Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

September 16, Planning Commission meeting. We'll start with roll call.

Aaron Slade.

David Shelwood.

Jesse Elliott.

Lisa Christie. Chelsea Weddle.

And I'm Rhett Harbison, and I'll be filling in for Dr. Christine Crawford tonight. Do we have any edits or changes to the August minutes? If not, I'd entertain a motion.

Motion to approve.

Second. All those in favor?

Aye.

All opposed? Mr. Paradise, are there any changes or additions to the agenda?

No sir, Mr. Chairman.

Well, again, I'd like to welcome everyone. I'd like to briefly explain what we're going to go through tonight. We've got a rezoning request, which the Planning Commission will make a recommendation to City Council. We also have a major subdivision final plot approval, and we'll be discussing the comprehensive plan, tree preservation, and some street lighting.

For the rezoning request, we'll hear from the applicant first.

Then the commissioners will have an opportunity to ask the applicant any questions. After that, we'll open it up for public comment. We ask that you please keep your comments to approximately two minutes so that everyone who wishes to speak has an opportunity. We also ask that when possible, you provide new information. So if a point has already been made, there is no need to repeat that unless you have something additional to add. When you come forward to speak, please state your name and address for the record. If anyone has any mobility issues, we'll get a mic to you. Once we've heard from everyone who wishes to speak on the issue, we'll give the applicant an opportunity to approach the dais and answer any questions or comments that came up from those.

And then the commission will discuss and make our recommendation from there.

So with that, we'll move into our first item, which is a rezoning request. This is from Victory Baptist Church to rezone approximately 16.35 acres located at 620 West Martintown Road. They're looking to go from single family large lot residential to general commercial. The purpose of this request is to bring the large assembly use into compliance with the current development code. Tommy, is there anything else you'd like to add?

Yes, so this is Victory Baptist Church. It's an existing church there. It goes into the forever category, I think.

I don't know how long it's been there, but it's been there a long time. And it has been in the community a long time.

These are the subject parcels on the left. There's about four parcels, I believe it is, that are being combined or will be combined into one parcel. And this gives you an idea of the zoning around it. And this is the tax, the current plat for the property showing where it will combine or where they have combined the parcels into one now. That was in August. And as background of how this came, this APLA came about, is we've been having meetings off and on with Victory Baptist Church. They have a long-term plan for improvements there. And we were meeting with them, and staff found, you know, they're looking at doing an expansion and a lot of things that they... may have problems with being a non-conforming use. Currently, they're a non-conforming use in the new development code. In the previous development code, this is zoned R14. The R14 zoning allowed churches. Whenever we went to the new development code, we actually got into a I don't want to say heated, but a lively discussion with our consultants on churches. And from their point of view, you have to treat them as the same as any other assembly. You can't carve them out as a religious entity and give them special privileges. I don't know that I agree with that, but okay, they're the professionals at it. So what they did, what their suggestion was, was to move all of the churches that would be required to be in commercial. It was pushback from staff because churches, when you think about the smaller churches, a lot of those are like schools. They're established around residential areas. And so there's a large assembly and a small assembly. Small assembly is under $500,000. Large assembly is greater than 500. So the large assembly was put in the commercial districts and not allowed in the residential districts, basically because if you take a church or any assembly that seats more than 500 people, you have traffic issues on Sunday or whenever there's an event there. So it needs to be located close to a major highway. It needs to have other infrastructure in place so that it can accommodate the use that's there. We had the same issue, y'all remember, with True North.

That just didn't sound right when I wanted to say it.

But with True North Church, where they were going to expand And they were zoned residential and needed to convert to commercial. So when this came up, it was staff's recommendation to the church, to be quite honest with you, is the easiest way to do this would be to rezone it to general commercial. The use would stay the same. It's not going anywhere. But it would bring it in compliance with the code so any additions that they did they would have to meet the current code, but would be allowed. And I will be honest with you, too, it's situated on Martintown Road for a large assembly. They meet the requirements for a large assembly as well, as far as those infrastructure requirements. So that's where the idea of the rezoning happens. came from. I don't think that there's any indication that Victory Baptist is going anywhere anytime soon, just like True North, but that is while the application is before you.

Any questions for me? I've probably got all kinds of questions. Obviously, we've gotten some emails with concerns from neighbors, and I understand that as well obviously i don't see them going anywhere for hopefully a long long time but if you change the zoning that's done and let's say they continue to grow and need a bigger place and were to move somewhere else then it would be open to whatever else could be there and so i'm I share the hesitation which changes that now. I don't want to hold them back from what they're trying to do. I'm just not sure that that's the best route that I feel most comfortable with making it happen. Do you know of different workarounds or are there other options?

know uses you can apply for a variance for anything in the development code except for two things density and use and this is a use so there's no variance to it and we don't have conditional zoning in south carolina so you know when it comes to use we're kind of stuck now I will say this, too, is whenever they, if they're at this location and do an expansion, there's no buffering in the new development code. Buffering is required based on zoning classification, not use. So right now, any new use, any addition here would not require buffering between the church and the residential. If it is rezoned to general commercial, and I'm not trying to advocate. I'm just trying to give you some different points of view. But if it's zoned general commercial, then they would have to put a buffer if they do expansion and that type of thing between them and the neighborhoods.

I do see that benefit. I am concerned about long term and thinking in 50 years time. And I share Jesse's concern. I would like to see and I know we're facing some real barriers there.

But

something narrower than general commercial, a conditional zoning that is kind of custom tailored towards that specific church in that residential area. But I know you described some technical barriers there as far as what's not worthy or not eligible for a variance. Can we go back to the development code itself and really make some changes to it so that we might accommodate this? I do empathize with the resident.

We can always change the development code. As I tell people, it takes a recommendation from the planning commission and two readings from city council, and poof, the development code has been changed. It is a living, breathing document that's Now, if that's something that you all want to do, I'll be glad to take that and run with it. Just give me that guidance.

Looking at

Just so you know, the only place that this would be allowed under the current code would be in the general commercial, thoroughfare commercial, quarter preservation mixed use, downtown mixed use one. So it's certainly not downtown. And thoroughfare commercial is more intense than general commercial. And the mixed use isn't in that area, or the preservation corridor is not in that area either. So that's why general commercial, from the staff's point of view, looking at it, was the least intensive of anything that we could put in there.

Can you elaborate a little more on the mixed use? You said that that's not that part of town. And I think about mixed use in terms of it is a large assembly, but there's also childcare and recreation on the site.

Well, it's the zoning district of corridor preservation. And that's Georgia Avenue and I think the older parts of town that are zoned that. So that's to preserve that. A PD, which is mixed use, requires a residential component, and they wouldn't have that. You would not have the uses that's required for planned development. But you may want to listen to the applicant. Has she got something else for me? Yeah, yeah.

I will tell you that I preach to 2,000 people on Sundays, and y'all are way more intimidating than they are. My name is CT Townsend, 620 West Martintown Roads, our church. I live in North Augusta as well, 2047 Brittlewood Court, and I serve as the pastor of Victor Baptist Church, and I want to thank you for allowing us to have the opportunity to come and talk to you today. Thank you, Mr. Paradise, for being super helpful to us through all of this, and thank you for the planning staff for the time they've invested in helping us through this process. Victor has been a part of North Augusta for over 50 years. The property before you tonight is already an established church campus. We're not asking to introduce a new use onto the property. We're asking to appropriately zone the use that is already there. With the adoption of the city's current development code, a church of our size is classified as a large assembly use, more than 500 or 600 attendees. Our desire is to simply work with the city and bring our existing campus into a conforming regulatory framework rather than continuing as a non-conforming use. But we also see this as a good long-term stewardship plan for Victory. Victory intends to remain a part of North Augusta. As far as we know, with no plans at all, we love our property. We love being in the city. We love being where we are. We plan to be there and keep continuing to serve our community. This weekend, we have about 700 or 800 volunteers signed up for a serve day in this city to literally serve our community and our city for free all over this town. So we're actively serving and being involved inside this community. And we continue to do that. We believe the general commercial designation provides an appropriate regulatory framework for an established church campus like ours, both today and into the future. I also want to emphasize what this request does not do. We're not asking tonight for approval of a building project. We're not proposing a change in the use of the property, and this rezoning itself does not authorize a new building, as you well know. A new site layout, additional traffic, or expansion of our operations is not what we're asking for. I will tell you, however, we are a growing congregation. Last September, we went to two services. They're already nearly both full, and we're already entertaining a third service with that. And we do need space, and one of the biggest problems is the permeable ratio, as you know, of .3 to .7 to put a larger foyer and more space to have people in there. does not change the parking situation. That's not putting more people in the building. We're still gonna run multiple services. But this is not just a cool gesture because we wanted to be general commercial. We actually need it just like True North needed it. And I don't know what the difference here and there is, but we need it just like they need it. If at some point in the future we propose improvements to our campus, we understand those plans. We'll still have to go through city's required review process and meet the applicable standards. We care deeply about being a good neighbor. Before this ever happened, I reached out personally to a friend, and we sent paperwork to the president of the HOA in the Rapids so they knew well before it ever hit y'all's letter. We want to communicate very well, and we've tried to do that. We want to be good neighbors the best we can. Our goal is not to negatively impact or to change the character of the surrounding community. Our goal is to properly align our existing church campus with the city's current code and establish the appropriate framework for continued responsible investment in that property. And once again, we are grateful that the planning staff has recommended approval of the request, and we respectfully ask the commission to do the same. And I'll be happy to answer any questions that you have.

And just to piggyback, I had forgotten that part about it too, but the impervious surface ratio is also a challenge for them because it's 0.7. You can get pervious and impervious confused. I'm sorry. But you can have 70% paved space in general commercial, and you can only have 30% paved space in the R14. that's a challenge for them trying to accommodate the parking for such a large congregation.

With the additional buffer requirements that would come with the general commercial against R14, what would be grandfathered in and what would be required to be, at what point would a project trigger, I guess, for those buffers to be installed?

As the planning director, I would look at anything that went toward that area. If you expanded the building toward the residential, I think that would trigger it. If you built it toward Martintown Road, I'm not as inclined. And of course, any interior work wouldn't trigger anything. But when they do a campus expansion like we were discussing, and that may be down the road somewhere, that would probably trigger that buffer requirement if you had the different zonings there.

Then I guess if the commission has any questions for the applicant, we can open it up to the public.

You normally open it up to the public? Well, no. You would ask any questions to the applicant that you have at this point.

The only question that I would have would be the time frame for the project you've discussed and what your time frame is for that and if we would have a chance to look at our development code versus

So we are in the final stages of architectural. The plans would be to start building a foyer right around our auditorium the week after Easter. So we do not want to pay all this money to finalize that, only to find out you all are going to say no. That was my comment to him is the yo-yo thing. We came here thinking this was just a slam dunk. We've done what y'all asked us to do. And so that's the frustrating part on our side is we're just trying to do, you know what I mean, to serve the people that are there. So we're in full mode and have been for a while. We came to him. How do we do this? He said, True North did it. You can do it. Do it. And so that's where we're at. And so it's on us.

I'll make a comment that I absolutely trust the intent of Victory Baptist Church and see y'all as an absolutely upstanding citizen in this community. I know from personal stories how good you've been to our low- and modern-income neighbors in this community, and so thank you for that. My concern, Tommy, is when I'm dead and gone 60, 70 years ago, maybe when we're all dead and gone 60, 70 years ago, I mean, and I'm more inclined to not, I want to give Victory Baptist exactly what they need to do what they want to do, but to have more creativity within the existing code so that it's not general commercial, but something else that gives them what they need and that doesn't open it up to commercial upon that kind of more dense residential development 60, 70 years from now. And so that's kind of where I'm coming from now. You've explained that what's currently in the development code, that's not really there. And I really just want to use this meeting to explore, could there be something created that gives Victory what it needs without also assuaging the residents there? And I do see a difference with Victory and True North in that True North is in far less population density

You know, where Victory is, in my opinion, I think there's just a lot more houses.

And so I really want everybody to win. That's kind of where I'm going with that. Yes, sir.

There can be revisions in the development code. Just like after the applications tonight, we're going to be talking about several possible revisions. It would need to go through a process like that. It would take several months. And then I would craft stuff, bring it to y'all. Y'all would look at it, say, yeah, this is what we want to do. you know, tweak it however you want, the Planning Commission wanted it to go, and then it would be a text amendment, it would be advertised, and then go for the City Council. So that is not outside the realm, that is something that could be done. But it's, you know, is that something that y'all want to do? But the fact is, though, This is the application before you tonight, and you're going to need to decide on a recommendation to council because you don't have the final say on this. This is a recommendation to council.

I don't mean any disrespect, but I watched the video on the True North, and there were residents that came that were asking questions about how that's going to impact this. So it's not like there's no residents there at all.

You know what I mean? Sure. Speaking about the timeline of theirs, and they rightfully don't want to pay architectural fees and things like that, is there some kind of interim solution where we recommend approval for general commercial in the interim and then later rezone it so that it's not general commercial in the long run? I don't know if that's at all possible.

Once it's rezoned, it's rezoned. And we typically don't rezone a property without the application coming from the property owner. Technically, yeah, I think the city could do that, but we don't. And we also aren't allowed to put conditions on rezonings as well. So you couldn't condition this to Victory Baptist, and if that ever ceased, it reverted back to R14. We're not allowed to do that by state law. When you get uses, you have a very narrow window to work with.

I think we can open it up to public comment. Yes. So this time, if there's anybody from the public that would like to share their thoughts, welcome those.

Come on down.

State your name and address.

I'm Kent Sullivan. And I've been a resident of North Augusta for 50 years.

Can I get your address?

207 Post Oak Lane in the Rapids. I've been the treasurer in the Rapids for 14 years. I've been on the board for many years. I've had a home over there for 36 years. And I have concerns. I know a lot of residents in the Rapids have concerns. We had to fight one zoning request one time to put 300 units on a 30 acre plat. And so we're a little bit on the edge of what's being done around us. We had the parking lot for Victory Baptist Church go beyond where it was authorized to go and enter into our space, and the city had to intervene to take charge of that and put trees and barriers and everything to replant where it had already been bulldozed over. So to say I'm a skeptic is kind of an understatement. I apologize, but I am. I like your suggestion of at least looking for an alternative. I don't understand. I mean, is Grace Methodist Church general commercial? Is First Baptist Church general commercial?

Downtown mixed use. So it's allowable in a downtown district.

Okay. But what about schools? They're assembly areas. They are generally zone P for public use. You see where I'm coming from. Where did the 600 number come from? Is it arbitrary? Is it by law? Does it have to be 600? There's so many questions. Once you do general commercial, what's to prevent? I'm not saying they would. I'm a Methodist. I respect the Baptist. But I'm taking care of my neighborhood and the city. I'm trying to take care of the city as well. What was said about where it is, commercial property in that area surrounded with all that traffic and everything will be a nightmare if it ever gets converted to that. Because North Augusta is growing and it's only gonna get worse. And if you talk about 50 years from now, there's not gonna be any space to do anything in there without it being inundated with people.

Also,

Anything that they want to add, they can add right now without it being general commercial. And why can't, if they make a change and want to move somewhere years from now, apply to be general commercial then? I don't really understand why. We're not here to rezone to accommodate one entity. you rezone to accommodate the community. I don't see where this is gonna accommodate the community. Right now, if you do it general commercial, this is just my opinion, I may be wrong, they can sell part of their parcel and build some gas station on it. I mean, they have control once they do general commercial. I think, I mean, I'm not a planner, I'm not a commissioner, But once it's zoned, general commercial, as long as they accommodate all the requirements of general commercial, they can do with it as they want. So there are a lot of reasons from a neighborhood standpoint to press the brakes, make sure of what's going on, I mean, most churches would ask for an exemption on anything that's been zoned by the city if it's different than where they are. And your point about True North being more unpopulated, it's on the edge of the city right out at the interstate, that is a different situation for them. Anyway, I know I'm representing, without doing a roll call, a lot of people in the Rapids, and probably other neighborhoods too. And I hope that you'll just consider tabling it, postponing it, or something, and make sure that you've got enough community input I posted on Facebook just a short while ago about the meeting tonight. I had it on my calendar, so I remember, so I posted it. But I don't think that people were really of the understanding there was going to be a vote tonight. I really don't. I didn't know there was going to be a vote tonight until I got here. And so it's a critical moment where I don't think that the citizens have had an ample opportunity to chime in on how it affects them. That's all I have. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, if I may chime in just a minute. A clarification, whenever he said the church had encroached into the rapids when the construction was going on, that was actually the contractor that they had hired. The church was very, they were not happy with what their contractor had done. They were upset and worked with the city to get that fixed. The city did go in and replant some trees through there, but the church paid. They paid for all of that replacement that went in there to reestablish that buffer. So it wasn't something that the church wanted done. Basically, the contractor just disregarded his clearing lines.

And then a couple other comments that I think are probably more tied to you than the church. When we talk about they could do this addition without being zoned, is that a possibility?

They'll need a bunch of variances.

They would need a variance to do that. And then with exemptions, I believe that was a use issue, that there's not an exemption when we're talking uses. Is that correct? Any other public comment?

My name's James Hens. I'm at 206 Blue Heron Lane.

I'm in the Rapids as well.

Retired here. I spent my life working for the military, going around the country, and just fell in love with this area. Drove down the rapids. It's tree-lined. It was almost like a canopy coming into the development. I looked. We had a house over on North Hills. That was our search house we could find somewhere up and down the coast. We looked Tennessee, Alabama. We looked everywhere. We settled on the rapids. A lot to do with the entrance. And like you're saying, the entrance looks nothing like it did three years ago. And I appreciate what Victory Baptist is saying. They have no plans to move.

I had no plans.

Tell you what, the way the entrance looks now, I'm dreading the investment I'm putting into my house right now. I put $200,000 into it when I bought it, additional after I bought it. We looked at that parcel. It was a residential parcel. It wasn't for sale. We said that would be a good place to build. We like to wrap it right off the entrance there. Then come to our surprise two years ago when the trees all started getting cut down, we went and complained to the contractor. The contractor, sorry, Victory Baptist, told us to go to hell.

I'm cutting the trees down.

It wasn't until the trees were all cut down, 100-year-old oaks, old growth, that they replaced them with saplings. The city came in and replaced them with saplings. The entrance is nothing like it used to be. Now it's a gray retaining wall that floods out every time it rains. If I heard right, if we go to commercial, it could be possibly paved. talking about a 70% something. I heard some numbers there. Right now it's a gravel or a grass lot. They use it for band events, which disrupts the neighborhood. They use it for other events. If they could pave it, that becomes even a larger problem for us. It was a surprise to see it go in. It really has knocked down the value I feel in my house. I understand the situation they're up against. They want to make some growth.

And they want to make some development.

But there's planning involved with that. That's what planning is all about. And if they failed to plan, that's not my fault. I bought in this area. I researched this area. The rules, I feel, have been violated already. And we're looking at giving them the ability to violate again. We'll just let them build. And then we'll rezone it to accommodate their time frame. Residents living there several hundred homes are gonna drive by With no with no say in the matter I had no plan on moving. I'm looking at moving It's not looking the same and I don't doubt that within ten years That commercial piece of property is going to be worth a lot more than a parking lot It's gonna be it's gonna be something different

I'm seeing all the coffee shops going up.

I'm seeing more laundromats going up. I'm seeing the hive going in. I'm seeing more developments. They're going to need more of that kind of infrastructure, and I don't want that type of additional infrastructure put in on my property line. Anyways, that's all I had to say. I didn't have anything prepared. I didn't know this meeting was happening. When I went on to the city council meeting agenda, it's not on there. I go into the North Augusta Planning, I see it. So I thank the Rapids, the representative here for bringing it to our attention. I found out an hour ago. That's kind of how that parking lot went in. We didn't find out that parking lot was going in until the bulldozers came in and started cutting down trees. And we looked into the zoning of it, and it was still residential. And to a dummy like me, that's a neighbor cutting down too many trees. Find out, no, that Victory had bought it, and it's going to be a parking lot with a big gray retaining wall that continually floods out into Riverblood. I don't want things worse. It seems like it hadn't been planned correctly to begin with, and we're just going down that same path again. Mr. Shellhorse, I appreciate your insight to it. I think there are changes that need to happen to the code, and if that delays something that they're working on, I'm looking at long

looking at my future in this neighborhood and my future in North Augusta in general.

Thank you for your time.

Any other public comments? If the applicant would like to come down and respond to any of those, we'll do that at this time.

I guess I will address the the tree issue. I know that's not really on the docket today. But I do want to personally apologize. I know that may not do a whole lot for you. But I promise you I had nothing to do with that.

And the church itself. I just want you to hear me. Church had nothing to do with that.

That was a contracting company that come out and we had, as per what you told us to do, we had lines, I almost felt like there was foul play of some sort, if I'm honest, how that person went over that line. cut that tree that was a paid contractor and whoever's I'm not gonna be what you said because I'll lose my job but I never told them to tell you that and I'm if I put myself in your shoes I could feel your frustration and I on behalf of our church want to publicly apologize to both of you and anybody that lives in the rapids we sure never I want to help the people in my community not make them mad to my ability and he could back me up When say it was poorly planned, we went through every loop. And if you remember, there were a lot of loops we had to go through to make that happen. And we did everything we could to make sure we did it right. And I apologize that you all felt like it was chaos. But I don't know what to say. I've never been put in a situation like this. I know I got a job to do. I got people to represent. And I know there are some voices here. I didn't know that's the way it was going to go. If voices win, you know, I could bring a lot more people in here. I don't want, you know what I mean? So it's... I'm trying to do the best I can for the people I represent in a growing church with the ultimate goal of reaching more people with the gospel of Jesus Christ. And I... I'll do anything I can. I'm not a lawyer. I don't know how to win you all over. But I need your help. And I know that y'all got people looking at you. Sometimes on my desk, there's lose-lose in both situations. I understand how you're feeling that. I'm just here based on the recommendation of what I thought was the right thing to do. And is there anything else I need to give answer to? Was there any other questions or things said

The combining of the parcels is already complete, correct? I just want to make sure. I read that in the letter, but that's already done. OK. Thank you.

You can see where we signed off on it, and it was recorded August 14 of this year.

And like I said, that field up there, is we park on it on Sundays. Our Christian school, we don't have a band. I don't know what that is. We don't even have a band. I don't know what music that is or whatever, but if there is a problem, please let us know, and I will make sure they don't do that.

I'm not aware of any part of that.

But... There is the only building plan we would even have is adding four-year space to our auditorium itself.

That's what we said in the letter that we sent to the Rapids so that you wouldn't feel like an hour before you didn't know what was going on.

We did our best. We told Mr. Paradise we were going to do that. We communicated to them that this is not going to impact the Rapids whatsoever. We want to be good neighbors.

i mean i have a question for you so i know you said no conditional because i you know i fully respect the concerns with the community we can't restrict access to river bluff road we don't have the ability with this request to do that meaning there's no there is already restrictions on that through um the buffer requirements for okay okay

Any other questions for the applicant?

Discussion? Yeah, I'll just make a comment real quick. I think, personally, I understand everybody's perspective, not trying to dissuade the church from doing what they need to do to grow in any way, but I think all that extraneous detail from both sides is irrelevant when you consider whether or not it is appropriately zoned general commercial. And I personally do not believe that this parcel is appropriately zoned as general commercial. I'm with Mr. Shellhorse. I think potentially after this meeting, the right thing to do is to consider what we can do in the development code to accommodate a request like this that does not allow us to make the situation appropriate because I don't think it's appropriate now as an R-14 given the current code and I also don't think it's appropriate as a general commercial. So let's look at changing that as opposed to trying to pigeonhole them into a category that I don't believe they appropriately fit in. And to your point, Mr. Shellhorse, 50, 60 years from now, who knows what the case will be. They may be so big they need to move somewhere else and then what happens to the parcels? So I know that they have plans on the books. Mr. Paradise said that they have lots of variances they would need to apply for. If it's a time crunch, that may be the method they need to use in order to get that process pulled through. But personally, I do not think that this is appropriate to be zoned general commercial based off of its location.

I'll just comment and agree with Chelsea. I definitely don't want to stop the church from growing in any way. We all live in with Augusta. We know you guys are a staple in the community, and y'all are amazing and do amazing work. But I agree with Mr. Shellhorse, too, that this doesn't fit either category. So we may need to look into it. a solution that allows them to grow but also protects this from becoming a Home Depot in 10 years, which I think is basically what I'm getting from the community is 40, 50 years from now, they don't want this property to be sold and have a TJ Maxx in their backyard. I don't think it's appropriate considering what everything is zoned around it. The nearest general commercial is down by the interstate and down by the main intersection, so not really in the middle of Hammond Hills. That's just my two cents.

Any other discussion amongst the commissioners?

If not, I'll entertain a motion.

And again, this is a recommendation to City Council.

For everybody in the public, this is not a final decision.

This is a recommendation. City Council will make the ultimate decision at their meeting.

Well, without further ado, perhaps being as artful as I can in my wording, I do make a recommendation or entertain a motion to make a recommendation to city council that we revisit the development code and find a more customized appropriate use that is not general commercial, but that accommodates both sides of this issue. And that although that is inconvenient for timing, I think in the long 50, 60, 70 year time frame, it is the appropriate thing to do.

Mr. Shellhorse, I understand the motion, but I think that's outside the scope of what's before you. The question before you now, and I'm glad, happy to go that direction for you, but I think the question before the Planning Commission now is do you recommend the rezoning or not? Okay. That's what we need to have is, I hate to say up or down, but that's basically it.

Mr. Paradise, will you just entertain my question about logistics? We have to make a motion in the affirmative either way, correct?

You're supposed to.

Okay. And even if you're going to vote no?

Just because you make the motion doesn't require you to vote for it.

Okay. I'll make the motion.

I have one question first. So I'm going back to you said when the consultants and you had a lively debate. Was it because of they didn't want to separate churches out?

Yes, ma'am.

Okay. So if we did look at some sort of other zoning, it would go back into that bucket of separating a church.

Yes, ma'am.

That's the way I'm looking at it now. Y'all may want to, and this is, I'll make paradise, you know, But I look at churches different. They're not selling hamburgers. They're non-residential, but they're a service to the community. So I look at them different than other large assemblies like a coliseum or something like that. But that's where we got into the discussion about it. And we can have a discussion on this. If I'm bringing something back to you next month for y'all to review, it would probably have a line for churches that allowed them. My recommendation would be churches going back to what it used to be where there's a line for churches and they're allowed in most any zone. And y'all can narrow that down. Y'all can tell me I'm wrong. We want to go in this direction. But that is my first thought on that.

So if we wanted you to look at that and bring something back, what happens to this motion as it sits?

This motion, well, there's really three things you can do. Recommend approval, recommend denial, or not recommend approval, or continue it. Well, if you continue it, I don't know that you're serving any purpose, because regardless, we'll be bringing that other back. The only reason to continue is that's going to stop it from going to city council, which that's the ultimate authority.

And to clarify, Jesse, if this motion is to be zoned general commercial, so if we made a new zoning category, this motion would not cover that anyway.

And I'm not looking at a new zoning category. I'm looking at probably a new use category, and that would be religious institutions.

That's up to you, Mr. Chairman. Yeah, sure.

Take this back based on how y'all are leaning. Can you all give me the wording of why this is not okay with you all and there was like no debate at all on the true north one? Like because there are residents around there. So I'm going to have a whole lot of people in this town saying why is it okay here, not there. I'm asking you all to give me that vocabulary if you can, please.

I can give you my personal vocabulary. If you look at the zoning map, there's way more red out by True North than there is in this particular area. And so I don't think it's as appropriate of a use based off of the zoning of the parcels around it.

One of the things we look at is spot zoning. We don't want just one red spot amongst a bunch of yellow. I don't know if that's a technical term, but spot zoning has always sort of been one of the things we've looked at with zoning maps and something we try to avoid. I hate that your only opportunity is to go general commercial to make what you want to do, because that is clearly a flaw in our development code that we need to fix. But I think it's the general commercial in this area and the fear of what that would do to the overall public if something happened to Victor. We all don't think anything's going to happen, but there's a big if out there. If something were to happen to that church, we all determined that we did not want to go there anymore, this property would be general commercial for the next year.

Is there any law that says we can sign something?

That's what I asked before this meeting, and I was hopeful that we could do a general commercial with the condition that once you sold the property, it would go back R14, and unfortunately that is not allowable by South Carolina law. I'm sure there's some reason something happened previously, but that was what I was hopeful we could do tonight.

All right.

One more from the public, maybe.

I'm the vice president of the neighborhood. Just kind of sitting back and taking everything in and listening. The question I have, though, everything that you all have explained, you know, that's fine. My question is, though, what happens to the property, let's say, if because of this interaction, Victory is, I'm not speaking on Victory's behalf, but let's say Victory says, okay, we're putting for sale, we're moving to Edgefield. My question for you is what then can happen to that property or what does that property become? Because I think people in our neighborhood would have an issue if all of a sudden, you know, right now I live on Water Oak and we have Renfield 2.0. I can see it from my backyard, whereas it used to just be woods. And now I can throw a rock and hit a retention or retaining retention wall, retaining pond. My question for you guys, though, is if Victory decides hey this isn't working out or we feel like the city's against us or anything like that what can happen to that property or does it stay r14 what can then come there what becomes of that or is it just a vacant church that no one wants to buy because it doesn't accommodate because we don't have another big church that can fill that void now we just have a rundown property so my question for you guys just to have more information to where if anybody in the neighborhood asked for information is like then what happens to the property if they were like hey we didn't get what we want It's just a question, so if you guys could elaborate and just provide some information. Because it is a big piece of property, but that would be my question, just to have more information. If you guys could just kind of shed some light on that, of what it could become or how that could structure. Or at a later date, could it be, say if it wasn't a church, say if someone bought it, say if I bought it, Did I rezone it as general commercial if it wasn't church and I wanted to put something that wasn't a Home Depot? But I would just ask if you guys could provide some information just to fully understand the good, the bad, and what could happen. If it is rezoned, we've kind of gotten that information, but what would happen if it wasn't rezoned and they decided to leave?

So I'll take a stab at it and Tommy can correct me when I make a mistake. So I think the property would remain R14, so anything allowable uses in current R14, which is large lot subdivision, would be allowed.

So if a developer wanted to come

purchase this property because the church decided to leave, they would be in their right to put in an R14 subdivision. If somebody wanted to come put in a shopping center or something that did not fall within the uses of R14, then they would be required to come through this same process right here, go through a rezoning where we would have this debate and everybody would have the opportunity to come speak out against or for that.

i'll have one comment you know the goal here and what we're deliberating is not to impede the growth of victory but the zoning being proposed is the wrong wrapper and that it sets a potentially consequential precedent 50 and 60 years down the road and that's what we want to get ahead of now and so uh the wonderful work of victory is is without you know without dispute on on this

days.

But I think it's important that we get it right at the front end. And we've got to be creative on that. I know there's some technical issues there, but we've got to find the right wrapper so that victory can can can succeed in the neighborhood can as well in the long run.

There's no further comments. I'll entertain a motion.

I'll make a motion to approve RZM 26-001, Victory Baptist Church, as submitted.

Second.

Can you clarify that again?

I'm sorry. So when you say recommend.

As submitted. So just what you see here on this paper is what I would be making a motion on.

We have a motion for recommendation and a second on the table.

Okay.

All those in favor, time for a vote. All those in favor? All those opposed?

Aye. Nay.

What was the vote?

I'm a yes.

4-1.

I think it wasn't closed.

Okay, well, that motion was

Not approved from 5 to 1 that Wednesday.

It will go to council as a not recommended from this board. And that will be voted on at next week's council meeting? No, sir.

It will go to a work session, study session before that. And then it will go to them.

OK. Next on the agenda, we have a major subdivision final plat request by GM at the Hive Holdings LLC for final subdivision plat approval of the Hive Northside Commercial. Approximately 12.6 acre portion of section F of the hive general development plan located at 1141 West Martintown Road. This request is to create six commercial parcels. Anything else you'd like to add, Tommy?

Yes, sir. This is the northern part of the commercial part of the hive. It is a PD calls for commercial in this area.

You can see it.

Subject parcels are here. It'll be on when you turn in it'll be on your left And this is the subdivision layout that I they would like to be approved. There's only two reasons that this is coming to the Planning Commission. First reason is the number of lots. Makes it a major subdivision. And the other one is the number of acres. Makes it a major subdivision. That's the only two reasons it's coming. It complies with all the ordinances, and if it wasn't such a large tract, It's something staff would have done. And do you have any questions for me?

Seeing none, if the applicant wants to come up.

Mr. Harbison, my name is John Engler with McKnight Engler in Augusta, Georgia. 3320 Augusta, Georgia.

Anything else you want to add to?

No, it's, like I said, we're here for those two reasons. It's over 10 acres, and then we, with us having the retention pond, which will be track, I think, six on the track, if I'm not mistaken. It'll put us into those six parcels, so just here for that right now.

I'm just being nosy, but is there a reason it's kind of split up the way it is? Is it for, you've got, like, how the buildings are going to be laid out? That's why they're...

We do preliminarily. Unfortunately, we just can't say who did it yet.

Of course. I figured, but I was like, it's an interesting breakdown of the space, you know, the design. So, good deal. Thank you. Any further discussion amongst the Planning Commission?

It's about that, particularly in regards to existing.

And it probably doesn't affect it. Emmerich Farm. Emmerich Farm.

I did see that too Tommy there were some Hamrick farms that I went back to look at which recording that was whether the old or the new but that was yeah I will just say that

Right. Exhibit B, OK, development impact. This is the general part of the general development plan for the The hive and, yes, I see where it's at in there.

And hammock farms is synonymous with the hive.

It just wasn't picked up when the name was changed and the various revisions. Yes, sir. Yes.

There's no further discussion. I'll entertain a motion. I'll make a motion to recommend approval of the final plat for the Hive Northside commercial application number FP26-005.

I second the motion.

We have a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. All those opposed? Passes unanimously.

Yeah, I think you did. Thank you.

OK, moving right along, we are into our comprehensive plan 10-year update. Tommy, do you have an update for us here?

Yes, sir. Basically, the comprehensive plan will be meeting with the contractors or the consultants in the morning. Staff will be meeting them. And we'll have representatives from the various departments at that meeting to do the initial assessment and kick off.

We meet with them at 10.

And then after lunch, we've arranged that we're going to take them around the city and show them the sites. That is the next step in the progress. And then, of course, from there we will be headed out to some engagement meetings with stakeholders and y'all and the public. But it is, you may not see it, but it is working. It's moving in the background.

Out of curiosity, have they been pleasant to work with so far? Positive experience? I mean, no pressure from the people that help choose.

I just. We've had minimal conversations with them. But they were easy to get the dates set up with.

So far, so good.

Do we have, and this may come up tomorrow, do you have an ETA or are you guys going to put on the table a first public meeting? Is that?

That's what we'll be talking about tomorrow. Okay.

What city staff is going to be there for that one?

It will be me and Cully and Brian Malick from engineering, and then I've asked for recreation, somebody from every department to be there to answer any questions they may have about projects, future, capacity. Yeah, it is. The comprehensive plan is just that. It's pretty comprehensive, and there's a lot of different questions there that is beyond my scope.

No, that's great. That's what I wanted to hear, that a lot of city staff was getting involved.

Yes, sir. And it may not be the department head, but I've asked for a representative. And then the next one is tree preservation. I don't know if I've got it right or not. I think we were good with one and two. And correct me if I'm wrong. And we were down to number three. The blue print is the new print. I'm not going to say we're going to run out of colors, but.

Yes, I'd like to bring up the proposed language for significant tree.

Yes, sir. So I think we're missing two key words, or greater.

So if we look at any large tree species with a DBH of eight inches or greater or less than 24 inches, because if we simply leave it as eight inches, it implies that it's specifically eight inches or anything less than 24 inches. So adding those two words, or greater, would solidify that definition. Got it.

We could also do at least eight inches.

Well, that would work as well.

Yeah. Right. Either way.

Yeah.

Other than that, I think you picked up everything of what we discussed in our previous discussion. We've been talking about it for a while. I think this is ready to move forward to council. The steps are that you'll bring it to us next month as an amendment, and we'll be able to present this to the public, open it up to discussion to the public at that time, and then pass it on to city council.

Sounds like a winner. I've got one other question. This is procedural. Do you want this? There's three. I look at it as three distinct phases here. Do you want the application in three distinct phases, or do you want it in a group? I think a group would be fine.

Okay. And then if City Council wants to split it up, we'll let them go that route.

Sounds like a winner. Agreed.

Finally, after all this time, our baby is about to be born. I'm just happy.

And then the street lighting, this is new. And basically, when Mr. Malik came on board, he found that if the city were to purchase the lights, the city would save about $10 a month per light in the recurring electricity charges. As it stands today, the city has Dominion put in the standard lights. If you want to do a fancy light, you have to pay the difference. And doing that, though, the city pays $10 a month more because the power company paid to put the poles in. The problem is the city does not have a fund over here to buy light poles out of. So... It was his suggestion that just like the developer has to pay for street signs, he writes a check, purchases the signs through the city, and then the city erects them, and they can release the addresses. To do something similar here, where the developer would pay for the poles for the streetlights. Now, I've asked, what is the average price? And I got everything from $700 to $1,500 a pole. And with the recommendation of $1,000 a pole for round figures. It would depend on how much infrastructure, how much work power company has to do to get the light fixture in. If it's just Tommy Paradise thinking here, if that is a new development, a new subdivision, that should be planned for whenever they did the initial lay of all the electricities and it should be on the lower end. The other thing in looking at this with him that I found is that the old code had a specific section that said the developer pays the difference between the fancy poll and the not fancy poll, basically. However y'all decide to do purchasing polls or not, I would strongly recommend that we put that language back in the development code so there's no ifs, ands, and discussions there. But the basic question is, do you want to put that, the cost of the polls on the developer and save the city the recurring $10 a month per poll or not? And yeah.

So that $10 a month never ends.

There's always a rate. There can always be rate changes and stuff, but yes, you figure you're paying less because the power company didn't pay for the poles going in. Basically, you're paying back the cost of the poles over time, and when you pay for those poles, they keep collecting.

Yeah. So when you say normal pole, would a normal pole be like the wooden telephone-type poles like I have in my front yard?

I really don't know, to be honest with you.

Because I talked to a buddy that has worked at a power company for years and years today, and he said there's a lot, obviously, depending on exactly what you're looking at, but their poles are kind of treated, the wooden ones are treated for like 50 to 70 years worth of use. so that even if let's say you blow in at 50 years at ten dollars a month we're paying six thousand dollars for that poll so if you could get it put in for a thousand Yeah, in the end, I always hesitate with adding more costs to developers, because I know they're just, as much as they can be frustrating, they're just trying to make a living like we all are, and I know things are getting more expensive for everybody, and that's going to be passed down to the home buyers. That's just the way that works. So I do hesitate with some of that. But I do like the idea of in the long run, it definitely saves the city, aka the taxpayers money. And so I you know, I like do you have any idea how many light poles would be going in like at the hive? I do not.

There was the math.

I've never counted, so I don't know if it's like 100 or 1,000. Because it says thousands. Thousands.

No more than 320 feet. So I mean, I'm just thinking 50. You're talking $50,000 plus, depending on the size. I mean, it could be more on the size of the development. And that's significant, I think, to a developer. It's not $10,000. And I don't think anything new, nobody does a wood pole.

I think they're all the black metal poles.

And I don't, you know. And then on our, well, my bill is different, but we have a light fee. So would that $10 just be saved to the city and not passed on to the consumer? Or we don't know that.

I don't know. Because I'm in Edgefield. I get a different bill since I'm over I-20.

But I just, my concern is, you know, we've added their impact fees, got a couple other things, and I like the idea of saving. I like the $10 kind of in perpetuity technically, because I think of it like renting your modem from the cable company. Either you buy your own or you don't. But that's a, We don't do a ton of small development, so I think it would be significant if it's 320 feet, which is not really that far. If you stand on your street, you can see those poles on both sides.

To your point, though, Jesse, we are all paying for it either way. To your point, it's not going to drop off your bill because every single one that we currently have that we're paying $10 a month on is going to remain there. So what it's really doing is keeping your water bill from increasing again, or whatever bill it is.

So...

Do you want to pay for it through your utility bill, or do you want to pay for it from the new houses, which my personal opinion would be to put it on the developer, because I believe in the impact fees, and I think if you're going to be putting something new in, that putting that onus to pay for it on citizens who already live here is harder for me to swallow than having it cost more for the people who are moving into the new development.

And value for value. Whoever is getting a much better, thousands of dollars over the span of years. I haven't repurchased, however that's done. I would be curious of the cost of metal poles or something that's more of a standard, not like the $700 crooked pole that is on the back shelf at Lowe's or something.

Currently, the poles that are owned by the power company are maintained by the power company, or are they maintained by the city? By the power company.

In our neighborhood, I know when a bolt goes out, we have to call SEH.

So in the future, if the city requires the developer to purchase the poles, would those still be maintained by the power company, or would they now be the city's responsibility, or does that not matter?

I believe, and that's an excellent question. I don't know. I would assume it'd be the power company still, but I don't know.

Yeah, that question would be resolved. I would think that they would still do it, because they probably don't want who knows who just jumping up on their own pole.

Well, I look at it as if you own a lamp. and it's your lamp, even though you're plugged into the wall, it's your lamp, you change the light bulb. If SC&G owns the lamp, they're changing their light bulb. That's the way I would, I'm making a guess there, so.

Another analogy to that point though, because I was talking about this earlier. The developer has to pay for the water lines that run through the neighborhood. And if they're in the right of way and something breaks, it's not the developer's fault.

It's the city's responsibility to come in there and fix that.

So, you know, I don't know which way.

Yeah, I'd say that's an important question.

Those utilities are deeded to the city. They're deeded to the city. But the light poles are probably not deeded to the city. Correct.

So in your recommendations, you have amend for the developer to do or amend for the city to do or do nothing. But you said the city is kind of not an option because we don't have the money. Or can you clarify? OK.

I think we all share the sentiment that this While I do not want to increase the cost for developers to continue to do business in North Augusta, I do not think this is a burden that our current taxpayers should take on and be responsible for in the future. I would like to see an ordinance that puts it on the developer purchasing the poles from the city, or however that works out, as well as giving them an option for a decorative pole.

I understand that. I would like to see some really kind of hard numbers to know what we're kind of speculating here. You think about a break-even analysis.

Say if something costs $3,000 and we're saving $10 a month, it takes 25 years to get that $3,000 back, and that's not earning interest.

And so the point being, I don't know how much these things cost, and if it's a marginal cost, then it shouldn't affect the price of housing all that much. But if it was a more substantial cost, we don't need to make the current state of housing more unaffordable than it already is, especially for those of us who are less established, young, trying to come into homeownership. And I think we're probably all dealing with a different buyer's environment now than what we had coming in. And so I think we've got to be sensitive to that as well. So no one, since this is just discussion and not a vote, I would like to just see break-even analysis, you know, real hard numbers. You know, what do the cheap polls cost? What do the expensive polls cost? I do agree with the sentiment that upgrades from a standard poll, decorative, et cetera, that should be absorbed by the developer, at least, at least that. But I think probably in the discussion phase it would be nice to see some break-even analysis and numbers.

And I do think who maintains it is important to me.

Because if we're going back to who has, we're not sure who has control over that, if we're not paying the power company as the city, then that changes how I feel about it.

And how much is a bulb for that? Is it $50 or is it $700?

I know on commercial property, I'm very much responsible for, I have to pay for it on my bill.

Me too.

Would there be any, I'm just throwing some spaghetti on the wall. I'm just thinking of a compromise where we don't pass on the cost to the developer, but some sort of credit towards something, I'm just thinking out loud here, where if the city can't pay for it, we can reduce something else to make the developer pay for it, where it's not just a flat, if we could do 50 poles, it's $50,000.

I don't know, I'm just throwing, I don't know.

I don't have an answer to that, I'm just throwing it out.

Yeah. So basically, I'll bring back some more information for y'all next month.

And that's fine.

The one question that I do have is, do y'all want to move forward with paying the difference on the poll from the standard to the fancy?

Yes.

So if it's all right, I'll bring that back to y'all next month as well.

Perfect.

All right, staff report.

Oh, well, sorry. We've been busy. Good. We have been busy. The comprehensive plan kicking off tomorrow, and we are starting to see things move at the hive, and there's just a lot going on.

We always say thank you, Tommy, for everything you guys do. Thank you, Tommy, for everything. We do. We really do appreciate y'all, for real.

I always say a motion to adjourn, I'll stand up.

Motion to adjourn. I make that motion.

Yes.