City Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you.

It's custom for us to have a prayer before meetings, and Councilman Hardy will have the prayer. Would you like to stand and join us?

Heavenly Father, we just thank you for bringing us here tonight to do the business of the city of Rock Hill.

We just thank you for everyone here in attendance and all of the citizens of the city.

We just pray that you put your wisdom upon us and help us make decisions that are in accordance with your will, Lord. And we just pray for the families that have had different tragedies happen this week, Lord, in our city. And we just pray that you're with them and help them through this. these situations, Lord. We just pray that you will help us with coordination and collaboration. And we pray all of this, Lord, in Jesus' name.

Amen. Amen. All right. Call the meeting August 10th, which was six to the session. Please stand. We'll recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

Pledge of Allegiance. To the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for

All righty, welcome everybody. Thank you for coming. First order of business is to recognize the 12U flag football state champions. I do have a proclamation to read before we get busy with that. Proclamation of Mayor and City Council of the City of Rock Hill, South Carolina. Whereas, under the leadership of Head Coach Devontre Robinson and Assistant Coaches Ryan Parks, Devin Heath, and Devin Locke, and Joseph Parker, the City of Rock Hill's 12-U flag football all-star team demonstrated outstanding teamwork, sportsmanship, dedication throughout their season. And whereas the Rock Hill 12U flag football all-star team captured the state championship on Sunday, June 14th, 2026 with a 14 to seven victory over Malden bringing the state title home to Rock Hill. And whereas the championship was especially meaningful as it was won before hometown supporters during the two-day statewide tournament hosted by the City of Rock Hill at Manchester Meadows, and whereas team members Chandler Anderson, Kendall Bigger, Braden Blake, Jacoby Bryce, Naquan Fuller Jr., Warren Matthews, Mackenzie Miller, Micah Parka, Jalon Parks, Brock Thomas, Tristan Roseborough, and Logan Walton each contributed to the success of the City of Rock Hill 12-U football team. Now, therefore, I, John Geddes, and on behalf of the Rock Hill City Council together hereby congratulate Rock Hill 12U flag football all-star team and the coaches for winning the South Carolina State Championship. We commend them on their outstanding athletic achievement for representing the city of Rock Hill with distinction. Thank you guys.

thank you management members of council for having us here tonight it's always a good time when we can celebrate some state champions people refer to us as football city usa and i'm glad to say that's not just tackle it's flagged too congratulations team good job

Good job guys.

Good job guys.

12 you? I think the other, the eight you or somebody came in second maybe? Or somebody, the 10 you maybe? I think 10 you maybe came in second. All righty. Item 3B. Raquel Parks and Parks Foundation presents to City Council.

Toy, what you got for us tonight? Thank you, John. Thank you, council members. I'm here representing our Parks Foundation. I'm chairman. I'm Toy Ray. What we want to do tonight is present a check to you from the Parks Foundation for several things. We've had a pretty busy year since we were here last. We created our own 501c3. We are working with First Citizens and Burkhead and Burkhead locally. We also have started a new marketing campaign. And then lastly, one of the things that we're doing is we're raising money for Miracle Park, for the Miracle Park All-Star Games that are coming next September. And today we've already raised $95,000 in sponsorships and that's next month. So anyhow, we're excited about all the things that are going on. The check we would like to present tonight is for over $120,000. It is going to several different things. It's going to a new floor at Northside Center. It's going for a wrestling mat at the Sports and Events Center. It's going for new chairs at the Lifelong Learning and other things like that. So new bathroom at Fuel Park. So we're thrilled to death to be able to continue to do things like this and appreciate all the help y'all have given us as a council and the support we've gotten from the city. So on behalf of the foundation, We would like to present this check, $120,850. Great. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Appreciate y'all.

Definitely appreciate that. Maybe I can quit getting all those calls about the Boyd Hill. Well, we hope so. And Northside. Come on, Vanna.

Put yours down a little bit. There you go. Perfect. Ready? One, two, three. One, two, three. One, two, three. Thank you.

Thank you, guys.

All right. We'll move on. Thank you, Troy. All right. Consider item number four. Consider approving the consent agenda for eight minutes of the work session, June 22nd, 2006. Minutes of the special session of June 22nd, 2026. Minutes of the special called session, July 23rd, 2026. And I'll take that form of motion for the consent agenda.

So move for approval.

Second. Motion and second. All in favor?

Aye.

All right. Approved. All right. Item 5. 5.8. Ordinance to provide for the disposition of sale of property on Willowbrook Avenue, Rock Hill, South Carolina by the City of Rock Hill to the Housing Development Corporation. And we have, I guess, Ms. Coran. Yeah. Thank you. Mm-hmm.

Good evening, Council. The HTC is seeking the property located at 321 Willowbrook for an affordable housing unit. Utilizing community development block grant funds, this house is going to be, it's currently being rehabbed in partnership with York Technical College Building and Construction Trades Program. Upon completion, the property will be placed into HTC's affordable housing portfolio and operated as an affordable rental. And we recommend approval.

Submitting for first reading.

Second.

Got a motion and a second. Moving on. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. All right. Approved. Thank you, Corinne. All right. So item number six, consider planning commission recommendations. 6A, consider planning commission recommendation for the petition M2026-09 by Sharon Guyton, Vision Beyond Christian Ministry to rezone approximately 2.08 acres, concluding right away at 620 Briarcliff. from single-family residential SF5 to office and institutional OI, tax parcel 625-02-03-001. And we have Ms. Shana.

Good evening, Council. Good evening. Good evening. So this property is located on the southeastern side of the city at the corner of Briarcliff Road and South Stonewall Avenue. It is just three blocks east of the Saluda Street corridor and it's just northeast of the Sylvia Circle Family Learning Center. Although there are other a handful of institutional uses in this area, the property is predominantly surrounded by single-family detached homes that are also zoned SF5 like the subject property. The property is developed with two buildings that were previously used by the church that previously occupied the property at Worth Methodist Church. There's also a small building in the back that's historically been used as a small garage. So the applicant operates Vision and Beyond Christian Ministries out of the church. Vision and Beyond recently purchased the property in May of 2026. They are requesting the rezoning to establish a church daycare use at the property. Now, the church operated a summer youth camp at the property over the summer as an accessory use to the church. However, the child daycare would be classified as a primary use. and primary uses for child daycare are not allowed in SF-5, hence why they are applying for the SF-5 zoning. The church would operate the child daycare out of the fellowship hall. So again, the fellowship hall was used over the summer as the summer youth camp as an accessory use. The church would also possibly in the future rent unused portions of the fellowship hall to business slash professional office uses. The property is developed with currently a gravel circular driveway north of the building. One of the things I wanna clarify, because this was a little bit confusing at the planning commission meeting, the church would be required to upgrade the parking from the current gravel parking to paved strike parking because it's establishing this secondary primary use. So it's not just being required for the church, it's because they're introducing the use of the child daycare. Staff would review the parking at a staff level so it wouldn't have to go back to planning commission or anything like that. One of the things that we would look to do is establish a one-way parking pattern with some angle parking just because child daycare uses function a lot better that way during a.m. p.m. pickup and drop-off times, one way in and one way out. Sidewalks exist along both sides of Briarcliff Road. However, along Stonewall, sidewalk only exists along the western side. From Briarcliff at Stonewall all the way down to Midvale, there isn't any sidewalk on the east side. However, staff would not require the church to build sidewalk. During the Planning Commission meeting, there was only the question about parking. So we clarified that the church is being required to upgrade the parking because it's introducing this new primary use. The applicant was available for comment. The Planning Commission didn't have any questions for the applicant. And note, there was no one at the public hearing sign up to speak. And with that, staff and Planning Commission recommend approval of the ONI zoning.

Thank you. Thank you. Any questions?

Mayor, I'd make a motion to accept the Planning Commission recommendation.

Second. I do have a question. Sure. All right. Sean, are you saying that, are they going to close the entrance coming off Stonewall? So it's just entrance off Brockley, one way in and one way out, or is that... Because I saw it in where you're going to realign with that locust.

Yes. I had a slide and I just removed it. When you're turning off locust, as soon as you turn off locust to get into the parking lot, you immediately make a right. We don't like to have that type of an offset so soon. As a part of working with them on the parking plan, we would look to realign the entrance on Stonewall directly with Locust. If you're on Locust at the stop sign, you can drive straight across, but it would be one-way in angle parking. We would look to establish that so that you don't have a two-way. It just functions better for daycare uses to have a constant one-way flow of traffic.

You'll be able to go through Locust into there, but not go back that way? Yes. You have to exit out on Barclay?

Yes, if we can get it lined up. We're going to work with the church on the parking. That's something that we would like to get corrected. We'll definitely look to get the paved parking and hopefully get that lined up also.

I was thinking to realign it, you're going to take a great deal of the property up front and you will bring the cars closer to the front part of the church where everybody... come in and go out of it. It seemed like that would be a hazard to realign that road and bring them in closer. As opposed to just close it down altogether and just let them use Broadcliffe to go in and out. That's something that we can explore. Have one way in and one way out. Realign it with local is going to bring them really close to the front of the building.

That's something that we can explore during the site plan process. We may not be able to get that aligned. It's more of a wish list. We can definitely get the parking done though.

Any other questions?

I just want to say thank you for bringing a daycare to the Ward 5 community. It could help out some families who are needing access to childcare. Thank you guys for coming over.

All right. We've had a motion and a second. All right. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? All right. All approved. All right. 6B. Ordinance to amend the zoning ordinance for the City of Rock Hill code by making certain changes to the official zoning map affecting approximately 2.08 acres located at Stonewall Avenue and Briarcliff from single-family SF-5 to office and institutional. So move for first reading.

Second.

Motion to second. Any discussion? All right. All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? Approved. All right. 6C, consider planning to commission recommendation for petition T2026-03 by Rock Hill City Manager to amend the zoning ordinance standards in Chapter 2, administration related to neighborhood meeting requirements. Mr. Dennis. Thank you.

Good evening, back to the slides here. This is a fairly small amendment, just realizing that we really currently don't have a way to the neighborhood meeting requirement that is necessary for master plan developments. And so, you know, we may get an applicant in the future or something that has a short due diligence period or there's really not any controversial issues or there's not properties that are owned by a different individual for instance within 300 feet and it may be warranted where the the city manager may want to waive that neighborhood meeting requirement what i do want to point out is that would still require the same public hearing process so you'd still get notifications out within 300 feet of a property, still go through the public hearing process at the Planning Commission, and all the other rezoning items would go through, you know, the Planning Commission and then also two readings at City Council. This would just kind of shorten that timeline for those that may have a shorter due diligence period and not have to have that required neighborhood meeting, which adds about a month by the time they'll send out notices and things and hold the neighborhood meeting. But if there was an issue at one of those meetings, there is a list of individuals in this ordinance that already can request a neighborhood meeting. So if somebody shows up at the neighborhood meeting, there's an issue that wasn't foreseen in advance, for instance, the planning chair or any of the council members can ask for a neighborhood meeting to be held after the fact also. And so this would really just be for those examples where, you know, the Planning Commission asked for a couple of examples. One would have been maybe the Octopharma site. There was no other property owners other than the city within 300 feet of their boundary. Another one would have maybe been the Costco site off of I-77 there. There's only undeveloped properties surrounding the entire site and nobody showed up at the neighborhood meeting at all, right? But we still had the public hearing process and the neighborhood meeting. It just didn't seem like it really benefited to have that type of process. And so in this case, this would allow the city manager to waive that neighborhood meeting requirement. So we advertised the normal amendments in the Herald. We asked local developers to share any opinions or comments. We did not receive any feedback. And the staff and the Planning Commission both recommend approval. That would answer your questions. All right. Any questions for Dennis?

Some move to accept the Planning Commission recommendation. Got a motion? Got a second? Any discussion?

All right. Motion to consider. All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? Approved. All right. No good complaints, Dennis. All right. 6E. Consider Planning Commission recommendation on a petition T-2026.

You've got to go ahead and do the ordinance.

Oh. Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Oh, I checked it off. Yeah, D, sorry. Orders to amend the zoning ordinance to the City of Rock Hill Code Chapter 2, Administration Concerning Neighborhood Meeting Requirements.

Sorry, yeah. So, move for first reading. Second.

Motion and second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? No. All right. It is approved. Now we can jump ahead. Consider plan commission recommendation on petition T2026-05 Rock Hill. City managed to amend the zoning ordinance standards in chapter four, land use, primary uses related to waste transfer facilities. Dennis, thank you.

First, I would like to describe what a solid waste facility is. Currently, the zoning ordinance calls it a solid waste composting facility. We're recommending that that word composting be removed. It's essentially a location where solid waste is temporarily stored, transferred, or composted. If you think about it, they hold material that they bring from maybe smaller trucks into a facility and then they pack it into a larger vehicle to eventually get to a landfill or other disposal location. Maybe it's recycling, maybe it's other things. It's kind of similar to the York County collection sites, but it's not open to the public, right? So at those collection sites, they come, they drop off trash, they drop off other things. They hold them in containers for a period of time. And then when they fill up, they take those out to the appropriate locations. In this case, it would be a similar thing, except for the solid waste facilities, they would be required to be within an enclosed building, at least with a roof and three sides, so things aren't blown around and that kind of stuff if they're dropping off. But that would be immediately then kind of packed into a different vehicle for transport eventually to a landfill or something else. And so it is really a temporary location. So the changes are really due to the SED making some changes at a state level. And so we're just responding to that a little bit. We're trying to be consistent with those state requirements. So we're trying to better define the nature of the use in the text amendments themselves and then adding use specific standards and the enclosure requirements like I just discussed for that waste being inside of a building rather than just in a container or something else outside. So it just defines the setbacks and other things like that. As part of the Planning Commission's discussion, they did have some concern about lowering that separation from 250 to 200 feet and so they as part of their motion asked for that to remain at 250. We also advertised our amendments in the herald and sent again to those local developers and design professionals and we didn't receive any feedback from those folks but the planning commission did ultimately recommend approval with that one change and staff is comfortable with that change it's not reflected in the red lines here but we would for second reading should you agree with that planning commission change all right

Moved to accept the Planning Commission recommendation, but I was able to put the 200 foot separation requirement back in and not make the change that the Planning Commission recommended.

Okay. So as redlined in your packet essentially?

Because that's how it is in the packet currently. Originally it was 200.

Originally, it was 250, and the red lines would change it to 200.

Okay, excuse me. But they put it back to 250. I'm trying to go back to the 200.

And then your staff was okay going back to 250, or y'all still would prefer 200?

We're okay. 200 is in line with SEDES. That's what we're trying to stay consistent with. And so it's up to you all how you want to go forward with that.

All right, so we have a motion to take it back to the 200.

Except the recommendation, but back to 200.

That's correct. Okay.

I'm okay with that. I have a second, but Dennis, I do have a question. Sure. If a facility like this is built within the city limits, that's in a rural area, and some undeveloped property is beside it in the county, and they want to be annexed into the city at some point, will we still maintain that 200 feet buffer if they are annexed, or will they be able to go to ZBA and get it reduced?

Well, the property, when it's developed, would be from the property line. So if a property develops next to them, it wouldn't be reducing that separation because it would be on their own property. So for instance, the separation is actually from all residential uses and undeveloped land that's also zoned residentially. So if that land that was in the county, for instance, was zoned residentially at the time, that would have that 200 foot separation if they came in after the fact and it wasn't zoned residentially and they changed it to residential well that's kind of on on or on us for rezoning something to to residential now they would have buffering requirements from a non-residential use so those buffering requirements would still apply so likely they would have in addition on their own property as it developed additional buffering so you may get more than 250 total or 200 total because of that additional buffer requirement on the newly developing property that would be next to this.

Any other questions? We have a motion and a second. All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? Motion passes. All right. 6F, ordinance to amend the zoning ordinance of City of Rock Hill, Chapter 4, land use, primary uses concerning waste-related uses.

So moved for first reading with the 200-foot separation.

Second.

We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? Motion approves. All right. I have number seven, resolution. A resolution designating a certain property to be developed by Rock Hill WF LLC as a textile site under the South Carolina Textile Communities Revitalization Act. Mr. Brent.

Good evening. According to the South Carolina Textiles Communities Revitalization Act, an owner or developer of a parcel of land may qualify for tax credits on a development site in exchange for redeveloping an abandoned textile mill or contiguous parcel. This process begins by City Council certifying the parcel as an abandoned textile mill site. Rock Hill WF LLC requests approval of this resolution to facilitate a textile mill credit application in support of developing certain properties along Dave Lyle and White Street. The City Attorney recommends approval. You happy to answer any questions you might have?

Sure. Okay. Any questions for Brent?

I don't know that I understand where it is from this map.

It's the parking lot over there across from where the development's going, where the Herald was at. Beside Wells Fargo.

So it's where our deck's going eventually, probably. Correct. That's right. Our parking deck.

Okay.

All right. Any other questions? No. Motion to approve the resolution. Got a motion.

Second.

Got a second. Any discussion? All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? Motion approved. Thank you. Brent? All right. So a resolution for the City Council of the City of Rock Hill to ratify and confirm acceptance of city streets. Ms. Dina.

Good evening, Council. In front of you, you have a revised packet for this item, and there were just a few changes. We wanted to get that in front of you. Semi-annually, we present the streets that are to be accepted by the city, which means that we would own them at this point. They are beyond the warranty and construction status. And so you have a list in front of you under street ownership changes. And we're just asking that you accept these streets for us to take over ownership.

So moved to approve the resolution. Second. Motion to second. Any discussion? Any questions? All right, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Approved. All right. Other items? Item 8A, the gathering at UC Economic Development Incentives. Ms. Lisa Brown.

Good evening, Mayor Pro Tem and Council. Tonight before you is a request for an economic development incentive for the gathering at University Center. This is a student housing complex that includes 196 private bedrooms and 66 apartment units. This was over a $25 million investment to add more student housing, which we're grateful for the partnerships that we have with York Tech and Winthrop and Clinton College, but Winthrop needs a lot more student housing and this is helping fill a need that they have. What is proposed is an incentive like we've done in the past for other growth management that would include water meter set fees, fire, water and sewer impact fees, as well as building permit fees, and I'm happy to answer any questions you all might have.

Questions for Lisa? So is there a legal document that we would be signing or drafting for this transaction or do we just simply give them a check?

So this is a reimbursement subject to the development agreement that was done for the entire site. It was contemplated that we would in good faith incentivize these through the GMI program. So the existing development agreement already contemplated that. There's not an additional document that we normally have.

So is it possible to revise that document so that we, and I don't know it might be in there, it's been so long since we did this, but that these apartments could never be non-taxable? Or go non-profit? Before, I would make that, I mean, a condition of this approval. I just would think that the owner might be willing to do that for the reimbursement.

Through like a covenant?

I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. I would make a motion to approve the economic development incentive with the exception that before the money is reimbursed that the owner would agree that these remain on the tax rolls indefinitely.

Second.

Okay. Got a motion, second. Any other discussion? All right. Sounds good. All right. All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? No. All right. Motion approved. There we go. All right. Item number nine. Announce the SmartSpush winner and Customer Connect winners. The SmartSpush winner is Rosa Powell, and the Customer Connect winner is Fred A. Thomas. These customers will receive $50 credit on their utility bill. Any city council committee reports? No, any miscellaneous business? All right, I think we're out of executive session, so without, motion to adjourn? So moved. All right, all in favor? Aye. All right, adjourned, thank y'all.