Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good morning. All Lexington County committees are being broadcast live on the Lexington County Spectrum channel thirteen o two and Lexington County's website meeting portal. As such, this mission meeting film today will be available for viewing anytime on demand at our county website. Do we have an invocation? Would, if you want Commissioner Price.

I'll take care of it, Andy. Thank you. Y'all would please bow. Most gracious heavenly father, thank you for the beautiful day that you have provided us. Thank you for all the blessings that you had bestowed upon each one of us. Thank you for this commission. Thank you for our current members, our past members who are present, our council people who are present. Now be with our military and our first responders as they protect us day in and day out. Now guide us we consider these items on the agenda today, help us make the best decisions that we can we can to keep Lexington County great. It's in your heavenly name that we pray. Amen.

Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. In this morning with some special recognition. Guys would like to come forward. You are first.

Yes. Come on up. You can come stand in front.

I think it's your front

and center. Front and center. So as you guys know, that Tara has been a member of the Planning Commission for, what, five, six years, seven something? It's been a minute. Erin Longbergerson, my predecessor, actually appointed Tara to the planning commission, before she left office and before I got into office.

And so Tara's done a really good job. She's been very fair and pros and cons on all the different things that have been presented. So I'd like to thank you for your service, and I'm just gonna re read a couple things from here. At the planning commission, Lexington County Council truly depends on the Planning Commission to help us with recommendations and looking at a lot of the details that are needed in making those decisions, those tough decisions. And they really jump in, they help us look at the pros and cons.

And I'm totally ad libbing here right now. But we appreciate everything that all of you do, bringing recommendations to the council. And the other thing that this planning commission was instrumental in was working through the Grow With Us, comprehensive plan. That was a huge, huge milestone for Lexington County. And so I'm proud of

all the members for helping with that, those of you

that were here, and then those of you that have rolled off that aren't here right now. So with that, thank you so much for your service. Tara, here is a certificate of appreciation. And we appreciate all the work that you've done for Lexington

County. Thank

you all. It's awesome to start with you. Some of you newer than others. Some of you for quite a long time. I think this is a really strong group, and I I felt good about stepping down with the group that was left on hand. And so staff and Paul and Ravi, Angel, thank y'all. You are awesome. So thank you. I appreciate it.

Real quickly, Tara was and Mr. Price here were very, very instrumental in the adoption of our latest comprehensive plan, the Grow With Us plan in 2022 and serving on the steering committee, coming to every meeting at night during the day, over the hospital. So I can't say enough about Tara and those who helped us with that comprehensive plan. It was so instrumental. Future growth of this county. So with that, again, I thank you very much for your service.

Thank you, Tara.

Madam Chair, a remark, if I may. Mr. Sheridan, I want to I want to thank you. You were here the whole time. I was here the whole time you were here, but you were instrumental in the comprehensive plan all the way back from that gym on Ballpark Road when it was 4,000 degrees outside. We were social distancing, remember that, Holland? And couldn't hear nothing, but we got through it and you were instrumental in that, and you were instrumental in a lot of changes that we made here just structurally serving as our chair for two years. Certainly appreciate that as well. Thank you, Tara. Best wishes.

Thanks, Tara. Good job.

We'll Thank miss you. Also, have a second one for outgoing commissioner Bienbaum. If you'd like to step forward.

Andy. Good

morning. I'm Larry Brigham. I represent Lexington County Council District two, which is the far western end of Lexington County where it's a lot of rural area, farmlands, and pine trees. We enjoy it that way. So Andy has been responsible for the last four years in trying to protect and preserve that natural area as much as we can.

He's done a wonderful job. He's a native of District 2, as I am. So, we really enjoy the scenic rides that we get wherever we go in my district. District 2 is one of the largest landmass, if not the largest, in Lexington County. So there's a lot of protection measures that we need to put in place that we are and we'll continue to do.

And Andy has supported those a 100% for the protection of the land mass in District 2. I would like to read a portion of this. The County of Lexington acknowledges its sincere appreciation to Andy Biedenbo for his dedication and commitment to the people of Lexington County demonstrated by his well deserved recognition for his outstanding service as a member of the Lexington County Planning Commission. This is a service of four years, commending for his efforts. I will say this, the balance in my district since it's starting to develop, you have landowners rights that you have to protect.

Landowners deserve to sell property at whatever price they can sell it for. I get that, trying to protect that as well as protect the natural wooded rural lifestyle, farms, cows, pine trees, you name it, it all needs to be protected. So trying to balance both of those where everybody can be heard and everybody can be protected is a tough, tough balance. So Andy has done a superb job doing that for the last four years and I would like to thank him for his service and appreciate all the efforts and the time that he gave to the Planning Commission while he serves. So congratulations, Andy.

Thanks so much. I'll never measure up to Larry, but anyway, thank you, Larry.

Yes, sir.

It's it's been great serving on the board of zone appeals as as well as the planning commission. It's a fine group of people up here. They give their time and their dedication and the staff is wonderful. Lexington County is very blessed compared to other counties in our area to have wonderful people given their time and efforts. And I'm just glad to be a part of it and glad to learn from it. Thank you again. Yes, sir. Yes, sir.

Thank you, Andy.

Yeah, I just reiterate the fact that we've none of us may measure up to Mr. Brigham here. That's all a good thing. Andy has served the commission very well. He supported us through the process of the conference plan as well. Here at every meeting. We appreciate that. He serves cooperatively. He works well with everybody and I just can't say enough about it. Serving on the Planning Commission obviously is can sometimes be a thankless job, right?

You don't get paid and you just volunteer in your time, but it's a very valuable position to serve the county and to prepare for the growth and development that looks like it's maybe pending. Appreciate it, Andy. Thank you very much. Yeah. We'll take a note.

Still? Out here? Yeah.

Okay.

Adam

chair, if I could, a remark. Since I said all those nice things about terror, I'll try to figure out something nice to say about Andy. Good luck. didn't know Andy when he joined the commission. He followed in some big shoes that were left over by Mr. Shealy, his predecessor, but come to know Andy is a good man, a common sense leader of this commission. Despite my many efforts, tried to get him to be chair, vice chair many times, he preferred to sit down here and have his voice heard from the other end, and I appreciate that as well. So proud to call you a friend, bud. Thank you, man. Thank you for your service.

Thank you so much.

Moving forward, minutes from July. I have a motion.

I'll make a motion to approve. A second.

The first from Commissioner Hutta.

Commissioner Price?

Yes.

Commissioner Beetenbaugh?

Yes.

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

Yes.

Chairwoman Mitchell?

Yes. Moving on to tab b, activity reports.

Ma'am, thank you very much. I wanna thank you all for being with us this morning. We we have a mighty powerful agenda for you. We'll keep you busy this morning, but we'll try to move through it quickly. I also wanna thank councilman Fischer for being with us today and councilman Brigham and councilwoman Wessinger.

So have some honorable folks in our our midst this morning. Our our activity report for the month, here's our our our table with a chart, just a little bit of history, as I usually do. In May, we had a 157 site built permits, and 43 manufactured home permits for a total of a 194. In June, we had a 162, so up just slightly, 35 manufactured and a total of one ninety seven. This month, a total of a 188, site built permits and 57 manufactured home permits, So that number has jumped up quite a bit.

Parts of permits. There's our chart zoomed in. These are the totals again for the quarter. So as as I said, a 188 site built permits, a total on

the

year at six months I'm sorry, seven months of 1,093. So with regards to permits, we're we're clicking right along. It's probably over the number we had last year slightly, so may trend upward by the end of the year. With regard to manufactured home permits, like I said, 57 for the month, for one month in the third quarter, and a total on the year of 03/2020. So, again, probably a little higher than it was last year.

With regards to pipeline projects, we've had, two pipeline projects, this month. The first one is Omar Estates. It's a relatively small project, nine lots on 10.44 acres. It is a brand new project out in the countryside using our new newly adopted ordinance a couple years ago. It's located on Lost Branch Road and Omar Road out toward the the West Side in the councilman district councilman Brigham's District near Gilbert off of Cox Ferry Road, about halfway north and south between Highway 1 and I 20.

Again, councilman Brigham's District District 2. That's developed by the Sun Kitchen Cabinets Company. Secondly, we have Saluda Village. It is small project with a large number of units, 29 lots on 1.9 acres. I hadn't had a minute to to figure out exactly what that is. Maybe apartments, townhomes. I'm not sure. Probably a a very, infill, high density development in the in the city of West Columbia. That is a new project. So it's using their ordinance and not ours, so that's kinda typical for them.

It's a small project located on Center Street and Augusta Street and com Cromwell Street, so it has three road frontages South Of Media Street and East Of 9th Street. Next, we have our concurrency review projects reporting. So in last month, I believe the meeting was on July 29, council approved one concurrency project that the commission reviewed, I think, back in might have been May or June. That was Walker's Trail, phase two. It's off of Highway 378, and that is in, school district one there, just off of Highway 378.

Regards to the development activity report, that is, what has been taking place in the last month or so.

If you

have any questions, I'll be glad to try and them. Thank you.

Any questions? On to our access policy variants, first one for the day.

Morning. So the first variance, excuse me, request that we have today is regarding property owned by Robert Librand Junior and Audrey Kiesler. They own approximately 27 acres north of Ridge Road, which is South of Highway 378 in the Leesville area. This is a sketch that's been provided by their surveyor, Dale Swigert, and mister Swigert is their representative here today. A little bit of history on this one.

In 1972, the WG Librand estate owned approximately a 104 acres. And in 1978, a plat was recorded to divide this into two parcels of approximately 54 acres. You'll see that in exhibit a, in your variance packet. The access that was shown was from an Old Woods Road, so it didn't have frontage on Ridge Road, but it, referenced that Old Woods Road, which was also referenced on a previous plat that was prepared in nineteen o eight. Parcel a, was divided into two parcels of approximately 27 acres each in 1998.

The those parcels were had deeds prepared, but the plat was never approved or recorded. And we do have a copy of that as exhibit c in your packet. So, again, this was in 1998. So those deeds were recorded that referenced an unrecorded plaid. And, unfortunately, those did go ahead and get transferred.

And so those are existing landlocked parcels. Mister Liebrand is the owner of what was referred to as parcel a. They would now like to establish what that legal access can be to that property and he has been in contact with the owner that owns Frontage on Ridge Road. And mister Swigert told me this morning that he has actually already completed the purchase of the 120 foot strip that you'll see in this area. Mr.

Librand's plan is to divide that 120 foot wide strip into two sixty foot wide strips, retaining one for access to his and miss Kiesler's portion and deeding the other 60 foot strip along with the 60 foot strip of their property to provide access to the adjoining parcel, which is currently owned by the Austin family. Additionally, Mr. Liebrand and Ms. Keesler would then like to divide their 27 acre portion into one parcel of 16 acres and one parcel of 11 acres. And this is what is shown on the sketch that we're looking at now.

Some aerial photos, you'll see that's just a zoomed out photo there. This is Highway 378. This is Ridge Road. That's just looking into those parcels. Of drawing over on that aerial where there's two driveways would be, which we would classify as flag lot driveways for access.

Site photos. This is Ridge Road near those proposed driveway locations. And this is where that property would be at and this is looking into that driveway location, that a 120 foot strip that he plans whether he has already purchased. Back to that sketch again. So this is this parcel these parcels are existing.

Again, what he is trying to do is establish a legal access, but that is gonna require a few variances to the access policy. For item 12 of the access policy, the driveway portion of a flag lot may not be contiguous to the driveway portion of another flag lot unless both flag lots are less than two acres each. Each of these parcels are over two acres. Per item 16 of the access policy, neither an access easement nor a driveway portion of a flag lot shall exceed 2,000 feet in total length. This the flag lot driveway portion along with the easement to mister LiveRand's portion, if they are allowed to subdivide their 27 acres, would be around 2,500 feet.

They also need variances for items thirteen and fifteen. Item 13 states successive access easements or flag lot driveways, whether single or paired along a continuous road right of way boundary shall be separated by at least one parcel with a minimum of a 100 feet of frontage along that same road right of way boundary. We also have another parcel that's adjoining that one that you'll see here. If you look here, you'll see that this also we would consider as a flag lot driveway. So really we have three, flag lot driveways paired together.

Item 15 states that successive access easements or flag lot driveways more than two at the same location may be no more than two tiers behind the road right of way that is being accessed. We would consider, the new parcel that they wanna create being the third tier since it would be crossing over this existing piece and then over the 16 acres that miss Keesler would own. Mister Swigert did prepare, a letter for you and that's in your packet. And he also prepared a separate document with the, explanation to the standards and I'll read those into record. A, there are extraordinary and exceptional conditions pertaining to the property or properties.

The two parcels are virtually landlocked due to not having adequate access to a public or private road. B, these conditions do not generally apply to other properties in the vicinity. All surrounding properties have frontage on or access via easements to public or private roads. 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. Without proper adequate access to the property, any potential improvements will be totally restricted or impossible.

The authorization of this variance would not be of substantial detriment to adjacent property or the quality of life for the residents of the county. Due to the fact that all of the adjoining properties are undeveloped as well as the parcels in question and that there are no current plans for any major development of said parcels, a variance should not impact the adjacent properties or the quality of life for the residents of Lexington County. E, when deliberating a variance request, financial hardships alone cannot be considered for the basis of a variance. This variance request is so that current property owners can utilize and enjoy the property, whether it's building a home, hunting, recreation, managing timber, etcetera, the benefits of property ownership. Again, mister Swigert is here today if you have specific questions for him, and I'll be glad to answer any questions you may have also.

Just to clarify, these parcels are are already legally platted, recorded at the courthouse, that kind

of thing? Yes, sir. The the two larger parcels, they have not recorded where they can separate the green line would be a new property line. This parcel exists as 27 acres and this parcel exists as 27 acres. Both of those are landlocked currently and they do exist. Their solution was to contact the owner here of mister I don't wanna try to pronounce his Mister Swagger. Yes. He owns that property there.

What about the adjoining one next to High Bowl? Am I gonna look at that rectangle?

This one right here. Is that the one you're referring to? I'm not sure who the owner of that is. I believe mister Swaggart, they did try to to consult with them on purchasing that and they were not willing to to sell.

Are they gonna use one dry is there anything existing on this on these two parcels, homes or anything?

Yeah. How are they getting to them now? They're not you don't wanna mister Swagger. Didn't mean to make you get up, but I think we will have a few questions.

I'm actually Dale Swagger with same hyper survey, but currently, it's a little trail that wouldn't even make a good jeep trail to go back there for I thought they had a couple deer stands set up for hunting. It's big enough for ATV to get back there, and that's it.

That are basically probably trespassing with permission to access their property today? Okay.

I guess my question is, how did it get by this long with were they encroaching on the hiding rights on adjoining parcel or on previous owner of the hiding right property? How how did they gain access to it all these years

The And up

to this point?

That that old trail actually went through the property which is now Shealy and it was all like I said, it was all Woods Road. It showed up on the nineteen o o nineteen o eight plant as just an old field road. And they have the actually, the Sheelys and previous the Librands had been using that for decades. But it's actually they were landlocked, and they actually purchased.

You do a site visit at all to see the curve there as far as the visibility on putting the two driveways in? Any issues with EMS or fire on?

I have some photos. I'll go back to those site pictures. So this is where that strip is at. Am I correct, mister Swiger? That's I believe we talked on the phone, you said that was where it was at.

Right.

It is on a curve there on Ridge Road. I I don't know that they will allow them to actually install two separate driveways. I'm not aware that they've contacted DOT yet. I mean, it is possible that they would ask them to to share the driveway encroachment.

Dale, did you talk to anybody from DOT yet?

We have not.

You could come to the if you could come to the microphone, please.

We have not contacted DOT yet. They were just looking at this as the first step to get through to try to get access. OneNote two is the Austins that are joining property. That is actually all part of the same family. They are actually cousins to Bobby Librand and Audrey Kieser. So it's not a situation that that they couldn't work together. They will work together on it. So but they just wanted to have Bobby wanted to have, you know, where they would have their ownership and they the Joyner probably have ownership to their own driveway just for, you know, for future.

That's why we always struggle, and I get it. Whereas the current owners work together and all that, and then ten years down the road, something gets conveyed to another person, and then that's but we can't predict the future. But it looks like this is to me a mess that might be the best solution to clean up is what we've got in front of us. I would say this is fairly unique to the that I haven't seen this in my time here where there's anything approaching three flag lots side by side like that.

Situation this has been this is the, like, third generation that has been deeded down to inherited, inherited, inherited. That's why Bobby and them is looking at his piece. He's got, I think, two grandsons and he takes mother to go hunting and that's his goal is eventually leave his piece to his grandsons. And I know we don't have control over the future, but, I mean, that's just what they're looking at doing.

I would assume that if they end up building homes on all these parcels, then it'll have to come back to staff for, like, upgrades to the road, road maintenance room, and all that.

Additional subdivisions

of Yes. The

Any any additional subdivision. No. If they decided to build houses, it would not come back to you as long as they're not gonna create new property lines. If a future owner did wanna create another separate subdivided parcel, then then yes, that would require another variance from you because it would it would still be nonconforming to the access policy.

Kind of grandfathered as nonconforming anyway there, right, by what's already been?

Certainly. I mean, an attorney would have to now that mister Liebren has completed the purchase of the 120 foot strip, he owns an adjoining parcel now, but he would not be able to create the legal access to the Austin property without the variance approval and would not be able to get access for Mr. Librand and Ms. Keesler to separate the ownership like they want to.

Like I said, while I think this is not an ideal situation, this is, missus Weiger's done about as good as he could do, and it looks like the landowners are doing about as good as they could do to try to clean it up, in my opinion.

Think it's all the

same thing that they've got. They've been dealt a hand, and they, Yeah, I think so. In light of that, I'll make a motion that we approve the variance based on the fact that I do feel like there are extraordinary and exceptional conditions as we've discussed here. I do believe they don't generally apply to any other properties in the vicinity, and the application of this ordinance to the particular property or properties would effectively prohibit or unlegally restrict. I do believe that they are very restrictive right now on what they can and can't do with their property to enjoy it.

I don't see any detriment to any adjacent properties, and I don't think financial, obviously, if we're willing to buy 120 feet of three or four acres of land and make a road, it financials are not a hardship here either. So with that, Madam Chair, I motion to approve.

I'll second.

Oh, I'll let you have it. You're going away present.

Commissioner Price.

Yes.

Commissioner Beetenbaugh.

Yes.

You're already

asleep. It's already

gone. It's

already gone.

To get it out already.

Commissioner Pike? Yes.

Hang in there.

Commissioner Otto?

Yes.

Commissioner Hutto?

Yes.

Commissioner Campbell? Yes. Chairwoman Mitchell?

Yes.

Thank you, Dale. Good seeing you, man.

Alright.

We have an additional access policy variance this morning. This is, on property of Clyde and Bernard Mack. They own approximately eight acres at 1451 Wetstone Road in Swansea, which is north of McEdisto Road. This is a sketch that, mister Mack has provided to us. A little history on this one as well.

Originally, they owned approximately nine acres. And in 1998, Bernard Mack deeded a one acre portion to Clyde Mack and Shawana Findlay. The deed, which was recorded, included an ingress egress easement of 50 feet in width to the one acre parcel, and that parcel is where you would see the 1455 address. So we have a 50 foot easement across mister Bernard Mack's property that goes to this one acre parcel. Along the southern portion of the Mack property is a parcel owned by Carol Knotts.

This parcel is accessed by a flag lot driveway that also provides access to a landlocked parcel owned by Sherman Knotts. And you'll see that as this is the flag lot portion to to that address, and then they're providing access to this landlocked portion. The request today is mister Mack, would like to be able to subdivide this five acre portion that he has shown on his sketch. Since he only has a 150 feet of road frontage, which includes the 50 foot easement, he's not able to create another driveway or an easement for that five acre portion. His solution to this was to contact, the Knotts, and they were willing to grant him an easement using their 50 foot flag lot driveway.

However, item three of the access policy states that if an access easement is used to provide a driveway for a landlocked parcel, that access easement may not serve another landlocked parcel. A variance is needed since the Flag Lot Driveway is currently providing access to one landlocked parcel, and this would add an additional. This is an aerial photo of the property. This is a little closer. Again, this is entire landlocked parcel that already exist, and this is the Flag Lot Driveway that they are proposing to be able to use for access to this five acre portion.

Mister Bernard Mack currently lives at 1451, and the 1455 property has been sold now out of the family. It's owned by Hayward and Judith Geiger. Again, this is just showing where that easement location and Flaglock Driveway currently are. That's the five acre portion. Site photos.

This is the driveway entrance for the 1451 and the 1455 address. That's looking toward the Flaglock Driveway that goes to 1459. This is Whetstone Road at those driveway locations. That's looking into the where the Flagpole Driveway goes. And here, we're just looking into that wooded area, which is where that five acre parcel is is proposing to be located.

We did receive a letter from from mister Mac that I can read into record to Lexington County Planning Commission. The variance from the requirements of this ordinance, a, my partial property for which request is made has an unusual shape. This restricts access due to the neighboring property. Suggested solution, neighboring property owners at 1459 Whetstone Road granted me permission to use their flag drive for access. See attached statement, and you do have a copy of that in your packets.

B, my partial property has an unusual and odd shape, not the standard rectangular shape. Properties in the vicinity are rectangular in shape, thereby a variance is needed to access my oddly shaped partial property. See the ordinance that states 100 feet between each drive prohibits or unreasonably restricts the utilization of access to my proposed partial property, hereby a variance is requested. The flag drive that the neighbor has given permission to use is an excellent condition and would not pose a danger to the environment. The approval of the variance would not negatively impact or harm the neighboring properties.

It will not decrease in value, won't cause excessive noise, cause harm or other nuisances that will make it difficult or unpleasant for neighboring properties. The proposed variance doesn't create any type of public health or harm to the community environment. In fact, neighboring property owners support my request for the variance. E, this variance is needed because of proposed partial property has restricted access, which makes me unable to sell or subdivide land for willing to my children. Thank you, Bernard Mack. And mister Mack is here today as well if you have any questions for him.

What does the property look like

currently without any suggested four five acre cutout? I mean,

I don't I don't quite follow. What what's what's the property look like right now?

You mean what what's the all located on the property or the

trying to break out five acres and five acres of what? From where where is the

entire piece of property? So he only has approximately a 150 feet of road frontage here. This black area here is where they would like to create the five acres.

That's currently part of 1451?

Part of 1451. Yes, sir. They own approximately seven or eight acres now. 7.79 acres is what they currently own at at the 1451 address. We have

a letter from the the neighboring the neighbor support this.

Yes, ma'am. It's included in your packet. It is exhibit d. Got it.

So by receiving permission from that property owner, is

that is that get recorded? Is that permanent?

Oh, that

What if they don't wanna do it anymore,

like, five years from now?

Well, that letter is not recorded. That's just we do ask that they have that permission or consent from that property owner before we bring the variance request to you. We don't wanna bring the request to you and then they say that they're not gonna do it anymore. So obviously, if they don't have a legal document now, they could decide not to provide it and then they would not be able to to proceed. If it's approved, then they would have to have a surveyor to go out and survey the property and then they would have to have an attorney prepare that document. And you could put that as if you were to approve the request, that can be a condition that we see that legal document at the same time that plat approval is given.

We have any further questions or discussion?

Yes. I would have a question. And is there gonna be a legal requirement put in here for access on that road rather than this letter?

Correct. That's correct, sir. Yes, They would have to prepare a a legal document that would have the Knott's giving permission for that five acre parcel to always have that easements. That way if the Knott's ever sold their property, then that legal agreement would would already be in place. The letter is just so that we're able to bring the variance request to you.

We don't require them to see an attorney before they make application for the variance request because we don't know if it would be approved or not. So we don't require just like with his sketch, we don't require them to have a survey done before they come before you. But before we could officially approve it, if his variance was approved today, then he would have to contact a surveyor to survey the property and an attorney to have those legal documents recorded or prepared to be recorded.

Can we hear from mister Mack?

Mack.

Yeah. Where's mister where's mister Mack?

Mister Mack. He's here.

I have one maybe procedural question as he makes his way up. Know that we just discussed in a previous variance about the back or side by side flat lots adjacent is the right word, sorry. I was wondering why we stopped the proposed five acres. Maybe he can answer this when he gets up. But why why don't we stop the proposed five acres at that corner and not give them some road frontage? And that would probably create a a problem with adjacent flag lots. But also, how is how are you, how is he accessing 1451 now? Is that in the trees there we can't see on the aerial, or is it from the other side?

51, he does have a separate driveway already located there.

I'll go

back to those.

Guess I wouldn't follow in the

That's alright.

The vertical versus the horizontal pictures. Okay. That so that's the shared driveway that serves 51. Where his brother did live, but now that's been sold. Okay.

Just from the site conditions that we saw and the speed limit of Whetstone Road, I don't know that they would approve another driveway.

So close.

That so this was his solution was to ask that neighboring property owner if they would be willing to provide Understood.

I was just wondering why we did did the way we did it or proposed it the way we proposed it.

My name is Bernard Mac. I live on 1451 Weststone Road.

I think she gave you

the history of when we purchased the property and everything. Don't know what question.

So what's your intended use, I guess, I'd hear from you and you children?

Actually, I'm thinking about selling that five acres. I'm not sure yet. It depends on what your decision is. If y'all deny, I guess I'll I'll probably gonna try to will it to my children. But if I do that, still would

have to

have And how many kids are we talking?

Yeah.

You're gonna have a lot of houses there.

Have y'all contacted DOT for the encroachment permit? No, sir. Not yet.

I don't see any reason as long as the adjoining property owner is giving him access and he's not putting in a new driveway. I'm quite certain that if he does sell it or will it to his kids, it's not gonna be subdivided based off of that for future use. I'm sure if he could, he would gain he would give the access from his own driveway, but the 100 foot rule is keeping him from doing that.

Struggling a little bit with the standards, but I I don't disagree, Megan, but I I just the reasons given for the standards is is a little bit of my concern, and I'm not saying they're wrong, but one is the request is that my property has an un unique unusual shape. Well, we're taking a somewhat unusual shape and making real unusual So So I don't know if that's a cause or deny. I'm not saying that at all. I'm just struggling a little bit with those, personally.

The property behind 1459, they're already granting access to, like, the landlocked property behind it?

So it is owned by the same family, Carol Knotts and Sherman Knotts. I am not certain of the relationship. Husband and wife. They are husband and wife. Okay. There's a plat that is recorded that shows the entire 15 acres, but those properties were never consolidated and now they are owned separately. So that is why we consider that an existing landlocked parcel. I don't know that there has ever been an actual legal agreement that gives legal access to that landlocked portion. I was not able to locate one.

You could turn that into a private road.

What would keep him from turning it into a private road would road maintenance agreement.

Well, that would have required the permission of the Knot since that flag lot driveway is their portion. It would have to be paved to meet the private road policy since it accesses a paved public road. If they did not want to bring it up to the standards of a private road, then that would require a variance.

Yeah. I don't see that as a viable option for this this situation. I I do like those options when they're available to us, but

I don't see that.

You still need the access policy variance before the private anyway at in that case?

Yes. I would think so. You just stack you

just build it.

You just pile on them at that point and make them do that, in my opinion.

Own for future Right. Development or future Right. Subdivisions.

They cut that five

eighty seven older. They may

lots and we had a different ballgame.

And if even if this is approved today, if a future owner requested to subdivide further, then it would be a request that would have to come back to you.

Could you put this one up on

the screen with the marked five acres?

Yes, sir.

One thing that we quite often see is these long driveways and easements all kind of

going quite Yes, that's right.

That's good.

This one, when you come in on the driveway that is currently the easement to the property to 1459, you would only have to come in, what, thirty, forty, 50 feet to turn into this five acres. So it's not like you'd have to drive all the way down some long thing to get there. It's really it's almost a road frontage property. It's pretty close anyway.

So That was kinda my point. I was kinda getting towards, you know, if you took this line that's like this and made it straight.

Purchase that from them?

Oh, you wouldn't have to purchase anything, but then you'd be right there at it. You wouldn't have any I don't understand why the line is is jutted back in the woods like it is.

Well, I think there's something to the bottom right of the number 1451 that is maybe Could be. Shed or Yeah. Is there a shed or something down there, mister Mack, that

Yes, sir.

Yeah. He doesn't wanna lose that on his property.

Understood. That's what I was going with, you know, because if you went straight across and you're really yeah. You're conveying that that, but you're only conveying it to a truck length. You know?

Right. But if you if you took the corner that's underneath that shed and angled that red line up to the top left a little more, you could get it closer to that.

Yeah. I'm not saying we need to make him do that. I'm just right. That that's where I was going with my my initial question earlier.

Not far off from that point.

But I think then you still have the 100 foot.

Yeah. You're still flagging. Correct. You're still flagging. You're still traversing. Right? I mean, you're not really solving anything other than

What about down the driveway? It looks beautiful from the road that we saw. Is there any clearing or EMS fire safety issues that will need to be addressed?

Since it's only an access policy variance, we we did not drive down that driveway since that is someone else's proper private property. And of course, it were to be a private road, then yes, we would have to inspect field conditions. But for access policy variance, we do not.

Benefit is if they come back to us for further subdivision, it's got to come before the planning commission. One

parcel.

Yep.

Alright. There's another there's one more exhibit that's a little slightly different. You see how that top left corner of the red line is is pretty far off of that driveway, but flip to another exhibit that's got a black line rather than a red one.

Shows it going right to that corner.

Yeah. It shows it going up

to the corner. Sketch that he provided. So he's not had it surveyed yet to

my knowledge since we

last spoke.

Would that do?

Yeah. See that corner is way

up The red drawing is is me. I probably just didn't line it up exactly to match his sketch.

Well, that that one looks a little a little better as far

as getting close to that driveway.

The new owner or

I think whoever it we approve, it's approved and they can just basically saying you can use the

right. Correct. Not the location. It would just be that they can use that flag lot driveway as an easement to that property.

Madam chair, I'm gonna try if you all are okay.

Knock yourself out.

Alright. I I do realize that these these these standards of variance questions can be difficult to answer, in every property is different, but I do believe the intent here is is good and in good faith. So with that said, I do believe that there are extraordinary and exceptional conditions pertaining to this property. I don't see the conditions generally applying to other properties in the vicinity. I don't believe they will effectively prohibit or unreasonably restrict utilization of the property.

The authorization of this variance, if approved, is not going to be a detriment to their neighbors. As we stated, they have a letter of permission from the neighbors, And I do not believe there is any whatsoever financial hardships, involved with this request. With that said, I'll make a motion to approve. I'll second.

Are we gonna put in there the recording of the documents?

We could have discussion, Madam Chairwoman.

I would

I would say I would like for that to be included in the provision.

I was on impression that would be required.

Typically, do require that they have that. We would ask that they present the document and the plaid at the same time and we would ask that they be recorded together. I thought you said

that we need to put that

in the request. Okay. Right.

Does that need to

be part of the request?

And certainly make that part of your request, then we would be able to communicate that with Mr. Mack and our documentation that if the request is approved and then these were the conditions.

Okay. I'm not repeating all that. We got the first part, right?

Yeah, just do your

Got it.

I'll amend my previous comments to also include the fact that we need a legal document stating the what's their name?

Carroll and Sherman Knotts.

Knotts, the Knotts family's permission be recorded along with the new plats, so along with the all the stuff I said earlier. Got it, Angel? I'll

second if I need to.

Yes, sir. Thank you.

Commissioner Price?

Yes.

Commissioner Beetenbaugh?

Yes.

Commissioner Pike? Yes. Commissioner Otto? Yes. Commissioner Hutto? Yes. Commissioner Campbell? Yes. Chairwoman Mitchell? Yes.

Thank you.

Mister Mack,

thank you all.

Thank you.

Thank you

for being here.

Moving on to tab g.

Madam chair, members of the planning commission, we have four ordinance amendments this morning. Two are from our zoning ordinance. One is from our landscape and open space ordinance, and one is from our land development manual. So as I I joked with councilman Brigham Early, I'll be your keynote speaker today. We've got the first one is ordinance twenty five zero six, plan commission review twenty five zero six, I believe in June.

The initial amendments for twenty five zero six included removing the special exception requirements from the residential detached limited category and reverting back to the majority vote for the board of zoning appeals. There's a detailed discussion with planning commission which was reported to council. Counsel has directed this ordinance to be further amended, however, to go back through the initial reading and public hearing process. So ordinance twenty five zero six now includes provisions related to residential density or detached limited, rules and proceedings of the board, and also residential density allowances. Counsel enacted a pending order's doctrine at first reading.

Just to give you the highlights of the proposed changes, you should have them in your packet on the screen. Changes are in red, removals are struck through. The changes directed by council include concurrency review for all residential detached limited developments, so they're included in that process for concurrency review. The residential detached limited will be limited to six dwelling units per exact acre, so it'll put a cap for those land use activities. They've also amended the density standards to further clarify which type of activities have certain density allowances, specifically to call out the higher densities are only applying to apartments and townhomes.

Townhomes will also be capped at six dwelling units per acre. The special exception requirements for residential detached limited will maintain in effect, and those land uses again will be limited to six dwelling units per acre. The board zoning appeals will revert back to a majority vote rather than a super majority vote for their provisions. There's also one more additional amendment within the calculation of density. Currently, it's a basically an exact or gross acreage that is classified or calculated when calculating allowed density.

They've requested that we remove the areas and ponds or water impoundment areas from that calculation for allowed number of dwelling units per acre. So those are the changes proposed in ordinance 2,506. Again, the initial comments and feedback from this body that were presented to counsel initiated some of the changes, particular to the residential detached limited and a detailed discussion brought up the other changes under twenty five zero six. So are there any questions for staff?

Timing question, Robbie. When when do we go to a super majority on the BZA?

A super majority of BZA was under ordinance twenty three seventeen, so that was enacted, commissioner Price, I wanna say mid calendar year of 2024.

So very recently we've been? Yes. And now we're going back. Okay. I'm just curious when

it was

And and, again, it provides consistency with all of the boards and commissions who have a majority vote. It does provide a level of support when there are only just a minimum quorum available for a meeting, so if you have five members who are available to have a quorum, you've got to have at least four votes to pass the motion. So again, it's it's to provide some some clarity and provide some consistency with other boards and commissions. I think a lot of the comments, a lot of changes that council did recommend or initiate in the pending ordinance for twenty five zero six do fall in line with a lot of comments, questions, concerns that were raised by the Planning Commission during the first review of twenty five zero six a couple months ago.

I'd like to make a motion that we we're recommending it, right?

That's correct. Yes, ma'am.

I'd like to make a motion that we recommend this. Second.

Any discussion?

I wanted to get clarification again on the body of water. Robbie, you mentioned body of water. How are we defining water?

It is a per the definition that's concluded within a document. Let me get to it. I apologize, folks.

Permanently underwater.

It says properties that are encompassed by ponds or water impoundment areas is what is taken out. So if you have 50 acres and you have a three acre pond, that three acre pond would not count towards your allowed density.

Not wet dirt, but standing water. That's

correct. Yes,

sir. Okay.

That's why I was getting at because that's that's a big difference. There's a lot more

Detention ponds are generally dry.

Does that

Detention ponds would not count.

Okay. We're talking about

low When trying to figure out how calculate density, the detention pond does not exist. That's part of the overall design feature of the project. I think we were looking for a means to find some unusable property that we could pull out in the review process so we could provide data to property owners or developers on what may or may not be allowed from a a calculation perspective. The detention ponds are unknown. Wetlands are unknown. Really your flood plains and your floodways until you can calculate all that are unknown. So these are typically knowns that we can pull out that we know are not developable, so I think that's the direction we took with that language.

Mission still stands. Still

Why don't we go get a color printer, Harlan?

Yeah. I know. Yeah.

I was wondering. You had to go there, Wally.

I mean,

this is I read it online, thankfully, before I came, but I can't tell what's red and what's black and what's bold, nothing on here. So I'm not blaming you all, but we need to get it. I we We got council members here that can approve them.

Historically Historically,

Historically, as you know, you've you've been on the commission quite a while. We we have always printed these documents in color. Yes, sir. And our budget was slashed pretty significantly this past year,

which Understand. I know that know that

answers us from using a lot of color. I I don't know how to answer that.

Like that. Cool. Sure.

But I am making that point in this meeting.

Color toner is pricey. And maybe

counsel can provide some color money.

Some highlighters for angels. She can take our packets. You

want me to highlight everybody's packet?

Either that or we gotta do something red on here. It means a lot more than

anyway,

right? Commissioner Price?

Yes.

Commissioner Beetenbaugh?

Yes.

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

Yes.

Chairwoman Mitchell? Yes.

Moving on to tab h.

Thank you, madam chair. This is proposed amendments to the land development manual, specifically section 10.3.13 street access. I will say over the past six, seven years, council has had discussions regarding our current access allowances for residential developments. Currently, any project that has 199 or less lots only requires one access, 200 or more requires two access points. So it's been discussed in the past.

We've recently, I know as many of you understand, have been in discussions with the town of Lexington to look at a designated area to have somewhat similar development regulations. As part of the regulations with the town of Lexington, they do have additional requirements for access points for residential subdivisions. During our due diligence and discussion process with council, we did present this to county council, and they asked staff to include this for amendments to the land development manual, which will be county wide, and the changes would be 150 to two ninety nine lots would trigger two full access points. 300 or more lots will have a minimum of three access points and one additional access point for every 200 lots over 500 or portion thereof. We did have a public hearing on this at our last council meeting.

The only comments that we really received in reference to this that were against this were concerns that the access points with size of properties, they may not be able to get those full number of access points. There was concerns about connectivity, but

I

think we've got some language that we shored up in some of our other regulations with connectivity to potentially support that. So that's just generally the main comments we got from that. But this is basically the same regulations that the town of Lexington is currently utilizing for their residential development process, and again, council wanted to see this initiated within our land development manual.

What's the current number of lots that you have now?

One ninety nine.

One ninety nine, you can have one above one ninety nine, you have to have two. One forty nine and less is one, one fifty to two ninety nine is two, three hundred or more, at least three, with the potential for additional access points

when you hit higher thresholds. Robbie, does the potential developers have a variance process they can go through should a property be deemed where you can't have two accesses due to?

This being a design standard, yes, they can come for the Planning Commission to seek relief. I think a situation with that would have to be vetted also through our public works department who reviews these projects for infrastructure as well as whoever the maintaining entity is. But it's not a flat note.

They do have a way to

They do have a variance option.

It's a

way to be heard. That's all I'm that's all I'm concerned about.

And and those options would have to go through the same process as this the subdivision. They had the certain standards for a variance, And again, these would be vetted a little bit more in detail because it would have to have buy in with public works and or SCDOT before we even attempted to bring that to Planning Commission. Understood. Thank you.

And and so this new regulation would match the town of Lexington?

That's correct.

That is what county council has

That was directed from county council.

Yes, sir. Which is a great thing, but we still have a bunch of municipalities that'll be different, you know, and and that's I know we're working on it, and I I applaud our county council and our other municipalities in working together more than probably ever before, but it's still a a concern, especially when we have, you know, properties that are large and maybe part of us in a in a municipality and part of us in a county, that type of thing, so

And we'll get nothing when we get to our next order of some amendments as far as especially with the towns, the new overlay district.

Yep.

Some things we're working on with them as well.

I'd like to make a motion that we recommend.

I second.

Commissioner Price?

Yes.

Commissioner Beetenbaugh?

Yes.

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

Yes.

Chairwoman Mitchell? Yes.

Bye bye.

Alright. Next section is what I'll segue into is ordinance twenty five eleven, which is an amendment to the zoning ordinance establishing a Central Lexington County district. As I mentioned previously, the county and the town have been in discussions over the past few months to create a method to have similar design standards within a designated area of the county. We have identified the future growth area for the town of Lexington to encompass with this overlay district. The map you actually have in your packet shows an area actually outside the town's growth area, which I think there's been some some direction from council to potentially reduce that line back to the existing growth area, not the section along Cox Ferry Road.

The changes do go in and and add some ideas or suggestions that mimic the town of Lexington. There are some that are not exact but are close. Just going through the text, obviously, the text sets aside the the dedication of the overlay district. A lot of this deals with regulations that have to go through for permitting process. One change that is not in your packet because it recently we're recently working on that one sixty one fifty, which is jurisdictional review and approval.

Rather than putting this as ordinance language, we are working on an intergovernmental agreement with the town of Lexington to come up with a formal agreement on when they will have delegated review, when we will have delegated review for parcels that adjoin town limits and or could be annexed. So we're working through that process with our administrators and legals from both, so that's an ongoing process. Residential density, there is a change than what is in your chart here. When council enacted changes to ordinance twenty five zero six and we clarified the density chart with land uses and updated densities, we're gonna simply implement that allowed land use chart or allowed density chart in place of what's in the proposed packet. So providing consistency with twenty five zero six.

Lot sizes, the lot sizes are similar to what we currently have. However, single family homes will be a quarter acre lot size. The town Of Lexington's lot sizes, depending on districts, can range, I believe, don't quote me on this, between around 6,000 square foot and 7,000 square foot is their minimum or their smallest lot size they will allow. Of course, it references our open space regulations. Two bigger issues or items that we've included in here is traffic impact study.

We were specific to include certain provisions that Town of Lexington is using for traffic impact studies for residential developments. One thing in particular we included within this as direction from counsel is we wanna ensure the TIS did include peak hours for school traffic both morning and afternoons to be included within that traffic impact study. Interconnectivity, again, trying to create methods to be able to provide traffic flow patterns off of main thoroughfares, so working on interconnectivity, even interconnectivity between subdivisions, especially county maintained roads. Obviously, they'll have to go through a process where our public works department, but it gives potentially that option there. And as you all aware, over the last few years, protection of water quality, especially around Lake Murray, been has been important, not just the water quality, but the view sheds that the lake does provide.

There's also changes within this area that there's no building allowed within 1,500 feet of the three sixty mean elevation of Lake Murray that can exceed 30 feet in overall height. That does exempt single family homes, but anything else cannot be over 30 feet in height. And there's a certain area along the Saluda River, basically from the dam, the emergency spillway to Hope Ferry Road, the topography, the soil types, the flooding patterns within that area. Council wanted to do the same thing regarding heights. There's additional language that's gonna be on landscape and open space ordinance to piggyback on that.

Residential attached multifamily, we do have a separate section with our ordinance that does dictate where they can go, especially four lane roads, etcetera. The town of Elections promotes residential attached multifamily, really known as apartments, along interstate interchanges closer to interstate. So the language within this is very similar to the town of Lexington. It allows the apartment type activities within a half a mile of an interchange or along Frontage Road, so it follows suit with the town's ideas and direction on multifamily or apartment land use activities. This was also adopted as pending ordinance at first reading, so that is the information regarding ordinance twenty five eleven.

I've got some questions.

Yes, ma'am.

First of all, you said that the density requirements in 162Dot12

Mhmm.

Are going to I just wanna make sure I understood it. Are going to mirror what is in ordinance 25 dash o six

That's approved Yes, ma'am. That's correct.

The second question I have, is this ordinance 25 dash 11, is it gonna become a part of 23 dash 17?

The twenty three seventeen was just titled an amendment to our zoning ordinance several years ago. These will be separate ordinance numbers and approved quote unquote as an ordinance number. It would just our our zoning ordinance will be updated as the Lexington County zoning ordinance. So these ordinance amendments will just be reflected as what was actually amended to the ordinance at that time.

I was just wondering because, for example, article 16 in twenty three seventeen is nonconformity.

Yes. We explained the council. We created the article 16. As this goes through, we'll update the section numbers that that follow it, just not to muddy the water or cloud anything just to keep it simple for for discussion purposes, but, yeah, we'll be amending the the other chapters to just update the section numbers and whatnot. Yes, ma'am.

Okay. So my last well, my next to the last question is, does concurrency apply here?

Yes.

And can you tell me where I would look to find that that is that it does apply?

Concurrency is a section in the ordinance, I don't know how to section number in front of me, that dictates what type of land use activities do require that review process. The only area is it does not apply if it is a specific overlay that exempts it from concurrency. There is no exemption from concurrency within this overlay. The only overlay that exempts concurrency is our current Eastern Residential District, and there's a certain exempt exemption listed within that district.

Okay. My last question is with regard to one sixty two dot 30, the traffic impact study.

Yes, ma'am.

I noticed that residential detached limited was not included in the traffic study requirements. Was that an oversight or

Residential detached limited has a TIS requirement already within that section, but we can certainly call it out specifically in this section as well.

Those questions answered, I'd like to recommend that we or I'd like to make a motion that we recommend this.

I'll second it.

Commissioner Price?

Yes.

Commissioner Beetenbaugh?

Yes.

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

Yes.

Chairwoman Mitchell? Yes.

Alright. Our last ordinance amendment is ordinance twenty five twelve, which is amendment to Lexington County Landscape and Open Space Ordinance. This is to piggyback on ordinance twenty five eleven for potential standards that are reflected within the Central Overlay District. Simply, we have to identify the Central Lexington County District as an overlay within the ordinance, so that is documented within the ordinance. Under section three, we've included the open space provisions for the Lake Murray residential overlay and Central Lexington County overlay districts being the same, so they had the same sliding scale, so to speak, for open space.

Larger lots have a lesser amount of open space. Smaller lots will have more. And I mentioned previously, there is a designated area along the Saluda River between the Mercy Spillway, the dam, and Hope Ferry Road due to the topography, soil types, flooding nature. Councils identified that area as a as a special sensitivity area, so to speak. So for open space provisions within that area, it is going to promote only grading for the development of the activity, so your building pads, your wastewater, your access, so basically no mass grading within that area.

This would apply to any residential development unlike your other residential projects that have a certain number or size requirement that are typically exempted from open space. This would apply to all residential subdivisions regardless of size and density. And those are the the updates for ordinance twenty five twelve, which is landscape and open space.

I'd like to make a motion that we approve ordinance number 25 dash 12.

A second.

Commissioner Price? Yes. Commissioner Beetenbaugh?

Yes.

Commissioner Pike? Yes. Commissioner Otto?

Yes.

Commissioner Hutto? Yes. Commissioner Campbell?

Yes.

Chairwoman Mitchell?

Yes. Tab k, concurrency review.

We have one concurrency review for today. This one is in Lexington School District four, which is Swansea Gasson area of the county. Just to read in the records, we generally do for our concurrency reviews is the purpose of this agenda item is to provide the school district questionnaire to the Planning Commission in relation to concurrency submitted by Lexington School District four. Public school districts cannot provide a yes or no answer in terms of adequate public facilities, so administration and community development staff work with all five public school districts to develop a questionnaire to provide information for consideration of new developments. For councils adopt a policy, the Planning Commission is to review and make a recommendation to council, who in turn make the final decision based upon Planning Commission's response and all available information.

In your packet is a complete copy of the questionnaire along with some general information on how Lexington School District four determines the school or the potential student population counts, and they've also included within your packet a spreadsheet showing the last four projects I believe were in Lexington School District four and their impact on capacity, and those sheets do include kind of a sliding scale showing how each one of these is effective in comparison with their capacity requirements. So with that said, just for our concurrence review, a sketch plan is submitted and basic compliance for zoning and open spaces confirmed prior to our concurrence review. Density, minimum, and lot size, setbacks, percentage open space, and buffers are specifically reviewed, and layout is subject to change once full engineering, pardon me, and site design is completed. Just some general background on this project, again, it's known as the Victor Road track. The location is North Of Victor Road, East Of South Carolina Highway 6, and West Of Sharps Hill Road in Gasson.

Tax map numbers are ten thousand nine hundred zero two one six one one eight six zero one five and two thirty one. This project is located in Council District 1, which is represented by Councilman Michael Bishop. It is a single family residential type development on 98 acres. Proposed number of dwelling units is 196. The proposed density is two dwelling units per acre.

And just for discussion purposes, we do provide what the approximate density is if you take out the proposed infrastructure and open space, and that would be 3.021 dwelling units per acre if you would were to remove that. The smallest lot size is 13,975 square feet, and just for reference, 9,000 square feet is the current minimum allowed. And the percent open space provided is 23.6%, and that's 23.13 acres. For the developer, engineering plans would be submitted for review one hundred and twenty days following concurrency approval with anticipated approvals in approximately twelve months. Initial plats are anticipated twelve months following land disturbance approvals with initial home closings for phase one five months later.

Full build out is anticipated five years following initial plat approvals. So just rough math, five years following plat approvals, twelve month review time, twelve months after land disturbance for plats, at least seven years for full build out. So that's the general information. This has been presented to the other entities, fire, EMS, solid waste, and the sheriff, and there are no objections for this to move forward. Within your packet is the entire questionnaire that was presented by Lexington School District four.

I can read it in the record if you would like. If not, I believe the information is is pretty is pretty straightforward regarding the schools it serves, the number of students each school could service without classroom without portable classrooms, and availability of portable classrooms. So if you'd like me to read that in the record, madam chair, members of commission, I'll be more than happy to. If not, I know it is within the packet for everybody for the public to view.

One thing to point, you told him no, right? Yes. Okay. Didn't want to interrupt him. One thing to point out is, District 4 is a little bit unique compared to the other districts that we looked at.

If you all looked at the questionnaire that Robbie the additional questions that Robbie asked, Superintendent Maddox, refers to them as a single line system, meaning no schools in the district replicate the same grade levels. I didn't know that on the first couple of these we did that they they don't have five middle schools that have the same grade levels. Like, I'm just throwing five out, but obviously, Lexington one, Lexington two have multiple middle schools, and we talked last or I didn't I wasn't here, but I watched y'all last month about moving school you know, moving district lines within the district to allow students to that fulfill schools that aren't full and keep y'all get what I'm saying? They they don't do that. I'm not saying that's pertinent to this discussion, but just for future reference, school district four is different in that aspect than some of the others that we talk about.

So you're saying they cannot they don't have the capability of moving kids

But yeah.

To another school here?

They have the capability of building

They can build Oh, yeah. I'm sure of that.

Putting portables in there.

Like, I live in district two. We have Pine Ridge I'm just I'm familiar with Pine Ridge Middle and Fulmer Middle. They both have, well, actually think one of them is a bit different, but they have six, seven, and eight grades for sure, right, and the line between the two is a road somewhere, and if Pine Ridge got full and Fullmer had capacity, you could take that line and move it a little bit and pull those additional students in. They don't have that option because they only have one school for each grade, they don't duplicate. At least that's how I answered or read his response. Just wanted to point that out. I don't I don't think it's necessarily germane to to what this actual concurrency review, but that was news to me, should we have some in the future. Did I misread that, Robbie? No, You're correct. I think so. Okay.

Thank you.

I mean, Lexington District three and Lexington District four are both unique because they, like you said, they have a single school system. They have one elementary or primary school, one middle school, one high school, and district four, particularly, they've got the primary, elementary, I think middle, freshman academy, a high school.

What's district four's millage rate right now?

I do not have it in front

of me.

The highest in of all

You live there? Districts. Are you Are you represent there?

I said it used to be.

That's the 2012.

It just referenced in the questionnaire, what's the estimated cost of new construction and millage is 4 mills if they have to do any construction. But I do not have the current miller rate. I'm sorry.

I don't know how many of you are familiar with this part of the county. It's it's still fairly rural. The Sharps Hill Road, I'm not familiar with Victor Road, but Number 6 and all that. There's houses out there, single units on large acres, most of them. But I don't know

of many

other developments like this size, that are in that area, good, bad or ugly. But I don't think we're building upon anything that's already been approved or anything like we've been talking about in the last few months, if we if we choose to approve.

And I think if you look in the the additional information provided by Lexington School District four, they've got a chart, what they call their longitudinal concurrence review. So since July '24, we've had a Sundance, a Valley Crest, a Terra Pines, and now Victor Road. So you're looking at potentially Sundance was 258 homes, Valley Crest was one ninety eight, Terra Pines was one nineteen, and Victor Road was one ninety six, and I think they took this in consideration for, you know, a holistic approach trying to determine their their ability to service these students.

Might be helpful.

It's in the chart. Keep rolling.

The chart. It should be in

the chart.

Just keeps rolling.

Represent

There you go.

Numbers That's it.

They are.

Current facilities accommodate, red numbers, estimated number of students that will fill some of the vacant capacity at each grade level. Sometimes visual is better.

First portion with the elementary school, Maryland has the middle and high school information also. And kudos to Lexington District four as part of the the review process. They did include a what they call Lexington four student growth calculation, which include their generation rate and yield multiplier, type of housing price range, geographic region, the housing market type and profile, census data and local trends, past subdivision data, and their enrollment forecasting firms and consultants. Local government input, obviously they can obtain data from us and the other jurisdictions as far as new projects that are being submitted, and consideration of zoning and school capacities. So they did provide you some some good information regarding their their calculations.

A little bit easier in this district, right, with the schools like that. That's what we've been wanting to see for a while.

They they have been very cooperative with with this information.

So Lexington District four looks like they need to start planning for growth, new buildings.

Well, they state in there that we plan to increase capacity across all grade levels. So

And then they've got 2027 as being the construct new construction date. They've also got stuff under construction now at one of the middle schools.

I think particularly, especially for, it's like Commissioner Price said, these more rural school districts, if nothing else, us getting this information out to them as early as possible and then providing their their demographics and student growth calculation reviews, it does help, especially these these smaller school districts as a as a means to help planning. Regardless of which direction Planning Commission elects to recommend council and direction council goes, this is a good planning tool to get this information out to them as early as possible.

Absolutely.

I would rec I'd like to make a motion that we not approve this. When I see zero capacity here and and no opportunity to transfer the students to other locations. I don't I don't consider portables a good option for any kid. So I'd make a motion that we not approve this, that we not recommend this.

I think I'll second it. Only do we have discussion?

Absolutely. If there's the need, yes.

I I again, I don't know the process, but I would just think that we ought to give the school board an opportunity and the people that you know, if they know that these these subdivisions are going in to build another school or at least ask the people in the area if they wanna build another school rather than just keep packing them in.

Going back to what Robbie said, and Robbie, you can re re repeat it. Full capacity for this subdivision, seven years. Right?

Further the anticipated build out with the developer would be seven years.

We're talking a while. And I'm gonna go back and and and add this comment as well. In the packet, school district superintendent state says, we plan to increase capacity across all grade levels. You answered the question. Mhmm. So want information from the district. Well,

they're telling you They plan

on plans are.

Yeah. How they how they gonna do that.

Like every other school's ever been built in the history of of of Washington County.

And the people's gotta say, yes. I wanna build another school.

They're approve the the bond referendum.

To a bond referendum, and it it goes to the public for a vote.

Yes. My issue is that's the current people that live in in there now and they may or may not want to approve that. It's not the future people that's coming in these divisions.

And while total build out may not be seven years, they're gonna be progressively increasing those numbers. I mean, it's gonna be partially built out over these years.

Yeah. They they're gonna have they didn't anticipate how many phases, but they did reference a phase one, so that tells me they'll have multiple phases of of construction.

That's right. So, I mean, you're gonna be flooding the school district, and they're tell the school district is the one that's in there right now. They're they're they're looking at these numbers, and they're telling us they have no capacity in middle or high. I don't think that we can vote based on anticipation that we're going to have a bond referendum that's going to be approved and schools are going to be built.

Yeah. Which which comes first?

I mean,

does the school come before or does the population come before? Is the is what and if the population comes before, then you're gonna get all these little portable units. There's

discussion it could go either way.

Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.

Now one thing too I wanna bring the Planning Commission's attention is is I do provide Planning Commission and counsel with the anticipated build out. I have started getting that information on the front end and providing that to school districts as well, so they have that when they're going through their questionnaire. So that gives them an idea of a potential timeline, again, a substitute change, but does give them an idea of a timeline that they may anticipate these additional students.

Can you provide us an update, just refresh our memory, for Sundance, Valley Crest, Terrapines, that all a recommendation to move forward?

Yes. I believe council's approved None of them were tabled.

To move forward.

Those are already in the works for theoretically, for this area, not to include Victor Road.

And the schools

Just for consideration.

Yeah. And the schools are full. Understood.

But if Sundance didn't go through concurrency. Right? I think the only little the is that what you're asking, Tracy?

All of them. Yeah. I was asking if they if we heard them and

I don't think we did that earlier.

Sundance Sundance went through fire, EMS, law enforcement, and Not us. No. It didn't go through the the planning commission yet. That was during our pending ordinance. So we had a backlog of projects. I believe those went through council directed us to go through with with our emergency services.

Has the traffic study been done for

Not that I'm aware of. Generally, while we're getting at this point in time is a sketch plan, again, to get the process started. Our goal was to ensure that they can move forward before they spend a lot of time, money, and resources on your traffic impact studies, your engineering, etcetera.

I know the school stuff is is a big deal, and I understand the concern for the the number of students or lack of capacity for that. But I feel like stuff like the traffic that may or may not be coming to an area is probably more concerning as a county and as, you know, we're trying to plan growth for the county. So, kind of putting that out there as far as what needs to be important for everybody as a whole.

So we have a motion on the floor. Commissioner Pike and then commissioner Campbell.

Mhmm. If you'd

Call for me.

No. Commissioner Price? No. Commissioner Beetenbaugh? No. Commissioner Pike?

Alright. Just be clear. We're voting

not Correct.

Yes.

Commissioner Otto. No. Commissioner Hutto. No. Commissioner Campbell.

Yes. Yes.

Chairwoman Mitchell.

Yes.

Failed. So that

that motion, has failed. We would need a motion in the affirmative to either or or to recommend.

I'll make a motion to approve the recommendation. Second.

I guess I'll second.

Andy already did. Andy.

Oh, he did? Okay. He beat me again.

So for discussion, may we have some discussion?

Absolutely.

I spoke to a school board member recently, Lexington One, so not this one. But as he stated, the school districts have an obligation to educate our children whether they have the current facilities or not. So if these neighborhoods continue to grow and puts pressure on the school districts, they have to educate the children. They've got to figure out a way. By approving these and keeping it a running tab, we're allowing the school district to have time to say, we got to do something.

If disallow developments, let's just say we said no to them, the school district says, okay, well then we're not going to have any growth, so therefore we don't need to build anything. It's catch-twenty two, right? Right. So I think we need to prove this in order to give them an opportunity to start making plans for growth. And this area of our county is not as economically blessed as by not allowing development. We're slowing their economic growth down. I think we need to help them. I would I would like to vote for approval of this.

Just just a comment, though. There's plenty of growth in in these three subdivisions that's already been approved with a zero capacity.

That's where I struggle. That's where that's exactly where I struggle. We approved three, we're gonna tell it's fourth. Okay, I'm sorry, you're fourth in line, so you're out.

I can't

can't yeah, I get it, but as Commissioner Otto said, the school districts have that responsibility. They have to educate our children. This is a totally new process to us too, sir. I know you've only been with us a couple months, but it's a totally new process to us, and as far as what, Robbie, about a year now, less than a year Say about a year. Like I said looking at these, so we're learning as we go.

We've already made some adjustments that have made it better, the additional questions that Robbie asked and all that, so I just personally have a problem saying, You can't do this with your land because the school district can't do what they're supposed to do. That is my biggest, as simple as I can put it, problem with denying these requests. And now if it's an outlandish thing, I think there's been some that we've denied that needed to be denied, but I really have a hard time saying you can't do what you wanna do with your land because the school district can't do what they're supposed to do.

Well, you're not saying that because what you're saying is you've you've got to wait until the school can accommodate. And if you are putting in a subdivision and you can't entities cannot provide the services, how are we serving our citizens by doing that?

You're affecting land values. How can a man sell his land at the highest possible price when you put in government regulations on it?

Well, look, if we can't provide the services at that particular time, we're not saying you can't sell your land. We're saying we can't provide these services at this particular point, so this subdivision can't go in right now. It can go in later.

You just have to trust the process is kinda my opinion. And and I like what commissioner Otto said. We've we've got these processes. There's the land development application, the review. I mean, it's it's been around for a long time. So

And as new as it is, like commissioner Otto and Robbie stated, this is good information for these school districts that they never had before. We are Right. Very reasonable. Moving in the right direction.

Is the communication aspect of it.

I think we all need to keep in mind too, though, we're not actually approving or denying. We're providing a recommendation to counsel, and they will ultimately decide how that will go. Second, it is fairly iterative. We have no standards like we do with standards of variance. Nothing's been no guidance has been provided. We're doing this kind of, if I may say, by the seat of our pants. Right? So I don't I think that everybody's concerns either on either side are valid. But I also think it's fairly iterative. I don't know where you stop approving well, recommending to approve or deny either.

But if we have allowed for some of that, it's fairly iterative. We approve some. We let the schools get that information, get the bond referendum in, get some schools built. They will build it. It people will come and so on and so forth. But I don't know that it needs to be a deluge of either, you know, one or the other. You kind of have to piecemeal it a little bit. They have three in the works at the moment, and I'm not I'm not stating a for and against here. I'm just stating some of the facts. So they are going to be provided some subdivisions which will provide an influx of students of which they may be at capacity.

They will likely build those schools as they stated in here. And they actually stated that they try to build brick and mortar schools ahead of population growth. So this information sharing is good. Clearly, they're going be building the schools. I don't know that this won't actually still go through even if we were unanimous in recommending not to. So keeping that perspective, I think it's fair to hear everybody out on it. From due process, we have to take another vote. But I just feel like that needed to be said because I don't think that anybody any one of us is wrong in that opinion. It's gotta be a balance. Right?

And one is gonna come before the other regardless, and we don't even make the decision. Not actually. So we make the best educated recommendation that we can from our perspectives and hope that the like you said, well, I trust the process. It'll work itself out.

Lexington District 1 is a good example of how that's worked out. They've had to do bond referendums many times. It's growing pains. Not everybody loves it, but it has to be done. And they do it, and they keep educating our kids.

And the new homes

we expect these other districts to do the same thing. Yes. Exactly. Call for the vote, madam?

Yes. Call for the vote.

Commissioner Price?

Yes.