before you to again deny requested zoning change in our community for the same reason that we denied two prior requests for a different property in our neighborhood including 800 Hendrick Street. We do not want our community changed beyond the zoning that has already been established. We the Hill hope that our intentions for the future of our neighborhood are made crystal clear, not only through our representatives that will be present at all of the scheduled meetings in regards to this matter, but also by the attached petition signed by 33 community members and our land owners requesting that our neighborhood remain free of all commercial zoning changes that have not already been established. Our neighborhood, The Hill, is an historic community made up of single family residences that was established in the early 1900s for Lexington's black/affrican-American population. Many of the original residents or descendants still remain in our neighborhood today. Please help us to keep our humble, longstanding, single family residential community the way it is by denying the application to reszone 105 Thompson Street to General Commercial. On behalf of the Lexington

community, we thank you. Thank you so much. Any questions? Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else signed up to speak to this matter? No, I don't have anyone else signed up. Okay. Having no further comments, any comments of the commission or motion? Well, let's have a motion and we can discuss it. Yeah. So, in looking this over and while I understand Mr. rights uh points that he made and his concerns. Um looking at the properties adjacent being limited commercial and then you know residential behind it uh I don't think that reszoning to general commercial would be a good fit for this particular property. So I make a motion to deny the reasoning request. We have a motion second. Second motion and a second. Any further discussion with it comments? Only comment I would have is uh mentioned earlier I think is probably if you want to hear variance request I think that's probably the proper channel um to go about if you can show hardship. All righty. All in favor please raise your right hand. It is unanimous. Thank you very much. Mr. Williams, you have anything good for the community or count commission this morning? Yes, sir. Uh, want to remind everybody we have uh the Independence Day celebration at the amphitheater. Firework show will be again this year. Um, and wanted to thank y'all for y'all's volunteer service to the town and citizens of the town. Hope y'all have a great week. What's the date of the July 4th celebration? I think it's July. It's July 4th. It is the fourth this year. It

is Friday this year. Yes. Okay, cool. All righty. Motion to adjurnn. Motion to adjurnn. Second. Motion is second. Without any objection, we are adjourned. Thank you for watching the town election and planning commission and action. Please note we cannot partake in outside communications about agenda items. If you have additional questions or if you have any additional questions after our meeting, please contact the municipal clerk. On behalf of the town election and planning commission and staff, I wish you a good day.