Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

All right. Welcome to the October 15th regular meeting of the North Augusta Planning Commission. All right. If we could please have roll call. [Music] Aaron Slate. Red Harbison. Bob Bigger. Jesse Elliot. Lisa Christine and I'm your chairwoman. Uh Christine Crawford and we have one more. Chelsea W. Chelsea Wadell. We'll let Miss Wadell say her name will count. Sorry, Chelsea W. Okay.

Thank you. All right. So, um we have completed roll call. If commissioners could please review the minutes if there and if there are any changes, please share them. If not, I entertain a motion of approval. Motion to approve. Second. So been moved and seconded. All in favor, please say I. I. Uh, Mr. Paradise. Are there any changes to the agenda? Uh, no, ma'am.

All right. So, thank you. Mr. James Sutton is going to come forth as a director of public service and um help us understand our city's utility systems, the capacities.

Thank you uh commissioners. Thank you for allowing me the time to come to give y'all a presentation and an overview of the city of North Augusta's wastewater collection system. I'll uh go through it and uh I will state that a lot of the decisions that this commission makes uh adds to our utility expands it. It adds to our asset inventories and we appreciate all y'all do uh to oversight uh the city's wastewater collection system. It's in a service area of about 23 and a half miles. Uh we call it square miles. It's really not a square, but it uh borders off of other utility agencies that border us. Uh we have Edgefield County, Breezy Hill, and Valley Public Service Authority, and across the river, city of Augusta. Uh in that service area uh we maintain the pipelines, lift stations and uh pump sessions and various other uh components of the collection system. Uh we have a total of 11,858 customer service connections. And then the illustration to your right uh in the picture you'll see a connection where it's gray and it turns into the purple color. That's what we consider surface connection. The homeowner is responsible for that gray line from where interconnection to the city's main back to their home. And uh we also have a residential, commercial, industrial, and one big large utility which is Edgeville County that conveys a considerable amount of waste water into our system on a daily basis. It averages about one and a half to two million gallons per day. Uh we maintain an asset inventory

for maintenance purposes, audit purposes to the state and uh we have 239 miles of pipeline which equates to a little over a million feet of pipe, 27 man holes that interconnect into the pipeline so that we can perform inspections, internal inspections and cleaning of the pipeline. And also 22 lift stations are inspected every day of the week. Uh the large ones, the small ones are connect they're more or less inspected two or three times a week. But they also are their purpose is to pump the waste water up the hill. So uh the collection system uh we have the north guest is not on a flat terrain. So uh we we don't have as many pumps as a flat terrain may would have but we do have a hilly terrain. So, at the location of a lot of our lower line areas in the city, we have these lift stations that's in the center of your uh image and a lot of the neighborhoods, subdivisions, commercial areas. Not all, I think it's about 40% of our customers discharge into one of our lift stations that are located throughout the city. Uh when the homeowner flushes their water closet, the water fixtures that goes and conveys in through their lateral line into the tap into the main. Then some of it goes gravity all the way to the wastewater treatment facility, but some goes to the pump stations that lifts it and pumps it to a high higher elevation. It goes into a gravity line. So ultimately when the flow collects together throughout our collection system downstream from the homes and the mains and the lift stations it all goes gravity to a county public service authorities wastewater treatment facility operations and maintenance. Uh our collection system operates 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Uh we have

benchmarked the time for our asset inventory and our collection system. We use 1950 as our starting point on the age of our system. Uh we do 24 hours a day emergency service around the clock. Typically the waste water doesn't stop flowing like your power might get cut off, may lose cable. The sewer doesn't stop. when it stops usually overflows onto the streets whenever there's a power problem or catastrophic event. We maintain pipelines on a daily basis, cleaning it, doing internal inspections. Uh manholes are access points that we enter to clean the lines and inspect. We inspect them. We report them back. Uh the lift stations, like I indicated, they're inspected weekly, daily, and constantly. Let let me point out one thing. Go back to U. One of the that picture up to the right hand corner. Um the far right picture kind of illustrates that we had a severe storm and the tree fell over and took out one of our interceptor lines that runs down by the river. We had to go in plug the line, clean up the discharge that went onto the ground into the creeks. And that picture to your left of that is line after we restored it. It took about two weeks to rebuild that line. It was in back behind a rapid subdivision a few years ago. All right. Uh we have several ongoing infrastructure improvement pro projects right now. Uh we have about 8 million $800,000 worth of funding that we're spending across the infrastructure. Uh, one of our main qualities listed up on the left is Carolina Springs Station. It was placed in the service. It's been upgraded for the years in the 50s and the 70s. Now, we're just going to

totally replace it. That project is scheduled to be constructed by April 2026. Uh, the next project down is the Crestlin and Lhurst subdivisions. That project involves rehabilitating and rellining 23,000 ft of clay line that was installed in the 60s and the 50s. U and the man holes as well will be realigned and it'll structurally renew that infrastructure. The industrial park is pending. We are going through an approval process to have industrial park uh realigned rehabilitated. That's about 8,000 ft of pipe and we're going to hopefully have that project underway here by November. The riverfront interior interceptors. Now, that's one of the biggest projects we had. It was about 28,000 ft of wastewater interceptor that collects all of the city's waste and discharges to the wastewater treatment plant. It runs from the rapid subdivision along the river down by uh Riverside Boulevard upstra court where our operations facilities are on clay street clay pit road. So these the pictures up on the top to the right, it shows the clay line, the condition of it, how it's cracked and broken and fractured up. And the picture to the left of that is actual pipe that's been rehabilitated structurally. So that's what it looks like whenever they finish with it. And the manholes down at the bottom are the same. I made a brick. They realigned those and renew the system. Those pipes are some of the most costly and most environmental problematic lines they are. So, we're pleased to get those renewed and be able to improve our system.

Okay, here here's the good stuff. Uh, we have to make sure on a daily basis right at 4.8 8 million gallons of waste water remains in the pipe system and doesn't overflow into the streets, the creeks, backyards of homes and discharge out into public spaces. So, uh that waste water is collected by all our customers prevail to the Aen County Post Service Authority. [Music] uh years ago prior to uh after I think around 1983 um Aken County Public Service Authority built a wastewater treatment facility off of Termit Road and the city of North Augusta went in and purchased 8.6 million gallons of capacity from Lake County Public Service Authority per day. Since that purchased, we've already allocated 7.9 million gallons a day. that's already been allocated to our curtain customers and approved development. So, we've already been permitted for those. And right now, anybody coming in, we have a remaining capacity of 713,000 gallons, which is not bad, but it's compared to 8 million is not good. But we have got a lot of development that's happened in this city over the years as well. I know that was rather quick and sometimes I'm a little too straightforward to the point, but uh I would like to hear some questions you may have. I try my best to give you the answers.

Well, starting from the end since that's what's freshest on my mind. these gallons is lots and I don't understand those numbers don't mean a whole lot to me as far as what's so the 713,000 gallons left uh roughly how many homes does that cover

uh 11,000 in in Edgeville County that's all inclusive of that and everything that's pending well it's been approved it may not have been developed but it's been approved but I real estate on that prior slide where I indicated was 4.8 million gallons a day going through our system uh and we only have 713 left but we purchased 8.6 six. What that in indicates is we have a lot of development that hadn't been developed yet. So it's coming but in the same there's also some reserve in there for additional INI flow and such. So [Music]

so I guess as a followup so then what do we do when we have used the 713 does that a market increase? Is there additional capacity for us to purchase? What does that mean?

Actually, we are in the process of working with Aken County Public Service Authority. All the utility agencies are uh at this time. Uh when that 713,000 gallons as it stands right now, in all probability, we won't be doing no more construction. So if we had a big agency come in right now and wanted to put something fairly large at our industrial park, we may not be able to serve them because they may require a lot of capacity.

So Tommy, I assume you guys work with this information before it even comes to us or is this something we need to consider after the fact? We we look at this when we uh develop our recommendations for um for the planning commission. This is um Mr. Sutton and I work real close together. He keeps me um you know up to speed on what's going on there. And it is a issue that I'm trying to follow. Besides not growing anymore, do you do you have any what are the other steps?

I'm sorry. I said besides not growing anymore, like just stopping, which is probably not really going to happen, what would the steps be to try to continue the ability for growth without capacity?

Well, how would you grow the capacity, I guess? Well, in order to get gain more capacity, they're going to have to do an expansion of county public service authority so they can get permitted to accept more waste from other agencies. And they are in the process of uh getting that done, but there's not a near-term project completion date been given, I don't think, as of yet. And I've been involved in at least a couple of meetings they've had so far. I don't have a whole lot of detail on their project schedule, but we'll hopefully know in the near future. If I had to guess, three or four years,

let me ask. And then what? So, of that 713 though, that includes any growth that also occurs in Edgefield County, correct? No, ma'am. Oh, it does not. No, ma'am. Edgeville County is a custom North. They purchase capacity from us. Now, now I can't speak for Edgefield, but there's a lot of agencies around here who do need capacity and they don't they just can't get it. Okay, James, one of the things that might be helpful is to set how many gallons per day for dwelling,

right? Um, actually, uh, the South Carolina Department of Environmental Services, it was set at 300 gallons per day. And so that some of these agencies uh who didn't have any capacity so that they could help them at least get a few houses built, they went in and changed that capacity limit from 300 to 275 gallons per day, which ain't enough ain't a whole lot. When you start putting several hundred or a few thousand properties together, it adds up. decid how do they is there some formula or they look at I guess actual gallons to to determine if that's accurate right because I get I guess how do they measure actual consumption because I would think with newer um residences and some of the new lowflow toilets those kinds of things capacity I would hope would be decreasing or the need for um waste water consumption would be decreasing.

You mean like metering the Yeah. Well, just wondering how they measure to kind of Right. We They have a master meter that they measure off. We have two.

Um several years ago when back in the later 80s when Edgeville County and North Augusta come together and uh built what they call pole branch interceptor that run from Austin Greyill Road over to Martintown Road. Some of y'all who may have been around for a while may have remembered a very foul loader going down the interstate towards Highway 25 up around Austin Greyville Road, but it was coming from Edgeville County, which Edgeville County conveys waste water for Saluda County. So that also comes through the system. But Saluda County is Edgeville County's customer. Edgeville is our customer. So that's where a lot of the flow comes in from the manufacturing upstream from us. But the city of North Augusta sold the capacity to them which was a good thing at the time. It's not a bad thing now. Uh with that being said, uh the capacities, going back to your question, all the wastewater flow that North Augusta has is going through now what we call Nim's branch. We did a wave pole branch and it didn't stop the odor problem that was very problematic for our citizens. And when that was constructed, we put a meter station there that's off of Highway 421. Uh that belongs to Aen County Public Service Authority. Then there's also a meter below River North subdivision. That's where all of North Augusta residential, commercial, and business customers go in there. So, and industrial. That's they read that meter monthly and they bill off that.

Okay. But yeah, one more little cave out there. I've always been a little confused and I've raised a concern, but you know, going back to the number, we got 8.6 million, but we got 4.8 going through the system. And I realize there's some reserve there, but we always going to kind of be in the out of pocket, if you will, missing that additional flow. That permitting stuff is what locks us into it. There's a lot of growth going on in Edgeville County and I'm assuming a lot of that is going to tie into our system as well or it kind of just depends on development.

Yeah, I don't know exactly what Edgeville is doing. I I deal with a manager a lot. He I don't know. Uh like is there a a capacity that they can dump into our system where we say no more or it's just a free-for-all at this point because No, we don't allow for free-for-alls. I know what you're saying. You know what I'm saying? Like is there like a Okay, you've done it. We we've given you enough and that they're they're max capacity right now. If I go ahead go ahead Tom. No, you go ahead. I was going to say that that they we're just we're not in a position at the present time to everything falls back to a county

when it comes to Edgefield County because I talked to the manager up there too is they Edgefield County has a certain portion that comes to us then they've got a certain portion that goes to a treatment facility in the town of Edgefield. So they can put capacity there, but capacity on our system they don't have. And Saluda County is building a wastewater treatment plant, but they're not giving up what they purchased from Edgeville. I'm sorry.

I don't know. You told that's that's a good way to put it. Yeah. Now, especially I think um on both residential and commercial for particular industrial are there changes that we need to look at considering in terms of and I don't know that it's necessarily us but code and requirements for equipment to to help alleviate that. Is there an efficiency? Is there anything to do? I don't know.

Yeah. You know, we're governed by a state agency, so they they got those numbers factored in. Okay. If you going to go in and just build one home, residential home, they're going to charge you 275, okay, per day, gallons, and they're going to go get a permit and it gets charged against us. So, we have to notify Aken County and they go ahead and put it on the books. So, we we deduct it when it goes on there. look like a development. I think that we'd look new development comes in, we y'all are okay with it, city's okay with it, and we got the capacity, then it's approved, then we'll just put it on the books.

Any other questions? I would just like to say thank you for what you do. I know it's not like a popular field to be in dealing with waste. I think it's fascinating. I'd love to learn more. I might have to sit down with you one day. I think it's super cool. It's such a basic need that people forget about. Uh so, thank you for what you guys do. It's highly appreciated. Yeah. Thank you. Appreciate it. I have one question. Please. Um

in your opinion, you've obviously been doing this a while. When do you think we reach max capacity? Uh, I can say that I did a report with Mr. Paradise here. We pull some numbers together back in January. Some of that some of the I don't like to use the word guesstimating on numbers, but sometimes you just don't know how, you know, you can have a 100 acres, but only 90 gets built out on, but we have to use that 100. Although that other 10 may not never develop, but we got to make sure we got that probably programmed in. So, uh, we was about 1.2 million gallons a day back in January. We're down to 713 now. So, it's moving pretty quick. At that pace there, we we'd probably be out next year this time compared to what we've seen. And we don't allow septic tanks. So yeah, that's one thing you remember. We don't allow sept tanks in the city. And this is um I know the answer is we can't build anymore, right? But the process for that and I don't know if Tommy if you know the answer to that or if that's something that maybe we can explore when we get together for continue ed. I'm not in terms of so somebody has a piece of property they file permits and they can't we've run out of capacity right so then it's a no and that's it will it come before us won't come before us

if we can't serve it um we we would if if we're going to tell the person up front right we can't serve you we're there's no reason to spend your money on the engineering there we can't serve you if they push it and it does come before you, I'll be sitting here saying the city does not recommend this because we do not have the capacity.

And and I understand what y'all are saying and believe me, I appreciate y'all and I think James appreciates and everybody in the city appreciates what y'all are doing is trying to make out look out for this issue. And this is really, I think, um, our responsibility as staff to make sure that if it comes before y'all that y'all that we provide y'all with that information because we we're kind of in the weeds on it.

No, we again um and I and I think Commissioner Ali has said it. Thank you so much for all that you all do. We hear it tossed around but didn't have even basic understanding of what it meant. So this has been I think tremendously helpful for all of us. Thank you for having me. Thank you. So basically everything we toured last week is already approved and happening. So it's already in these numbers. Correct. Just making sure as is alidate all of that is in because it's huge.

Yes. And so that may be next year or 10 years from now, but the city's going on the premise we're going to look out for what we already have.

Thank you. Are there any other questions for Mr. Paradise regards to will this discussion happen before city council as well? It's not scheduled to go before city council this time. All right. There being no other questions, we'll move on to the annexation request. Uh 25-02. All right.

She's recusing herself. if you'll say that. Yeah. So, Commissioner Wadell is recusing herself and um that recusal slip is on file. All right. Mr. Paradise, is there anything that you'd like to share with us about this annexation?

Uh yes, ma'am. This is for an annexation for a um 67.45 45 plus or minus acres off of Hammond Pond Road, parcel number 0021001 and they're requesting an R14 zoning as you will see here. Um this is about this is a u textbook case of a donut hole. Um it is uh surrounded by the areas of Renfield at Shanta Clair to the south which is owned R10, Rapids to the west which is zone PD which residential and um Savannah Baron to the north which is R14. This is you can see how it fits in there from and of course you've got a recommendation from plan from the planning department to um recommending annexation. Um from a planning aspect we could not think of a better use to go there than art 14 large lot. Um it fits in between in there with the rapids in Barreny and um then Renfield at Shannlair. This is the overhead. It's Woods Pond and I would think that's called Hammond's Pond. This is a a um conceptual layout um of what the developer has given us. There is nothing this is ana annexation um action. There is nothing I always have to say this for the record for

clarity. There is nothing that binds the developer or the city to this. You're not approving this. You're approving the recommending the R14 zoning. This is what the developer has indicated he would like to do with it if it is an exit R14. And it's always, as I tell them, it's always nice for y'all to have an idea of what the plan is. And um there was and y'all have had a lot of discussion about sewer um and I had discussions about sewer with Mr. Sutton and Mr. Clifford about this and we do feel like the city's position is we can provide service to this. Um it is the um lowest density housing largest lot. Um, we do not see these type subdivisions being annexed very often. It's something that the city needs. This type of subdivision and um and we can serve that with the sewer. So, that's not an issue. Any questions for me?

There being no questions for Mr. Paradise. We would ask that the um applicant come up. Please give your name and address and um we'll have you share anything that you'd like for us to know. The commissioners may ask you some questions and then we will make time for the public to come up and ask you questions and then ask you to come up at one time and respond to all public. Thank you for Thank you

having me tonight. My name is Will Kis 3129 Mont Peel Drive. August. Um, I think Tommy did a great job laying this out. It's 94 units, R14. They're going to be 75 foot wide units. That's pretty pretty big or lots. It's pretty big lots in our world. Um, with that larger lot, we're going to have a bigger, nicer house. Um, pay for that lot. Um the sewer line already goes right through the middle of this property. Goes right up the creek on the south side and then it's to the west of Hammond Pond right in right through that northern corner. So we already have North Augustus sewer here. um our our uh open space that's 22 acres of open space that's about 33% of of the development. So a large chunk of this develop devoted to open space lots standard lot will be 75 by approximately 200 a good deep lot as well. Y'all have any questions? to go to Tommy's questions. We know this isn't an approved plat. We're just, you know, looking at the annexation. Is the open space like wetland? Like you you can't really build on it because I like that they're large lot. I like the idea that we're doing something not small, but could it be built on?

So there is some wetland on the southern portion. A lot of it is uh kind of virgin growth forest on a you know hilly topography. So instead of wetland that can never be touched, it's rolling hilly topography. Especially through that kind of southern part of the compound.

Any other questions? So, the green space will just kind of be left as it is, right? No plans for trails or parks or anything. That's that's the assumption right now. Yeah, we do trails, but it's going to be open. That's down the road. Undernist. What? I see it says 15,000 square feet. Is that That's the lot size. That's a lot size. Yeah. What is that in acres? Uh in in acres 15,000 square feet is a third just over a third of an acre.

Don't make me do math up here. Yeah, I can't read either. Any other questions for Mr. Kas and we'll open it up. Um just really to capacity, you know, timeline. Is this something that would be 2026 or plan?

Yes. So for full buildout, we're probably going to be three years on 94 units. It's 25,850 gallons per day. So it's about 3% 14 or whatever. All right. If Miss Kagus, if you could um I'm not sure if we have any questions, but we'll see. Are there any uh questions from the public? All right. There being none, um any further discussion from the commissioners or a motion? I'll make the motion that we approve the annexation or recommend to council the annexation 25002 for tax partial number 0021201001 requested to be zoned R14 large lot single family residential.

So it's been moved. Second been moved and second. Seconded. Any further conversation. All right. There being none, all those in favor, please say I. I. All opposed. Thank you.

Commissioner. All right, Mr. Paradise. Um, thank you and your team for all of the hard work that went into our um tour of North Augusta uh with council. It was very informative and I think helpful. And so um again, as always, appreciate all that your entire team does for the betterment of of North Augusta. Is there anything that you like to share with us a highlight from the staff report? I'd actually do this much. Oh, good.

Let's go. Um th this this has been u final plat. You know we do you see all of these things come through and you approve the preliminary plat and then of course they have to go out and do the work to put it like y'all saw and then they have to come back and do the final plat with us and we've gotten five of those this month. Um, so two of them's already been approved. Martintown Ridge, that's 89 residential units in Forest Bluff section two with 92 single family detached homes there. So that's 181 residential lots as hitten. And then in the process, we're still reviewing um Hammond's at five notch, which is 64 residential lots and Renfield at Shannlair. Um phase A, which is 56 lots. That's about half of the whole thing. So, uh that's another 120 residential lots. Plus, we're reviewing the final plat for the high in the commercial section and the um that includes the apartments. So, you've got the apartments that will be coming online as well. So, in total over this last month, two months, you've got about 301 residential lots coming to the marketplace. in addition to the apartments going active about 300 apartments there at uh so yes there's a lot going on

well it would not be going on without you all and your hard work so again thank you and um I think and I appreciate you sharing that with us because that is also the type of activity that we don't see and is not discussed in this meeting so folks may not realize just how very busy you all are so again thank you for that. All right. Is there anything else? No, ma'am. All right.