County Council - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the October 1st Council Committee's meeting. I'm Joe Boykin. I represent Charleston County District 8 and currently serve as chair of the County Council. This time I'd like to ask our members of County Council and key staff to please introduce themselves, starting on my right with Mr. Moody. Moody, District 7. Kylan Middleton, District 6.

Darby, District 4. Herbsthouse, District 1.

County Administrator? Larry Kabrowski, District 2.

Chair DeFry, District 5. Rob Wurman, District 3.

Thank you all. At this time, I'll call the Finance Committee to order Item 1, approval of minutes. Approval. Second. Discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Ayes have it. All right. Item 2. Approved 2A. All right. Do I have a second? All right, properly moved and seconded. Any discussion? Hearing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. Ayes have it. 3A through F. Can we take F separate? Okay, 3A through E. Second. All right, properly moved and seconded. Any discussion? Hearing none, all in favor say aye. Aye.

Ayes have it. Ms. Honeycutt has joined us now remotely.

Wait a minute. Before we move forward, which one of these are we are selling the mitigation to the city of Charleston. That's on me. I just want to make sure. I'm an eye on that.

Mr. Mayor. I move to authorize a word of contract for Maybank Highway fourth lane tree removal project to Lawrence Construction LLC, the lowest responsive and responsible bidder, in the amount of $192,775. With the understanding that the funds are available in the Transportation Sales Fund, if lowest responsive bidder fails to meet the requirements, allow award to the next responsive and responsible bidder. Properly moved and seconded. Any discussion?

All opposed? Ayes have it. 4A and B? Second. Properly moved and seconded. Any discussion? Hearing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. Ayes have it. All right, this time I'm going to adjourn the Finance Committee meeting and turn it over to Mr. Pryor for our Planning and Public Works.

All right, this is our Planning and Public Works Committee meeting for October 1st. All members of council, participants in this committee, item number one, approve. Any deletion or addition? Hearing none, all in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. All opposed? Ayes have it. Item 2A, Point Farm Mitigation Bank Release Credits to the City of Charleston Lockwood Drive Project. Can we get an explanation of what this is for and what is this project? Can anybody tell before we move forward?

Yeah. Just say three . And how is this going to affect the surrounding area of Fishburn Avenue and those folks down on Haygate and that area? So moving the water, how is this going to affect them?

And so the battery wall project is dependent on the half-finished sales tax, correct? OK. Anybody other of other funding sources? Mr. Moody?

Mr. Martin, thank you for being here. Does the city not have the ability or municipalities not have the ability to go get their own credits? My understanding is that the county has to approve it. I'm wondering if the municipality, not City of Charleston, North Charleston, my pleasure, do they not have the ability to go get their own credits?

Mr. Grabowski, now I'm going to come to the chair.

Thank you. Mr. Thickman, how many credits would we have left? Do we know that?

And this is fair and accurate to say this has to do with rising tides and resilience for flooding, correct?

So it's a pretty significant... flooding hazard that it's addressing and it's only going to get worse. Yes. Will the 48 inches be of any value if the referendum doesn't pass? Is there still value in this? Yes. Standing on its own? Yes. Would it significantly contribute to alleviating the flooding and tidal problems that are there now?

Yes, sir. Mr. Moody, to your point on the availability of the credits, it's my understanding that wherever the project is, those credits have to come from the same area or zone or region or however they describe it. And I'm not sure how many banks are actually even open for that area. And I know DOT just had to come to us to get some for the long point.

Thanks, Chairman. Mr. Martin, I just wonder, I think, Mr. Grabowski kind of hit it on the head with this, but I just want to reiterate the point that, you know, folks are going to be able to benefit from this regardless of whether or not the seawall moves forward or not. That's correct. Okay. Thank you.

Mr. Pryor, Mr. Martin, I'm glad y'all are doing this. It is the, you said low-hanging fruit is the next section. It needs to be done. It'll help people to get in and out and mobility. So I'm certainly in favor of it. And Chairman Boykin is absolutely right. They like you to use credits in the area where you're doing the work. So... And I'm not sure if there is another saltwater bank. There are a lot of freshwater credits, but there's not a lot of saltwater credits. And they are much more expensive than the freshwater credits. So I'm in favor of this project. Thank you.

Ms. Honeycutt, do you have anything to add? Ms. Honeycutt?

I'm sorry, Mr. Pryor, I was trying to get off mute. But I would say, one, thank you, Mr. Kowarowski, for those questions. And thank you, Herb, as well, because this area is one of those areas that experiences sunny day flooding on a king tide. And it is extremely burdensome for people traveling that area for those roads to be shut down. And it also causes major problems in the residential areas that cars have to navigate through to go around it. So this is a very important project to the city and I appreciate Mr. Martin being there and for taking this on.

All right, thank you, ma'am. Mr. Martin, thank you so much for your explanation. That meant a lot. Thank you. We didn't know, you know, and that was a what if, but now since you say it's definitely going to, you know, be helpful even without the seawall, that clears up a lot of... And the great news is we have it fully funded, and the construction period will probably be about six to eight months, so it's a very attainable project. All right, is there a motion to move for the...

I was concerned. I think I'm there now, but I really would like to do this after the election to see where that goes. I mean, I'm hearing there's no more credits anywhere else. This county is going to run out of credits at some point. We're not. We're never going to run out of projects. And if we keep bleeding these credits to folks, we're going to find out long after all of us are gone that we have no more saltwater credits to do projects the county needs. So, you know, three here, 12 there. I'm going to support this tonight, but it just I would caution this council that at some point when we

Okay. All in favor of the motion, signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Ayes have it. Thank you. We move to item number 3, 3A, Historic Snowden Community Designation and 3B, Snowden Community Moratorium.

All right. 3A. Okay. Is there a second? Second. Second by the chairman. Now, discussion. Who had the hand up? Mr. Klobrowski. Oh, I was just going to make a motion to approve both. Okay, we'll come back to that. Okay, anybody else? Question. Dr. Moody.

for staff do we I think I read in our sheet there were a couple properties that wanted to opt out can you remind me I guess first where are the properties I've I've sort of been if properties are in the heart of the district I can't do that if they're on the edge I'm I support that and especially when they raise their hand early enough to get out but can you show me which properties have requested to be out and secondly which what the process is if they want to come back and get out

Okay, so it is on the edge. It doesn't jump over that road, I'm assuming there. It stays on that side of LaTroy. Correct. Okay, so it's on the edge of the border. Okay, can you remind us, too, what the process is for somebody?

So if I hear you, we approved this tonight that this green is set, and then the owner of those three parcels, the two small ones and the big one, would need to come back, make application with your office, go through Historic Preservation Commission, back to council.

Thank you. Of course. That sort of, Mr. Chair, complicates things a little bit because we just did a whole community where we allowed people, you know, just willy-nilly to come out. And so now we're saying that these people cannot do the very same thing that we just allowed. And then in every reading, the person kept coming up over and over again, you know, saying, please take me out. And so now we're saying they have to go through a whole process. I really feel that we need to codify this, although it seems to be codified already, but it can't be based on the precedent that we just did for 10

Okay, Mr. Werman has his hand up, then I'll come back to you.

Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to clarify that because I do know what Councilman Middleton's referring to, but I do know that we were also doing a bunch of zoning stuff. Was it the zoning overlays that we were opting that property out of in Ten Mile? Yes. I would just say when it comes to these historic district designations, frankly, the same rationale applies to zoning, but You know, if it's a property-by-property voluntary decision, then we might as well just not even do the whole thing. I mean, people can voluntarily do what they want with their property as is. So, you know, I'm ready to move

Yeah, I share the same concern as Reverend Middleton. The problem for me is if there are people who do not want their property restricted in this manner, regardless of whether it's zoning or a designation that's going to impede the use of their property, I believe they have the ability or should have the ability to opt out. So I cannot support them. I think we, maybe this is what Mr. Middleton was getting to, should have a process where they can opt out as part of this without them having to resubmit for the entire... character appraisal again. So I can't support this if it means that folks th

Okay. Anybody else? So the question is, what are they currently zoned now? S3, special management. So why are they asking to be excluded?

Meaning restrictions. Could you explain that?

Isn't that the same issue that we saw with the... the board in various instances getting sued or the county getting sued because they were not applying the same standards and using arbitrary standards to deny certain approvals. And I just think we're setting ourselves up, particularly for people that have already articulated they don't want to be a part of this, to have to go through that process on their property.

Okay, Mr. Chairman. Yes, sir, Mr. Chairman. It sounds like what needs to happen is we need to go back to the original ordinance and amend it so that they can opt out for consistency purposes. It's not going to work right now. I understand we can't fix it that way right now, but that may be something we should revisit so we don't wind up in this situation again.

So, I was just going to ask the same thing, but you beat me to it. What would be the best way is to delay this instead of moving it forward until we get this straight? Because moving forward, you know, and then you come to a bump in the road because somebody sues you, then you push it back. So, I mean, I know we had to, what, one year I think we gave, one year for the moratorium. But, I mean, in that case, if something goes wrong, we can always come back, you know, to allow them to do what needs to be done. But I don't want anybody that doesn't want to be in, as Ms. Heineken and Reverend Middl

So we could look at deferring this until we have an opportunity to try to... Yes, until we get something.

That would be my preference, but I didn't make the motion. So whoever made the motion, if they want to withdraw their motion, and let's defer this until we get this...

right i moved i mean i made the motion under before i started thinking through all of these other taking these people out you know that just certainly is not in alignment with what we've done previously and again property owners you know again i support all of the protections of historic settlement communities and definitely i'm a champion for that But at the same token, I don't know if this is the route that we want to go. So I would be happy to withdraw the motion, give them more time, certainly make certain that it's aligned with what we've done before. Because if not, I mean, it's going to

All right. So he withdrew. Who made the second? Was it Mr. Moody?

Okay, so he withdraw his second. So before we go, Mr. Grabowski wants to say something, and then we'll move for deferral.

Deferral, yeah. Okay, Mr. Grabowski. As I heard the discussion, And I echo what Councilman Weirman said. There's a difference between zoning and historic preservation designation. And the zoning is not going to change in this, correct?

So it's totally... inapplicable to the situation in Ten Mile because that was a concern about zoning. And so I would say in the objections that I've heard that were raised to this would be applicable to any historic preservation people once they're in there. In other words, if they're saying that they're objecting to this design or that and are concerned that somebody could object, that would apply to any historic preservation designation area we have now can make that same argument. So I say we should go ahead. I mean the arguments about somebody not liking being in there or objection to what

Chair, I just want to let you know, I was going to second his motion. I didn't get a chance to say so. Move to defer.

Mr. Pryor, may I be heard? I just wanted to note for the record that I believe B field had the same, same situation happen with respect to historic preservation designation, unrelated to zoning. And the problem was the owners on the periphery did not want to be subject to the public process. They would have to go through with the historic preservation commission that we've had some issues with in the past. And that's why they were opting out. And I believe that these people would be entitled to the same treatment. And therefore we need to correct this before we move forward. And so I also supp

Thank you, Madam. Defer. Okay. Move to defer. Who's second by the chairman?

And I would ask again, Mr. Chair, Madam Attorney, how long do you think? Because we would want to put some kind of time.

uh yeah i mean i just i don't i'm frankly uninterested in the difference between zoning and historic designation i mean i think the point is that if you want to put these protections in place you can't only do it for the people who want the protections because the whole idea is that these are cohesive communities and so if you can just opt out willy-nilly then you know it kind of defeats the whole purpose so you know i've been hesitant about allowing that i think we gotta We've got to get serious or we've just got to stop doing the whole thing. So I think the serious answer is to move this for

Mr. Chairman? Mr. Pryor, I'd be happy to have a special planning public works meeting with our next county council meeting so we could move this along quicker. Okay.

I just want to echo again what I couldn't have said any better than what Councilman Wehrman said, so I'll just echo that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Pryor. I would disagree with my friend, Mr. Wurman, to an extent. I've got a problem if properties are in the middle, in the heart of the district. Where they're on the exterior and it doesn't disturb the general makeup of that, I think you're trampling on people's property rights. I really do. You mentioned that they don't want to be in it. They shouldn't be in it. That's encumbering. their property. And I feel bad enough if they're in the middle, but on the edge, I certainly support them being able to if it doesn't change the general makeup of the district. So I'm going to sup

Okay. All right. The motion on the floor is a deferral. Our attorney is going to get with our staff to make sure this moves along. The chairman is going to have a special public planning work at our next finance, I mean, our next county council meeting. And so that will go on. And I think item 3b will help this you know a lot after we finish a we go to be which will be to give them the moratorium and so even if that if this thing takes a little longer we can always extend this to make sure that they get what they need so you know it's not a rush I don't want to do a rush job and then, you know

Okay, we have seven ayes and two nays. All right. We go to item 3B, which is the moratorium for the Snod community. Oh, I'm sorry. I'll make a motion. All right. There's a motion.

But... Can we do this? Can we direct staff not to accept any new applications until this is fixed? Because if it comes out, we can vote it down if any new application comes in. But I mean, rather than put somebody through the application process knowing it's going to fail, maybe we might want to.

I don't think we vote on subdivisions, which is the problem.

Well. All right. I'm not going to make it any more complicated. So we'll take this up at our next county council meeting, which will be in Salisbury, which state? October 13th. October 13th. Okay. This will come back before us to move forward.

I'll mirror Mr. Middleton's approval of 3A to apply to 3B as well.

All right, so move for deferral. All right, any discussion? All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. All opposed? Nay. Two nays and seven ayes. Okay, I turn this back over to the chairman because that completes our planning and public works committee agenda.