County Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening. At this time, I will call to order the York County Council September 8, 2026 County Council meeting to order. Welcome you all here tonight. Our first order of business is to recognize the Honorable Tommy Atkins from District 3 for invocation and pledge of allegiance.

Let's pray. Dear Lord, thank you for letting us gather here tonight. Lord, be with us. Give us wisdom and knowledge as we carry on the people's business. Lord, thank you for all your many blessings and keep us all safe in our travel. In Jesus' name, amen.

Tonight we have the privilege of doing the oath of office for a number of our commissions. As most of you may or may not know, when we ask for folks to serve on boards and commissions, they do so of their time for free. They don't get paid. They rarely get thanked, and it is without having folks volunteer and serve in these capacities, we simply cannot get the job that needs to be done for the community. So we do have a good group. a new group as well. An ad hoc ag advisory committee that is being sworn in for the first time tonight. And I'll share a little bit more details on that one just a minute. But if I call your name, if you'll stand, come and stand in line in front of the podium, our county attorney will meet you up front and swear you into office. Tom Sims, Bethel Lake Wiley Land Acquisition and Preservation Parks District Board. Jeffrey Lyon, Culture and Heritage Commission, District 4. Kim Oxendine, Culture and Heritage Commission, District 5. April Hershey, Keep York County Beautiful at Large. Christopher Fetting, Board of Zoning Appeals, District 1. Sherry Wisher, Bailey Westbrook, Catherine Demore, Beth White, Dickie Harper, DaQuanta McKnight-Stowers, John Gordon, all with the Agriculture Ad Hoc Advisory Board. We do have packed house tonight. All of these boards are extremely important. They help guide recommendations to the council with respect to the Bethel Acquisition and Preservation District Board. They help determine how to use the funds that the community has determined to tax themselves for their park. The Culture and Heritage Commission helps with our museums and guiding those funds and programs. Keep York County Beautiful is an extremely important one, and it deals with how to deal with our litter problem in the county, which is tremendous, and how do we address that? And the Board of Zoning Appeals, which is in the paper a lot because it's extremely important, so we appreciate folks volunteering to serve on that board so that they can help us with our zoning decisions. The one that is new and one that I do want to just have a couple of comments on is the Ad Hoc Committee. I can't talk tonight. One of the things that I think is critically important is for all of us to understand how important agriculture is for our community. In York County, these stats were provided to us at the last council meeting. 983 farms in the last census data. Over 105,000 acres of cropland, forest land, pasture land, which is about a fourth of our property. Our farmers and ranchers recorded 127 million just in sales, and York County is number one for agritourism, one in greenhouse nursery, two in Christmas tree and woody crop production, number four in market hog production, four in equine, seventh in cattle. Extremely important part of our community. We're excited to have this group together to help give some perspective and help us guide our decisions going forward. Sorry for that long spiel, but this is an important night. We appreciate every single one of you. And now our county attorney will swear you in. And please don't leave before we get a picture. Thank you, Laura. Thank you. Welcome aboard.

Y'all can stand up here.

Thank you. Thank you all.

Thank you all.

We do not have any appearances tonight, so we move next to our public forum session. This is an opportunity for us to hear from the community about matters that involve county jurisdiction. What I will ask of you is if you are here and I call your name, if you'll come forward, give your name and address, and if you'll pay attention to the screen, it will let you know when the two minutes has expired, and we ask that your comments Cease then. This is not an opportunity for back and forth. A lot of folks will ask questions. We don't typically do that. We don't do that. We hear from you, and then we can ask management later at the non-agenda comments to address anything that needs to be addressed. We have to get through our active docket, but it is important for us to hear from you and to hear from our community. If you are here about an item that is on the public hearing agenda, I will ask that you wait and reserve those comments for the public hearing. You will not be limited in time at that juncture, and it will be contemporaneous in the transcript with your comments. So I'm trying to see. I don't think that there's anyone here for public hearing. First individual is Frank Jernak.

My name is Frank . I live in Fort Mill. Tonight I want to speak about three words that should guide every person who takes a note to public office. Preserve, protect, defend. We often hear those words in connection with our Constitution, but they are not simply words for a ceremony. They are of responsibility. Preserve our Constitution means preserving the rule of law. To protect it means protecting the rights of citizens from government overreach. To defend it means standing up for the law, even when it's difficult, unpopular, or inconvenient. That responsibility brings us directly to the situation involving Silphab Solar and the York County Board of Zoning Appeals. Judge William McKinnon recently affirmed the BCA decision in all respects and denies Silphab's appeal and its reconsideration appeal. That ruling matters because this is bigger than SOFA. It's about whether our laws mean what they say. It's about whether citizens can trust their government to follow the rules that the government itself has enacted. I'm not asking this council to make a decision based on emotion, politics, or personal opinion. I am asking you to follow the law. That is not an attack on business, nor is it an attack on economic development. Your county deserves a government where the same rules apply to everyone. So tonight, I ask each member of this council, will you preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution by upholding the law in respect of Judge McKenna's ruling? It is about whether the people of your county can trust their government to do what the law requires. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. John Wirth.

Don Worth, I live at 731 Amberley Crossing in Fort Mill. Chemical manufacturing is clearly defined in the zoning code as follows. A land use category for industrial establishments engaged in the transformation of organic and inorganic raw materials by a chemical process and the formulation of products. The definition is process-based. The key is how the product is made, not what the product is. Solar cell production fits this definition exactly. Solar cells are not assembled from finished parts. Silicon wafers are chemically transformed into photovoltaic cells through multiple chemical reaction processes, including etching by acids, diffusion by phosphorus oxychloride, and silicon deposition by silane gas. These chemical reactions permanently alter the physical and chemical properties of the raw wafer. This is what the code defined as chemical manufacturing. This matters since chemical manufacturing is only permitted in heavy industrial zones according to York County zoning. It is not permitted in light industrial. The solar cell production lines require chemical storage tanks, acid scrubbers, air and wastewater permits, and specialized equipment designed for chemical reactions. The zoning definition, the process, and the permitting requirements all lead to one unavoidable conclusion. Solar cell production is chemical manufacturing, and chemical manufacturing is not allowed in light industrial. Therefore, it is not permitted at SILFAB. SILFAB does not get to relabel chemical manufacturing as something else. Given the recent court decision, chemical manufacturing is further evidence solar panel manufacturing does not belong in light industrial zones. Thank you. I have some handouts for you.

Thank you, sir. Deborah Zabor.

Hello, I'm Debbie Zaber at 202 East Skyhawk Drive, York. So when a county, when the countywide, I can't talk either tonight, when a countywide split zoning change is being proposed because of only what was told at the last meeting, two county owners, every resident should be asking one question. Why can't those two property owners simply follow the rezoning laws that we have today? But the last council meeting, I was listening to a very lengthy explanation of the split zoning proposal. as i understand it when a property has more than one zoning designation the zoning whatever the terminology is the zoning covering the majority of the property would now be applied to the entire parcel so as i listened i couldn't understand why so much time and effort was being spent changing and talking about the split zoning rules for only two property owners i mean surely those two people can just go and follow the rules and we can move on the longer the discussion continued the more the more concerned I became that this could create a loophole for QTS or other large data developers, or any kind of developer. So I immediately wondered whether QTS, additional 400 plus acres, contain enough industrial zone land, and that's what started this process. So your county adopted, of course, a nine-month moratorium so we could pause, study the consequences, and do the right thing, and thank you all for that, by the way. This creates more suspicion and concern and less trust now that people are sneaking around the side of us. Let us do our job. Let you guys do your job for the nine months and move on. I don't know why this was brought up. I don't know what they're trying to accomplish. And that's where I got very, very suspicious. So I respectfully ask you to vote no to propose that decision until the public knows exactly who benefits and which properties are affected. Thank you.

Thank you, ma'am. Chris Thompson.

I'm not going to forget this time. Chris Thompson, 345 Vanderbilt Drive in York. I'm here to kind of piggyback off of what she was talking about is the split zoning. And these are proposed ordinance changes to chapters 154 and 155 of the zoning code dealing with the split zone properties. While I understand that the goal is to streamline these properties, there's a massive loophole that remains in tonight's text on the agenda. In July, this council approved Councilman Adkins' amendment to limit this ordinance strictly to residential categories. Yet, for tonight's second reading, that residential restriction is only included in Chapter 154. It is completely missing in Chapter 155. As written, Chapter 155 creates an administrative shortcut. It allows a split zone property to take on the rules of its largest parcel. This means if a property, if the property's largest parcel is industrial, then the entire property instantly inherits the industrial rules. Industrial boundaries can then expand into our neighborhoods by default without the standard rezoning process. This brings me to my deepest concern. This ordinance appears to entirely eliminate public scrutiny. And right now, expanding an industrial use requires a formal rezoning process with mandatory public notice and public hearings where taxpayers have a seat at the table. If you pass this as written, that safety net seems to disappear. It becomes an automatic sign off behind closed doors. There's no public notice, no neighborhood input and no Democratic oversight. Now, if I'm wrong, please point out exactly where this ordinance guarantees that the public oversight will remain a component of this decision. Council Adkins' amendment was meant to protect the residents from this very thing. And we are not asking you to kill the ordinance. We are asking you to honor the clear intent that that amendment intended and to preserve the right of the people to have a voice.

Thank you, ma'am. Thank you. Laura Sawyer.

Hi, I'm Laura Sawyer, 1086 Dorsey Drive, Fort Mill. I am the mama of a first grader at Flint Hill Elementary. I have sent y'all multiple emails over the last few years, but I sent you this specific email on the evening of March 5th. But I want to stand here today and read it out loud to make sure that I am heard. This morning, four minutes after we put my six-year-old on the school bus at 6.40 a.m., I got a text from a neighbor that the police had been called to Silphab. Over the next 20 minutes, lots of our neighborhood parents started receiving similar texts, and we're trying to figure out what to do and how to get our kids. We eventually heard from FMSD at 7.19 a.m. that they were closing school and that they'd be in touch with more soon. Thankfully, I have an air tag in my son's backpack and some of the kids in our neighborhood have watches because for the next 39 minutes, we had no official word on what was going on or where our children were. Let me be very clear. Fort Mill School District appropriately handled a nightmare of a situation this morning, a nightmare of a situation that this county and your choices have put them in after what I filled out after I filled out what I hope is the very first and very last reunification form I will ever complete and went through a very well managed process to pick up my baby. I cried big tears and personally thanked Gray Young for taking this seriously. I was so proud to be an FMSD parent after leaving Pleasant Knoll that morning. It doesn't change the fact that it should never have happened. What York County has continued to allow at SILFAB is not only careless and wrong, it is illegal and it must stop. I understand that it may feel like we're too far down the wrong side of this to turn it over, but I want to tell you that it's not. Many of you are men and women of faith. All of you are parents and grandparents. I promise you that no matter what the backlash is, it is never too late to do the right thing. This will be a defining moment at the end of your life. Please make the right choice. Revoke the CO. Admit that you were wrong. Accept the consequences. I am quite literally begging you to save our children and our town. Thank you.

Thank you, ma'am. Anita Green.

Hi, my name's Anita Green. I live in Allison Acres subdivision in Rock Hill. Mainly what I'm gonna ask about tonight is who is responsible? What happens if a data center is built near your home and over time contamination affects the air, soil, or groundwater on your property? Could your land eventually become so contaminated it's unsafe or unlivable? If this happens, who is responsible for the cleanup? Who pays for the loss of the property value? Who happens and what happens to the families who have lived on that land for generations? These are questions that should be answered before a data center is placed next to a residential neighborhood. Data centers can involve large amounts of electricity, water, fuel, cooling systems, backup generators, industrial chemicals, construction activity, and other infrastructures. This means that careful environmental monitoring and strong safeguards are essential. Is that monitoring occurring during construction? Is it going to occur once I start being operational? Who is ultimately responsible when a data center causes environmental damage? Will property owners be fully protected? Will contaminated groundwater be restored? Will affected families receive compensation for diminished property values? And will the government require cleanup before residents are exposed to unacceptable risk? How many times does this have to occur before the business is shut down? We should not wait until contamination is discovered to ask these questions. With a hyperscale data center being constructed a quarter of a mile from my home, I want answers. I want guarantees. I want protections for stronger protections for independent environmental studies, continuous monitoring, transparent reporting, and meaningful public participation. Our homes are not disposable. Our land is not disposable. And our water is not disposable. This is why data centers should be carefully evaluated and appropriately located away from residential neighborhoods. It's kind of too late for the one that we have right now. We must continue asking these questions. We demand independent environmental monitoring. We must protect our groundwater, our air, our property, our quality of life, and we must shut down businesses that cause harm.

Thank you, ma'am. Thank you. Thank you. Chuck Green.

Hello, council. My name's Chuck Green. I live in House and Acres subdivision, Rock Hill. Recently, I was looking around at the comprehensive plan for the county, the 2035 plan, or whatever it's called. And out of curiosity, I decided to look at the property where the current data center is going on now. And if I am reading this map right, that property has three future land use designations according to the plan. One is town center. One is regional employment center. And there's a small section of residential in there, it looks like. So I wish I had time to read this. But I printed the town center and the regional employment center off here. And I was looking at the character, the building typology, the connectivity, and the development attributes, and then, of course, the kind of land uses that can go in there. And I really wish I had time to read this. But when you go and look at what's on that property right now with that data center, it is 180 degrees opposite of everything that this character, building, connectivity, and attributes talk about. And it is traveling at light speed in the other direction. If you had followed this and put On that property, what this describes, every citizen in York County would be content, happy, and excited about what went on that property. But that is not what's there. It don't meet any of this stuff. It ain't even close. And it's ruined the lives of the people that live around it. What good was this document? This was a good document. It looks like a pretty good plan. What good is it if you're going to put all that work into it and then not follow it? And now that it's done, what are you going to do about it? Are you going to work hard to undo the mistake you made? Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Rebecca Sicci.

Hi, my name's Rebecca Sitchy. I live off Hands Mill Highway in the Allison Acres community of Rock Hill. My concern tonight is addressing transparency. As many people have talked about the data center concerns and where you've heard me previously speak about, that is a big concern of mine, but specifically when I look at the agenda for tonight's meeting, it just piqued my interest again on this word transparency. Tonight's agenda presented multiple project names, six in total, Project Blue Mako, Project Elevate, Project Bold, Project Pear, Project Gateway, and Project Utopia, all with no explanation of what these projects are actually. For residents trying to stay informed, this has come to a constant guessing game. Are these manufacturing projects? Are they warehouses? Are they data centers? Are they large commercial developments? Maybe even a countywide bike path being established. We should not have to search the internet, dig through previous agendas, or speculate just to understand what our county council is discussing. The agenda itself is 12 pages long. That seems long. Adding one sentence describing each project is not too much to ask. It is no different than using an acronym in a formal letter or a paper. The first time you use it, you define it. A simple description of what the project type is, general location, and purpose would provide residents basic context without compromising legitimate confidential negotiations. The public should not have to decode its own government agenda. I'm asking council to adopt a simple practice going forward when project code names are placed on a public agenda, provide a brief plain language description alongside them so that we understand what they are. Transparency should not depend on how good residents are guessing. Thank you.

Thank you, ma'am. That concludes our public forum session tonight. We do appreciate individuals coming out and sharing their concerns with the council. Do we have a motion on consent agenda? Motion to approve.

Second.

Motion and a second. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, the consent agenda is approved. We move now to our first public hearing item. Rezoning action. Council to hold a public hearing and consider first reading case numbers 26-23, tax map number 2920000010 to rezone from RMX 20 to GC 8.4 acres in District 3.

Even Council. This property might look familiar. We recently rezone the central portion of this property for residential. This portion, however, along Alexander Love Highway is going from residential to commercial. The purpose of that is to subdivide this roughly eight acre space and then create two new parcels, one of them for retail sales and the other one to market for future use, again, remaining commercial. Here's the site plan. Any development here will have to have room for well and septic because they don't want to be annexed and use the city utilities. Zoning districts, again, this is kind of a jurisdiction donut hole. So we have lots of residential zones here with some commercial along the highway. And feature land use, again, because we're in a donut hole, we have that municipal infill. We kind of defer to what the city of York is looking for, and they define it as a community center. Community center is very close to how we define community center in our own designations, which does align with the request of the GC zoning district. As such, staff recommends approval, planning commission also unanimously recommended approval. And this request will continue the kind of commercial corridor that's formed using that food line as a grocery anchor retail site.

Thank you, sir. Any questions for staff?

I do have one question. So this is, you have nine to play golf?

Yes.

Yeah. And is that sporting goods, basically?

Yes, sir.

Okay. Retail? All right. Okay.

All right. Thanks. I would like to ask, RMX 20, what's the density threshold? What is that per acre? Just ballpark it.

That's two units per acre.

OK. Any other questions? Thank you, sir. Is there anyone here who wishes to speak against this rezoning? Is there anyone who wishes to speak in favor?

Motion to close. Second.

Motion and a second to close public hearing. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? You want discussion on closing? I'm sorry. You voted no on closing?

I voted yes.

OK. So we close the public hearing. Do we have a new motion?

Motion to approve. Second.

Motion and a second. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, motion carries. Karen, did we get that right? Okay. You got me to sidetrack. I wondered if we voted on it. Our second public hearing is rezoning action. Council to hold a public hearing and consider first reading case number 26-24, tax map number 670-00-00-020-30-008. Rezone from UD to RMX 10.97 acres in District 4.

Yeah, so there are three parcels here. They're all vacant, and they all constitute about an acre. So they're all about 10,000 square foot in size. And this is all along Porter Road, just across from the industrial district there in Rock Hill. So the applicant proposes to construct single family homes on each of these vacant lots. And to do that, they need to rezone to the lowest common denominator residential district that would allow it. which you can see has happened a lot here on Porter Road. A lot of these are, these were once all UD properties, but over time have all rezoned into residential to accommodate their dwelling. A lot of the RSF 30 you see was part of the rezoning, UD rezoning project from about 10 years ago. And the idea of making them RSF 30, despite being quite a bit smaller than that, is to allow the manufactured homes that pre-existed on the lot Otherwise, we have rezoned some of these recently, some of these at the top here, into RMX 6, again, to accommodate single-family homes. We have this area designated for municipal infill. Of course, we'd like to look at what City of Rock Hill intends here, and they have it for regional employment. Staff and Planning Commission recommend approval. While this is not directly consistent with City of Rock Hill's expectations in the regional employment designation, when we confer to their staff, it does align with our other goals of the comprehensive plan, given that these lots are located in an already established neighborhood where a residential district would be appropriate, and those uses that are already in UD would not be appropriate.

Thank you, sir. Any questions for staff?

So if we do this rezoning, they can't subdivide any parts of it again on a single family?

Yeah, as they are, they're just too small.

And no mobile home or marginal home?

Not on this designation. All right, thank you.

Any other questions? Thank you, sir. Is there anyone here who wishes to speak against this rezoning? Is there anyone who wishes to speak in favor?

Move to close. Second.

Motion and a second to close public hearing. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Public hearing is closed. Do we have a new motion?

Motion to approve. Second.

Motion and a second. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, motion is approved. Move now to our next public hearing item. Rezoning action. Council to hold a public hearing to consider first reading case number 26-25, tax map number 670000048 to rezone from UD to RMX 6.21 acres in District 4.

So this might look very familiar. This is actually a tag-along from the other request, that case 2624. However, this property, because it is too small to go into RMX 10, instead has to go into RMX 6. And it's also a bit off of Porter Road there. It's off Ridley Street instead. Again, it's vacant. The idea is to build a single-family home. We talked about the zoning and future land use and the future land use according to the city. And it also received the same approval from both staff and planning commission.

Any questions for staff?

I meant to ask you this on the last one. Are we still allowing them to go from UD to this zoning absolutely free without a fee?

Yeah, we made sure that it would be waived.

Thank you.

With this one, RMX 6, is that the one that allows townhomes?

It would. However, this is only a single lot, and it's quite small.

So it would only allow for one home, or is there any other? One home would be consistent with what's around it, right? Right, yeah. Any other questions? All right, thank you, sir. Anyone here wish to speak against this rezoning? If you'll come forward and give your name and address.

Good evening. My name is Erica Wagner and I live at 217 Ridley, a block away. So 76 days ago, I moved to South Carolina from Virginia. I closed on a one acre home on 217 Ridley. I reasonably relied on the certificate of occupancy as assurance that the building requirements were met for my new home. I have paperwork. I have everything I'm saying I have here to provide to you guys. But the bottom line is, okay, the property was built on a flat parcel and It doesn't have any drainage. It's absent of any drainage whatsoever. No features. After every rain, I have significant standing water that pools for prolonged amounts of time within feet of my foundation. I initially addressed this with the builder. prior to buying it and then after I stayed on him, he acknowledged in an email that is in my packet that there's nowhere for the water to run and it's not within the scope of his project. So then I submitted some FOIAs. I'm new to the area, so I'm still learning. It seems like the area I'm living in is like the Bermuda Triangle almost because, you know, my utilities are Rock Hill, but my garbage is, you know, so I'm still learning who does what, okay? I submitted a FOIA, though, because I did my research and I felt like they cleared this land. The pictures that you're showing up here are not showing you actually that it's nothing but heavily wooded trees. Okay, so my builder went and cleared the land. I'm getting off track. I got to read. Otherwise, I'll lose track. But so, so after the builder said, no, that's not his problem. Then I submitted a FOIA to South Carolina. D. E. S. And I said, hey, I'd like to review any associated permits, inspections, records, anything that happened for the construction of my home. And they responded, and it's in my packet, that they don't have anything. So then I contacted Stormwater Compliance, who came out and acknowledged that the foundation, and this is in my packet, the foundation of my home sits lower than the backyard, the neighboring house is higher than my home, and the yard has no drainage features. I then spoke to a man named Ethan at York County Planning Engineering, and he told me my property slipped through the cracks. He said that South Carolina DES permit for land disturbing activities, which would have inspected clearing the lot, grading, and excavation activities was not done. He said, but I asked him to put it in writing, he wouldn't. I didn't know his last name, but his name is Ethan. So, you know, everyone told me that because the certificate of occupancy was already closed, the permit was closed, it's my problem now, and it's a civil matter, okay? And so my concern, you know, I've been here 76 days. I've gone from purchasing a county-approved newly-construction home to paying for excavation corrective work, searching for inspection documents that cannot be produced, and being told this is not something York County will address. And so now I'm shopping for civil litigation lawyers, okay? And why am I here? Well, because now we're getting ready to do this all over, okay? And I feel like because of the, Rock Hill is not paying attention and kind of York County, it seems like an unincorporated area because we're so close to Rock Hill that nobody's really looking at it. And it concerns me when I saw the signs that said, hey, you're getting ready to do this to 253 Ridley. That's why I'm here because, you know, Because my thing is, that property is substantially similar to my property, how it looked. It's heavily wooded. It's requiring significant clearing and site preparation. So before this process is repeated, I'm just asking, what kind of safeguards Does York County have to ensure that grading, drainage, inspections, permits, supporting documents are correct before the certificate of occupancy? Because once the certificate of occupancy comes, I'm on my own. And what can a homeowner do? My house is under warranty for a year for my dishwasher. But not my backyard, my backyard is unusable. I moved to York County because my daughter and my grandbabies are here, okay? So I want them to play in the backyard, right? And we can't even go out there. West Nile is getting ready to start in my backyard. So again, that's why I just feel like growth is good, but oversight of infrastructure, no oversight and no infrastructure changes, that has to grow too. I want to keep, I got pictures, I've got all kinds of stuff here. I would have brought everybody one, but I only brought one copy.

Thank you, ma'am. If you want to leave copies, our clerk can make sure we get copies. I will, since you're new to the area, just explain our process. And for any folks who were here, our rezoning process requires three readings and a public hearing. This is the first reading. And so they're assuming this were to pass tonight. There still are two additional readings that would have to be done, additional time for folks to collect information. I'm just sharing that that's how this process works. Is there anyone here who, anyone else who wishes to speak against this rezoning? Anyone wish to speak in favor?

Hi, my name is Kong Zhao. I'm representing the owner of this piece of land.

What is your address again? 217.

Okay, so you are, I looked up, you are north of Annie Street, like one block away.

I'm on the same block.

Yeah, I mean.

Yeah, right over, second to the last one. Before Clara.

Before Clara. Okay, so north of Annie, on the right of Ridley. Okay, so we are one block away, like?

Yes.

Okay. I can't really, I feel sorry about your situation, but I cannot speak the, Because every street, every lot, the slope or the dirt is different. So I cannot speak for your situation, but really feel sorry. The builder I use, he's a born and raised in Rock Hill. And he's been doing business here probably 15 to 20 years. The company is the Rock Hill Smith family. And what we usually do is we validate the land, the dirt, and also definitely pass all the regulations of your county or city of Rock Hill. And grading is a big part. Again, I cannot speak who the builder you use or your situation or the infrastructure on the street. But we haven't really faced that situation before, even though we cleared heavy wounds before, definitely. But again, this is a residential neighborhood, and many laws, including mine, they are kind of the grandpa code, like UD. So in order to develop that, we just have to rezone into the current zoning, which the zoning staff recommended for this particular one is the RMX 6. So according to the current zoning regulations, we are applying the zoning to that. And I believe the lot width is 80 feet. So very narrow. The only possible use is one single family house. Yeah.

Thank you, sir. Is there anyone else who wishes to speak in favor?

Move to close. Second.

Motion and a second to close public hearing. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, public hearing is closed. Do we have a new motion?

Motion to approve. Second.

We have a motion and a second to approve. Any discussion? Mr. Roddy?

Welcome to York County. I know it's a terrible way to welcome you home. Just to give you a little bit of background about the UD zoning and what we're going through. Several years ago, we decided to get rid of the UD zoning, and that's what this property is, because there were so many things that you could put in UD that we didn't want. primarily near residential areas. So we allow residents to come forth and zone out of UD into a residential zone. So that's what we're doing here. I think what will help you in your situation is we have to work with the building. We have to make sure our builders who are coming into our county building homes, making sure that things like your situation doesn't slip through the cracks. And I know it doesn't comfort you to know that part, but I'm willing to work with our staff, work with you to see what we can do to hold that builder somewhat responsible. Because like I say, you have a warranty on your home, but what about your yard and land situation? I don't know if we have something in our codes or that comes with a new construction home because we've had neighborhoods where the builder just has not lived up to our expectations but what can we do to hold that builder accountable for things like this if a home is flooding or or standing water that they didn't do the topography so that you have run off to get to whether it's a close creek storm drain or things like that so We need to get with our staff and get with you and your builder to find out where did we miss this at. Because topography in home building is huge because water has to go somewhere. It's going to rain and your property shouldn't take on water from another neighbor's property. So I think that's where we need to kind of work to smooth that out. But this lot being further away from you wouldn't have any bearing on your property. So we're going to work with you and your builder, and I'm going to get with staff to see what kind of recourse we would have, even for in the future, because this is going to happen again. Something's going to slip through the crack, and we need to put some measures in place to prevent this, because she shouldn't have to deal with this on her own, especially being a new construction.

So ma'am, I'm sorry, and this is one of the rude things I have to do as a council member up here, is we don't allow the back and forth, even though he's addressing you. You certainly can leave your telephone number and your contact information with the clerk, and she can get it to the council and to your district representative, especially, so that y'all can continue the conversation.

So yeah, we're going to move to approve it.

OK, any other discussion? All right, first reading. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. We move now to item number four of our public hearing agenda, rezoning action. Council to hold a public hearing and consider first reading case number 26-26, tax map number 477000008 to rezone from ID to GC 9.63 acres in District 2.

All right, so this is a kind of median parcel that's about nine acres, kind of between Kingsbury Ridge Road and Highway 557, west of Lake Wiley, but Clover, kind of along the big major commuter corridor there. So the applicant's proposing to take this space and redevelop it into a kind of multi-structure retail center, again, kind of taking advantage of the three separate access ways from the major roads around it. This area is changing a lot due to a pennies project that's come through. A lot of the right-of-way has changed. The public parcels here. Ridge Road is no longer going to intersect with 557 and conclude in a cul-de-sac. And Kingsbury is being realigned as well as there are going to be two lights now at Kingsbury and another one at the intersection with Riddle Mill and Bethel School. Here's the conceptual site plan that was submitted. Again, multi-structures, and this idea to provide a good slew of different business services, including some things like gas station and convenience, So this active zone is actually, a lot of it is industrial. A lot of this has been zone industrial since the inception of zoning. Probably tag along of the fact this is a lot of shared ownership property and probably from some pre-existing structures. There's also a concrete plant that is active here on the corner of Riddle Mill and Highway 557. And Future Land Use Plan actually has this area as totally rural residential. So staff and planning commission both recommend approval. While this is not consistent with comp plan feature land use map, this area is changing really profoundly with the road improvements, especially with the new signals that are coming in. And that expected change really changed the character and the expectations when the comp plan was created. So locating these retail uses here could actually reduce some of the trips of people traveling eastbound to Lake Wylie and relieve congestion in that area as well. Again, this parcel with these three major roads kind of encircling it, it's not really great for residential uses, but could benefit from commercial space. It will also remove this industrial zone parcel that is not appropriate for the corridor.

Any questions for staff?

I do. Can you go back and show the actual site plan where you ... Okay. So there, where are all the ins and outs?

Yeah. I mean, the idea would, um, certainly again, this is purely conceptual here. They actually have only drawn an access way off of, um, this is actually Kingsbury and I believe they would probably have one off Ridge road, considering it would be pretty much an exclusive, um, drive for them.

So there's two.

This is purely conceptual plan. They might also have want some off Highway 57 here lining up with the pre-existing roadways. But all this will be decided with commercial site design.

Are you going to require TIA?

Certainly.

Okay, but we have to approve it now before all this information comes out?

Not necessarily. You have the right to defer until TIA is conducted.

OK, I just am concerned about a lot of traffic there and these different places. OK, I got an idea. Thank you.

Yeah, I've got a quick question too. So I know this is just basically an overview design or view. From parking perspective on this thing here, looking at the size of the building based on also the size of the lot, do you envision there would be enough parking to build support?

So, yeah, a lot of our parking requirements are dependent on the actual type of business, so a lot of that might have to be figured out once they have specific tenants in mind and, again, once we get to commercial site design. But that will certainly be a limiting factor for the space. Right.

Is parking that good? Any other questions? I was curious about, can you go back to the comp plan? The one that showed the surrounding, I'm sorry, where the purple. So is everything purple still industrial? All of that is? But you're saying it's owned by a similar ownership?

Yeah, especially a lot of these, I know the ones around Kingsbury are.

And so it's currently zoned industrial, but our comp plan is proposing residential?

Yeah, well, the comp plan is, yeah, again, aspirational, trying to remove this industrial space that, you know, isn't really great industrial space, especially considering the floodplain here. Again, road access problems.

Okay, any other questions? Thank you, sir. Anyone here wish to speak against this rezoning? If you would come and give your name and address before you begin speaking.

I'm not, my name's Anita Green again from 1746 Wedgefield Drive, Rock Hill, South Carolina. I'm really speaking out more against the fact that we continue to seem to have rezoning requests for things that do not align with the future land map designation. If we're not gonna stick with the 2035 proposal that we have, why do we have it? This is saying we're gonna do it because of this current road improvements. Well, let's wait for those current road improvements to occur before we do anything to zone something commercial. We seem to be having a lot of commercial zonings and stuff going into our rural areas that we'd rather not have. We already have tons of traffic that you can't even get back and forth to your home in a reasonable time between the Newport area to Lake Wiley or even into Rock Hill. It's crazy. So again, if we're going to keep rezoning things differently than what the 2035 plan is showing, then maybe we need to update the 2035 plan and roll that out for the people to see.

Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Anyone else wish to speak against?

Hi, thank you for letting me come tonight. My name is Alexis Wilcox, 6285 Ridge Road, really close to the site that this is being proposed. So I've been a York County resident for three months, moved here to get out of the hustle and bustle of Charlotte. So imagine the look on my face when a gas station is about to get put in right there. So I am strongly opposed to this. First, the rezoning is not consistent with the future land use map, and that land use map was utilized when I purchased my home to see where we're gonna be at, what am I gonna look for for the future of my children. And so, yeah, this is not this is not consistent. So the property is designated for future rural residential and because there's a improved road project that can't become like the justification for abandoning that plan that the future land use map that was put in place. So. We want to give back our children the opportunity to live in a rural community like my husband and I once did. So I'm a numbers person, so I just want to talk numbers. I know we kind of talked about traffic and safety. So reports say that there is 9000 average daily trips on Ridge Road and there are 10,200 on Highway 557. If you refer to the email that I sent you guys, I kept saying Highway 55. Like I said, I'm a new resident. Bear with me. So that's a combined 19,200 trips. um and this is before adding the traffic that this would create in that corridor um and then most importantly about the tier 2 traffic study being required during a civil construction and plan review i believe that's kind of backwards maybe i feel like in order to make any sort of decisions about this we need to look at sufficient traffic turning movements sight distance and safety impacts Another personal concern I have is related to school bus safety. This is a personal one for mine because I'm so close to them. People on Ridge Road fly. And when that happens and I'm out there with my three different children getting on and off the bus, that's already a scary situation. And even though this project doesn't create additional impact from students and schools, that doesn't necessarily mean it doesn't have an impact on the children that already live there. And I did read that that site is supposed to have 300 parking spots, but I'm not sure about that. So finally, I want Council to understand that this is not simply a vote on the concept drawing for this particular property. I think that this request to change the property to general commercial is actually much broader than I think what it looks like on the surface. And it's kind of setting a precedent for that entire intersection and area to all become general commercial. And I just don't think the pennies for progress is the justification for that. So I respectfully ask that It's denied, but then I also ask that you at least complete the tier 2 traffic study before and then it fully evaluate that and For any further discussions, so that's what I got. Thank you.

Thank you ma'am anyone else I

My name is Pat Cook. I am a member of Mount Harmony United Methodist Church, and I think that's our church right there. And I'm not here necessarily to speak for against the rezoning, but we were very interested to see be able to understand exactly what's happening here, and especially with the cul-de-sac there. And it looks like it's getting real close to our church. We're going to be able to get more detailed information, picture, and I agree. The traffic on Ridge Road is terrible. I mean, it's a speedway. And we have a food distribution at our church, and it's tough because cars refuse to slow down as people try to come into the... a parking lot so we we know what traffic is like in that area and this seems to me that it's really just going to increase the amount of traffic so i just wanted to make that known and that's one of the reasons we're here to find out more information and looking at this is a lot more than i even thought might be happening in that area so um Can we get pictures of this or some other information to go along with that?

Yes, ma'am. If you'll check with our clerk, and you certainly can speak with the planning director as well as our staff to get copies of what was available and to ask questions, more specific questions about them. Thank you. Yes, ma'am.

My name is Chuck Green. I live in the House and Acres subdivision in Rock Hill. Again, just like with the data center, went totally against the comprehensive plan for 2035, this obviously is going against it as the plan calls for a designation of rural residential. Now, I told you earlier that recently I was going over this document. And if I remember correctly, right in the beginning of the document, there's a purpose statement. And it has, of course, all the purposes for all the work that was done that went into this. And I want to remind you that one of the main goals in that purpose statement that is there, and I think a lot of you, maybe most of y'all, were in the process of doing this or participated in this, but one of the main goals is to preserve the rural character of York County. One of the main goals. Everything that's going on is doing anything but preserving the rural character of our county. Now, believe it or not, there are a lot of people who live in this county that really want to preserve the rural character of where we live. We don't necessarily want all this growth. Everybody don't think growth is wonderful, and businesses everywhere, and traffic, and you can't get anywhere, and all this stuff. I mean, some of that's necessary. That's why this comprehensive plan is really a pretty good document. It tries to manage all of that. And here, again, you want to go against that. The very thing that you have developed, it kind of keeps all this in control. So I urge you, in rare cases, should you go against your document for your comprehensive plan for future land use. Thank you.

CHRISTIE WOODARD- Does anyone else wish to speak against?

In city 1923 hands Mill highway. My question can we go back to I guess the pipeline. Why do we keep approving stuff on the main corridors without the acceleration lanes. I mean apartment buildings 7 11. We're on a two-lane road going 45, 50 miles an hour, and everybody's got to jam on their brakes because somebody wants to pull into 7-Eleven for a Slurpee. If we don't have enough room to put a deacceleration lane there for them to get off and turn in safely, then we shouldn't be approving things like this. And this may have it eventually, but if there's. We've got an entrance coming in off highway 557. We just. We just widen it to 2 lanes. If everybody's got a slam on their brakes to get into this. Complex that I mean, that that's ridiculous. Tell the builder that they have to build in the acceleration lane within their complex. In order to allow for traffic to to flow properly. That's all I got. But it's happening all over the county. And that's the reason for traffic. Everywhere in the morning, everybody's blaming on their brakes to make a right turn to get into somewhere. More deacceleration lanes get people off the road. Thank you.

Anyone else wish to speak against? Is there anyone here who wishes to speak in favor?

We're closed. Second.

Motion and a second to close public hearing. Any discussion? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, public hearing is closed. Do we have a new motion?

Motion to approve.

Second. So we get to discussion.

Motion and a second. Any discussion?

Would you like to start? I mean, so the traffic study will be done during the design portion of this. Any improvements that are needed at that time will be designed. There's no sense in going through all of that until they know that they've got an opportunity to actually be able to build on the property. I particularly would rather this be industrial, stay industrial, and we get some big industrial projects there. I don't think that's in the best interest of the community. to have an industrial complex there. I think commercial is much better, is much better suited for the community. But, you know, so if it doesn't go through, you know, I don't know what they'll end up with, but with that all being industrial, I had the same question y'all had. I was wondering how this got to be, you know, rural residential in the future land use plan when it was all industrial and it's been industrial for so many years um i know that the uh we're getting ready to update the comprehensive plan uh to comply with as the county changes so this may become something else other than that but it may have just been rural since the beginning of future land use plans but uh I'm just in favor of commercial. It helps alleviate some of the traffic from the Lake Wiley area for the people that are coming through here. Gives the opportunity for people to not have to drive back over into the areas that have so much traffic and things going on. But that's where I'm at with it.

Another discussion? Yes, please. So this is zoned ID. And I guess I have some questions for staff if you can confirm this. So ID, the property owner has basically vested rights in the property. So they own the land. They have uses for the land by right, right? They're asking us to rezone it. But if we don't rezone it, correct me if I'm wrong, please, but This property could have heavy manufacturing and industrial operations. It could have mining, waste management uses, warehousing, wholesale, distribution, manufacturing services with limited accessory retail, certain commercial retail uses, general farming and greenhouses, animal hospitals, veterinary clinics, keeping or raising animals, including kennels and equestrian facilities, schools and churches, outdoor recreational facilities, certain institutional care emergency facilities. And that may be it. Yeah. And then there's some other permitted uses with approval. Is that correct? Yes. OK. So by right, the property owner can do these things. OK. Thank you for clarifying that.

Any other discussion?

Clarify, which Jonathan may have to do this. You wasn't around. How did that get, if this land was industrial, how did it get put in the comprehensive plan that way?

The comprehensive plan is both descriptive but also aspirational. As you guys have expressed, maybe this isn't a great space for industrial zoning. The comprehensive plan was trying to reflect that and designate it for rural development instead.

I can add to that I'm also suspicious about that designation given the existing industrial zoning district and how large it is right it's not just one parcel it's a it's a big swath so we'll do a follow-up report on that my suspicion is that area was changed during the update and I want to confirm that Because there were areas in District 2 that changed quite a bit, especially along Kingsbury. The future land use designation changed during that update. So we'll get back to you on that exactly when that designation is added.

I have a quick comment question. So when we did the, and I can't remember off the top of my head, when we do these comprehensive land use plans, do we specifically talk to the property owner to tell them what we're designating their land for in the future? Or is this kind of like a future vision and sometimes the property owner does or doesn't know what we think their property should be?

we try to make it as inclusive a process as possible not a lot of times do we have specific property owners that we reach out to because it is a county-wide project but again we do try and bring in sometimes specific constituents or interest groups to try and designate things appropriately so it could be this property that's designated or under this particular use could be it could have been that before we did the comp plan

Because I'm certain we didn't change the zoning when we did the comp plan. The comp plan is just a vision. We don't change zoning. So this was already zoned this way. It's just the comp plan says we have a vision of this area. That's right. I just wanted to clarify that.

But that wouldn't make it where we need to know what areas is zoned before we do it.

Well, exactly. Yeah. Agreed. So, quick question. What is, what's the time schedule for the TIA in this one here? And has that already been requested?

No. So the way the TIA ordinance is written, once there's a plan for development, they can't get that approved until they do a TIA if their site is going to trigger the requirement to do a traffic study. So at the rezoning stage, really all the applicant is asking of council is, is the general commercial district appropriate for this location? So they've provided you a conceptual plan of what they want to do. That could be a result. It could be fairly close to what they want to do. Or this property owner could walk away and the site doesn't get developed for 20, 30 years and it might be something completely different. So really the decision you're making right now is, is the district being requested appropriate for this location? But as Thomas mentioned earlier this evening, if you want to ask the applicant to perform a TIA before you're comfortable with the GC district being appropriate for this location, you do have that option as well.

Right, and that's kind of where it was. I didn't know if they had already gone ahead and requested that. They haven't at this point.

No, that has to come by ordinance directly from county council.

Gotcha, right, exactly. I mean, in this situation, um you know we are in a semi-unique situation based on what it is currently zoned as um but this is there there is a a definitely a huge opportunity for having some major traffic issues here um absolutely and i think um as mentioned too earlier about the about the off ramp or the uh off lanes in order to have turning proper turning lanes parking area there's there's There's a lot of issues and the amount of traffic out there is astronomical. I do have to travel out there often. I would recommend that we do request a TIA study upfront before we would even start looking to make a ruling on this thing. That would be my thoughts.

I want to follow up to that. What we're doing is rezoning, and once the TIA is done, it will address any traffic that needs to be mitigated. And if it requires an X-cell or D-cell lane, they have to do that before they're allowed to bill and do what they're proposing to do. So I think we're putting a cart before the horse if we're saying you should do a TIA before the rezoning. Because that's what a TIA is going to tell you how to handle the traffic. or based on what they're looking to do, if you need to add lanes or desale lane or acceleration lane, right in, right out, the TIA tells you all that. So I don't think we should ever get a TIA before we do a rezoning because that's what the TIA does for a piece of property. And I don't think we've ever required a TIA before we've done a rezoning. I think that's kind of out of line if we're requiring this particular property owner to do it.

Well, I mean, Andy's right. I'd rather have general commercial than industrial. But really, no matter what goes there, it's going to be a nightmare of a traffic problem, any way you look at it.

Yeah, I think this is a very unique situation on this one, and I would highly recommend it.

Sort of like Newport. Can I ask a point of clarification, please? Sure. All right, so it's zone ID. So theoretically, this exact same picture could take place in ID. The same building, same square footage, the same TIA is going to apply pretty much if you have 303 spaces and 70,000 square feet of buildings on the property. You're just going to have different businesses, theoretically, than you would if it were GC. Is that right?

Yeah, that's right. The primary difference is the uses that are allowed in the district. So the structures could look identical, but the uses contained in them would be different.

So you could have 303 spaces and 70,000 square feet of buildings on that property as zoned currently without us doing anything, or we rezone it to GC, still could have these same buildings, just different types of businesses potentially. Still got to have a TIA done, a traffic study with both. Yes, sir. Yeah. OK. Thank you.

So the motion on the table is to approve first reading. And I haven't heard any amendments being proposed or any piece on that. So here's what I want to reiterate. I do have concerns that folks understand that if it is industrial now, They can do that by right without coming to this council to ask us for that. They're allowed to do it. Anything in that industrial list, they're allowed to do it. What has been requested is that this go to what would be considered a lower impact, less noxious zoning, which would be general commercial. having said that when we approve zoning unless we put conditions on it it can go for anything it doesn't even have to look like this it can go for anything general commercial I have to agree this looks extremely onerous to have that many buildings in in this triangle, the triangle seems to be an issue. I would much prefer if the owner of the parcels are, as we've heard, are connected, what is the plan for the other areas and how to address that? I can tell you, typically, the way I approach rezonings, I would consider an amendment, but I approach rezonings to allow first reading, especially in other districts where the district representative requests that I would have a hard time approving this but I think the folks coming out here saying they don't want this may well industrial may be worse when you realize they're allowed to do that because that's what they're allowed to do by right and them understanding it and I I would be a no vote with this at second reading because i think it's too much and i mean i don't think you need a tia to see how this is going to create a problem without understanding other pieces but i would be inclined to allow first reading to to see if the applicant's willing to consider something else have a community meeting but i think the community really needs to understand that it is industrial i don't know if it's practical jonathan is it practical that they can even put anything industrial related there because i don't think we should SHOULD THREATEN THAT IF THERE REALLY ISN'T A PRACTICAL INDUSTRIAL USE THAT CAN GO THERE. I MEAN, CHURCHES OBVIOUSLY CAN GO THERE, BUT IT DOESN'T SOUND LIKE THIS OWNER IS INVESTING.

Yeah, I wouldn't want to speculate too far. I would say it's more likely that they could make use of the property as an industrial development than they could residential, certainly. But I think clearly.

In that triangle, you think industrial is more viable than residential.

But just given it's enveloped by all those roads there, so it'd be difficult to make that work. And then your backyard is the highway. market for that bond not going to be all that great. So probably more viable to do some sort of smaller scale industrial there. But certainly the applicant, seeing all those intersections, is looking for commercial.

I would like to point out two things regarding that. Once Ridge Road is turned into a cul-de-sac, Is that still going to be a state road, do you know, or is that going to become a county road similar to what happened with over in Five Points with the road 49, the little section. And I asked this, and I guess it was not really an answer that I was looking for, but in the event that this section could be abandoned and donated or given to one of these property owners, which would then tie this industrial parcel to the adjacent industrial parcel, which creates an even bigger industrial parcel to be used, which is what they're doing over in the Five Points area there. taken over the road and trying to get it abandoned and some other things over there. So that could be an issue. I would also like to just request to just make it to second reading. There was an issue with schedule and the property owner and project person, manager, wasn't able to make it tonight and had let staff know, and so it got kind of, the schedules got messed up. They would like to still be able to speak to council, and I would like to give them at least the opportunity to come and talk to y'all and answer some of the questions they didn't get to answer tonight, but at least make it a second reading for that.

Well, I'll support, are there any other questions for staff, comment?

Yeah. Josh, as far as the sewage capacity of this area.

So so my understanding, this connects to the town of Clover system. Oh, OK.

This is the Clover utility area.

I'll support first reading, but I would ask to, just to get to second reading, aren't we allowed to require, I mean, I think typically a lot of developers have a community meeting. It doesn't sound like that there's been any to at least share that vision and make a connection. We can request that.

Yeah, it's not required by our ordinance, but it's certainly something you can request, and we'd be happy to share that with the applicant.

I thought we had an ordinance provision that we could direct that. Do I need to make an amendment to request that? I'd move to amend to direct that there be some communications with the surrounding community members with staff. I don't know why I can't talk tonight. to share with them what existing zoning is there, have that connection so that folks really understand the differences so that when they're speaking they can come to the two minutes and continue to speak. So I would make that amendment.

And just for a point of clarification for scheduling, would you prefer that that neighborhood meeting occur before it comes back for a second reading?

I don't know that that necessarily matters. I wouldn't support it until it was done. I've already staked myself out of what I'm doing at second reading, but assuming nothing changes. But I've made an amendment. If there's no second.

Yeah, I'll go ahead and second it. And I think that's, I agree with your request to do that. I think in this situation, I think this would at least get it to second reading and have an ability for him to come in, him or her to come in and answer some questions.

I think it'd be preferable if there's a way to do it. If it can't, then it can't. But I think there's some concerns that the applicant certainly needs to hear and talk through with the community. So we're voting on any comments on the amendment?

If the owner's going to come speak, do we need to defer so we have the public hearing again so that he's allowed to speak? Because is he going to be allowed to speak at second reading, besides the two minutes?

How will we address the applicant being able to talk through this?

Yep, as long as the item is on the agenda, council has the ability to hear from any of the applicants or anyone they would like to.

That might be a little tricky because there might be a lot of other people that want to be heard, too. I think at this point, a community meeting would be nice. I think it would be good if that applicant could have that happen before second reading. But the motion on the table is moved to approve, and the amendment, which we're deciding now, is simply to request that that meeting be held. So we'll vote on the amendment first, and then we'll vote on the main motion. All those in favor of the meeting, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right, so the amendment passes. We're now to the main motion. All those in favor of first reading with the amendment, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right, motion passes. Thank you, sir. Again, I will note, since some folks came out, if you want to talk with our planning staff or leave your number for communication, you can do that with our clerk. Item number five, public hearing, rezoning action. Council to hold a public hearing and consider first reading case number 26-27, tax map number 721-00-00-023. And 0373, zoning request to rezone from GC to LI, 24.06 acres in District 7.

Yeah, so this property occupies the corner at Flint Hill and Highway 21. Of course, Highway 21 is also undergoing its own road improvements at the time. So just for some context, this is actually the entire parcel area here in blue. It does come all the way to Highway 21. This rezoning is only for the central part that is off Highway 21. The idea is that this central part will be rezoned for warehouse and distribution uses, and that part that is excluded will remain GC to be commercial out parcels. And the applicant has also included a list of deed restrictions they wish to include with the proposal that is in your packet. Here's an example of the site they're looking to build. There's two large-scale warehousing buildings. They do intend to have easement access onto 21 with access primarily onto Flint Hill. They do have to buffer away this 250-foot separation buffer from these residences to the south and the east, and with the scale of the property, they're able to achieve that. So zoning, a lot of this area is UD. We do see that across Highway 21 and on the other side of Flint Hill, we have rezoned for industrial uses previously. We do see a lot of residential space here on the corner that it's shared. And our feature land use reflects this. We have employment centers and employment corridors, again, north side of Flint Hill and on the west side of Highway 21, but everything inclusive on this side of the property is neighborhood residential. The staff recommends denial. Planning Commission also recommends denial and a 4-2 vote. It does not consistent with the comp plan and future land use map. The comp plan considers the existing development pattern of this area and establishes Flint Hill as this boundary between those employment designations and the residences. Again, these industrial and residential uses don't mix well. We see that this area would be better served as a mixed use space and again provide that natural transition between the two. If you would like to motion to approve, we would like to recommend that you include the deed restrictions as part of that motion and the 90-day subdivision requirement.

Any questions for staff?

Okay. As I understand it, this is, can you go back to the property? This was owned by Walmart, correct?

Yes.

Okay. And they have multiple deed restrictions on it already. So I'm not sure how, going back, very confusing, going back to the fact that you're saying that it should be residential. when for years and years, as long as I've been there, it has been owned by Walmart, who never intended to use it for residential, ever. So I'm not sure how it got put into the comprehensive plan as residential, and true, you have some, a community south, it is, Not traditional housing, I'm just gonna say, to be nice. It's not traditional housing. But you've got everything around it is all industrial, light industrial, and across the road. It's just, again, another hiccup, what I'm thinking, in the comprehensive plan.

Well, when it's in this designation and how the conference plan, we use it as interpretation and a guide. When something is designated something, it doesn't necessarily mean we expect that exact zone to accommodate it. In this, when we have these two designations that have very separate expectations for the space, we intend for them to have this kind of transition area that, while it isn't exactly mapped, The idea is that in how the designations are described, they inform one another as to how that transition should be done. And so it doesn't actually mean that this should be a residential space, but something mixed use or something that at least provides a natural accommodation, a barrier between those industrial uses, like you were saying, and these residences that pre-exist would be appropriate.

So if Walmart had built... Were you going to tell Walmart they couldn't build because it's designated now neighborhood? Not necessarily. Well, yeah, you have to have an answer there. What would you tell Walmart?

I would say, well, maybe Jonathan can speak to it.

I mean, because Walmart has owned that for years and years. I mean, I don't understand how it got to be rural residential.

Right, so this goes back to zoning, which is your legal framework about how property can be used and standards that are applied to it versus your comp plan, which is aspirational. It's a guide. It's a vision, right? So those are distinct. This is not legally binding, this map. This one is. So if Walmart were to develop that property today, they could by right. It's by right.

General commercial.

So the request here is to move out of the general commercial district and move into the light industrial. So really, residential is not even part of the equation tonight. I know the comp plan shows this being the neighborhood residential designation. And in that designation in the comp plan, it even has language about, well, when you're at the intersection of major roads, that's what you would expect your commercial. And that's exactly what you have there today. So the request, so the existing zoning isn't against the comp plan.

Yeah, Walmart has a lot of deed restrictions. Okay, so have you a list of that, what they, their deed restrictions, Walmart?

I don't personally have a copy of that. If it's of interest, we can provide that for you.

Well, I think it would be nice, but anyway. Okay.

The deed restrictions that Walmart has, they run with the land. They can't change, right, with a new property owner?

It depends on how they're structured.

Well, I think that's relevant. I would like to know at least what the deed restrictions are and whether or not they run with land.

Yeah, I would assume that they were, but having read them, I want to make sure we give you the exact language.

You're done, okay. So looking at this property, again, and I do feel similar to how Debbie feels on this thing here. You look across the road where you have warehousing, you've got, again, across the road you've got commercial. As I'm looking at this, and again, it's interesting how they had the 250 foot buffer zone where it's applied here, which I know it's not applied in some other places. When I look at this property, my assumption was always that we'd have some type of commercial or light industrial at this site. Again, I think it could do it. And I think where it's located close to the interstate, I think it makes sense to have it as that. So again, I would be supporting this tonight.

Any other questions before we open the public hearing?

Nope.

Anyone here wish to speak against this rezoning?

Anita Green, 1746 Wagefield Drive. And again, it's not so much the issue with this particular property that we're talking about. It's the fact that it does not align with the future land use. And the more that I'm hearing tonight, the more confused I am. Because I thought our 2035 plan was what we were actually trying to accomplish in our county. And the more I listen, it seems like it's the pie in the sky. We wish this was the way it was. I would propose that we get an updated 2035 plan that we can all look at and see what what really is residential versus we wish it was residential and what's industrial, because I kind of like to see what our county is turning into before we do any more rezoning of anything. Seems like this was supposed to be residential mixed, and really it's not. Same thing that we had with the last one. It's supposed to be residential, and yet you're telling me it's never been residential? It's been industrial? Why are we so far off on this plan? We can't even look and see what our county is really looking like. Are we turning into more of a commercial? We're rural. We don't want all this commercialization. We'd at least like to see what the plan is and it actually be followed. If it's not going to be followed, let the people know. Don't go look at it. It's not reliable. It's not realistic. We want to see a picture of what's being planned so we know when to participate in these meetings. So anything that goes against that plan, I'm not in favor of without there being some real reasons. And it sounds like we need an updated 2035 project map for us as residents to see what's really going on in this county. Thank you.

Thank you, ma'am. I'll just make sure I do think it's it's extremely important that the community here that there is a zoning map that's a legal map that says you're allowed to have zoning and this is your zone. There is no there is no requirement that council approve any rezoning. but the comprehensive land use map is aspirational and that is coming up for the 10 year review. I'm hoping for a schedule very soon. I know I've requested that staff put together when is the schedule gonna start. That is a very important job and it's something that has to be done every five years, I mean every 10 years and updated every five years. That's happening this next year. um so i want to make it very clear at least for the folks who are listening there is a zoning map where folks are allowed to do things by right but they don't have to ask us and then there is a comp plan that says you know at least 10 years ago as updated five years in between there was community support for something different but you're right this is the time to to align those things to see if there's practicality with that so i just want to make sure folks understand that anyone else wish to speak against this rezoning

My name's Chuck Green. I live at House and Acres in Rock Hill. All right, throw the future land use map out. The zoning of the property currently is DC. It looks to me like that you've got two sides of that map that's directly adjacent to a neighborhood. right up against residences there. And from reading this, it sounds like maybe there's a church right there that's adjacent to two. So it is GC. So if you rezone it to light industrial, that does put those residences and that church at a little more risk of something going in there that would be detrimental to them, more so than when it's general commercial. So aside from all the stuff about the future plan, basically what's asking is for a more industrial use of general commercial property that's adjacent to a neighborhood. And I'm opposed to that. And I think most people are. These industrial areas, the one that was talked about previous, Being industrial, it's kind of out. There's not a whole lot of residents here and there. It does make a little more sense for that to be industrial. And I will say that we need to keep that stuff out and away, keep our county as rural as we can. We don't have to be the biggest county in South Carolina.

Thank you. CHRISTIE WOODARD- Thank you, sir. Anyone else?

Yeah, just kind of what I said a minute ago. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. Public hearing.

Sorry. My name is Jalen Hodges. I live right off Pikefield Road. So I'm going up toward Regent Park. I grew up here. I went to Nation Fort High School right down the street. I came back recently after college, and that's why I'm asking you to reconsider the zoning plan here. This center of your county is already carrying a heavy load. We've got a trucking business there, a cement facility right across from neighborhoods, and a garbage truck operation. Adding another warehouse means more even heavy truck loads, more noise, more pollution in an area that's already saturated. So this land was supposed to be a grocery store, and that's the kind of thing that our neighborhood actually needs. So something we could actually walk to, something that gives the people that live here back to go to. So I'm not against the growth. I want your county to keep growing, but it needs to grow in a smart way. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Does anyone else wish to speak against this rezoning? Does anyone wish to speak in favor?

Good evening. My name is Bridget Grant. I'm a land use consultant with Moore and Van Halen. It's a pleasure for me to be here tonight on behalf of Strategic. I'm here tonight with Paxton Holler and Ryan Allen, so they might have to help me answer some questions. The request before you tonight is something that we've given some careful consideration to, to really be thoughtful about the perimeter and how we handle those buffers and the relationship to the surrounding residential and the church. Our goal tonight is to walk through why we believe this is realistic in this location and to describe some of those deed restrictions that do carry with the land that are prohibiting some of the other types of development. There's some important context to get us started. The request applies to 24 acres of the 27 acre site that was originally reason for the Walmart super center. And it would allow limited light industrial entitlement on the interior portion of the site. The 3 parcels at the front that are GC general commercial, those would remain the commercial opportunities best suited along highway 21. The plan general commercial out parcels beside the church got eliminated. So again, moving the traffic for the general commercial out onto highway 21. And we are going to self impose private deed restrictions, including site design commitments that would bind protection and limit uses orient operations inward and improve the compatibility with the surrounding properties. The property is located on the south side of Flint Hill Road and east of I-77. This is definitely a transitional site. You can see we've got commercial and distribution uses already located to the north and west, and the property front's a principal arterial road, which makes this desirable for those types of uses. At the same time, homes in a church are located along the site's more sensitive edges, and we're doing our best to address those. The proposed plan responds directly to that context by placing our activity interior to the site and providing greater separation than what's currently permitted. I think there's been a lot of talk about the 2035 land use plan and that aspiration and vision for what they thought this area could be post the Walmart not being developed. However, the site sits immediately adjacent to the I-77 employment and artisan employment areas, reinforcing that location at the edge of an employment corridor. This context with the highway access and surrounding development patterns make this property different from the typical residential site. So we want to narrow it down to a site-specific transition with substantial compatibility commitments and protections rather than what you might have in some other cases, just unrestricted industrial entitlements, and that's not what we're looking to do here. But this shows you the prior development concept. I guess everyone's having a hard time talking tonight. That was contemplated. It shows you the Walmart and the substantial parking area. This is actually going to be a Walmart super center. And so it was a substantial side, and it generated approximately 12,757 daily trips. We had our traffic engineer rerun the numbers to say, if this got developed, what type of traffic would it put on the roads? The plan placed the back of house directly adjacent to the residential to the south side of our site. So you had all the truck service activity directly adjacent to the residential. It also included a commercial out parcel along Flint Hill closest to the church. Walmart did place a number of private use restrictions that materially limit how commercial opportunities could happen on the site. making it difficult for there to ever be a really strong 30-acre heavy commercial anchored site in this location or even some level of a high level of mixed-use residential as envisioned by the comp plan. So this is the concept plan. What we're trying to do is propose a plan that turns the buildings and loading activity inward rather than toward Flint Hill Road or the neighboring properties. This is something that we're willing to put into the orientation, into the commitment. So you know that we're going to put those truck bays internal to the site. the trees and open space would be preserved beside the neighboring homes and church this shows you there's a 250 foot separation area along that sensitive edge we'd also have some landscape buffers in that area and the three general commercial out parcels remain out on highway 21 so you can see those three green areas show you where first future commercial development could be We think that these commitments significantly reduce the developable footprint and create some protections. I mean, essentially, by putting and utilizing the ordinance required 250 foot buffer, it takes out about 33% of the developable land in that area, which is again where the Walmart had pushed its building back so much closer to the adjacent properties. This shows some conceptual cross-sections, and I always slow down a little bit here because I think they're not always easy to read and difficult to understand. The top section shows what the Walmart Supercenter would have looked like next to a home. You were in the backyard, you'd have the single tree buffer, and then you can see the small trucks directly adjacent to the property line in that buffer, and then the building started. because we're going to have that 250 foot offset you see the property line the additional landscape buffer then that where we've got some of our storm water features and again the building's 250 feet away so it's a significantly less impactful development than what's currently proposed and i think does a better job of being contact sensitive Put it into perspective another way, the red line shows the 250 foot buffer on the previously and currently approved Walmart plan. So it shows you how close that development was to the property and how much we're staying out of that particular zone. Something else we were talking about and looking about considering uses for this site, we took into consideration that traffic always comes up. And so we took the previously approved Walmart and considered an aggressive out parcel plan and the traffic engineer identified that we'd be creating nearly 13,000 daily trips for that use. We also recognize that staff suggested a mixed residential, multifamily, and commercial site. We did our best job at estimating what that would produce and came up with the 7,640 trips. At the end of the day, by utilizing the proposed LI and the commercial zoning, taking into consideration the out parcels, our daily trips goes down to 6,100 trips per day. It's about 50% fewer trips than previously approved with the Walmart plan. It also is less trips than with the multi-family and commercial development proposal and has less impact on schools, which is something else we try to consider when you're looking at your opportunities. This is not a request for a full range of potentially intensive industrial activity. We understand how important that is. The allowed operations are focused on warehousing, distribution, packaging, logistics, and qualifying light industrial activity. The light industrial definition, we spent some time reading specifically in the ordinance, excludes processes that ordinarily create offsite noise, smoke, fumes, odors, glare, or those health and safety hazards that people might be concerned with with adjacent industrial development. Our self-imposed deed restrictions expressly prohibit a broad list of uses. You can see that. I won't read through all of that, but you can see a number of the uses that are less desirable called out, and we're agreeing to restrict those. And the site plan and deed restrictions make these limitations clear and durable. Again, they run with the land. In closing, we believe this property is a good transition in this location based on the surrounding context. The originally envisioned commercial center is no longer a reasonable alternative based on some of the deed restrictions. The proposed plan provides a meaningful 250 foot buffer between the proposed use in the existing community and the request is narrow. We really try to narrow in on what makes sense in this location that would be beneficial but have the least amount of impact the public interest benefits include lower traffic than the prior commercial no school impacts direct arterial access and commitments to that private investment and enforceable site commitments but for those reasons we are respectfully requesting your support on this reasoning request and i'm happy to answer any questions

Thank you, ma'am. We typically ask the questions of staff later, but thank you. Anyone else wish to speak in support of this rezoning?

And city 1923 hands mill. I'm not for or against it, but I appreciate somebody coming in and being mindful of residences and the 250 foot buffer. We got an 80 foot data center 70 feet from our house. Thank you.

Anyone else wish to speak in support?

A white shirt.

Hi, my name is Pastor Wally Buchanan. I live in Flint Hill. We're adjacent property owner. If you could put the map back up, I'd like to reference that. Yes, that'll do. Our family and about three other families are the reason that Walmart is not there today. They had issues. uh... when they lay up by they had issues when they lay up to you know on their attorneys out of charleston i'm retired military a master sergeant retired military in something in the back of my mind keeps saying politics and government is for the people by the people in i think you know the people of fort mill know what they want if uh... If you want to know what people at Fort Mill want, ask them. Don't ask somebody from Clover or Rock Hill what we want. We already know what we want. We've got enough people in Flint Hill. We have an abundance of people. We used to have cotton fields, but now we have people. The property you're talking about was once Davis's Farm. It was a cotton field there. Some of the folks sitting behind me may have picked cotton there. But that road now is all commercial. We own property across from there on Flint Hill Road. The property beside us is now an electrical company and they have a warehouse. We also have, we own property at Flint Hill Baptist Church. We have eight foot by, we have five burial plots And so we do have property, but the people in that cemetery have never complained about what's going to be beside them. And there's some folks all the way back from the Civil War there, they never said a word about the neighbors. I also am a neighbor of a company in Fort Mill called SilFab. I live on Baxter Lane. SILFAB is on Logistics Lane. And we have a seven-inch buffer between us and SILFAB. Consists of a four-by-four post, a two-by-four rail, and a one-inch plank fence. And they're a chemical company that's trying to kill people. I think we've already did this. As Yogi Bear said, the catcher for the Yankees said, I feel like this is deja vu all over again. The people of Fort Mill, we did not want. We did not want Walmart because they wanted to change Flint Hill Road. They wanted to take other people's property, and that wasn't fair. This company coming in, I think it's a good fit. The stores that's going to be on 21 fit right in with the rest of them. Carmella's, Pizza Place, the US Post Office store, they all fit in there. And the companies beside them, you have a new Kenworth place, you have Ross Dress for Less, and then you have a container corporation that's a trash dump company. Then you have a concrete place. And this, the neighborhood you're talking about to the south, in its heyday in 1970s, it was a on-and-coming mobile home park. In 1970, all the mobile homes were brand new. I'm trying to think of a tactful way to say this, but if ICE agents come, it may be a ghost town. So the 250 foot buffer should not be required between there and the next property. Because it wasn't required between Seal Fab on Logistics Lane and 256 Baxter Lane. So if you're gonna do one, you need to do both of them. And our neighborhood and our community needs to be settled by you guys. In the last six years, y'all have had new full-time employees at York County. I don't know what you're doing to them, but they're evaporating. I mean, their jobs just keep rolling on. You call people, and they no longer work for York County. They're gone somewhere. They retire. They get out of here when the answers get tough. They disappear. You have people come in that work for the county, It does. They'll take the next job in the next county that pays more. They're not York County citizens. They are hired guns. You hired him for their opinion, and they will sell out to the next county that gives him a higher paycheck. Y'all need to be the ones that decide about York County. Not a paid gun. We want this because it's compatible. It's compatible with our community. It doesn't take away from our community. It doesn't take away from the church. A matter of fact, the parsonage now, I believe it's rented out to Narrow Way Productions. They're storing their stuff there. There's only one house. own flint hill road and the person that owns that house also owns a lawn mower repair shop so it is commercial also so this fits in it's no big deal it might the people on the other side of the rock hill may not like it the people in clover may not like it but the people in flint hill we like this thing we think it's going to be a good addition i have tried to get a hamburger chain to come into Flint Hill. I love their hamburgers. Best hamburgers in the southeast. The guy has a dairy farm. The meat comes from cows. In Winston-Salem. Real meat. And so far they're laughing and says, we can't come until they get Sil-Fab. done away with. And I have tried my best to get him to come. So I think part of the thing with Flint Hill, and it's been a thorn in our side, is now y'all have the opportunity to do the right thing to make our community be the community that we want it to be. We are the first thing you see when you leave Charlotte. And if we're not careful, we're going to be Charlotte, South Carolina. We don't want that. We want to be Flint Hill, South Carolina. By having this come in, we believe it will be just as nice as anything in Flint Hill, the community. I happened to go down the road the other day. Do you know that Food Lion has a warehouse? It's the back part of their store. Do you know that all these... Pizza places have warehouses. It's the back side of their shop. Now, if this is going to be commercial and there's going to be stores in the front, they're going to have to have warehouse portions in their buildings. And I think it'd be a lot less traffic With these trucks, then it will be with 5,000 more people living there, overcrowding our schools, overcrowding our roads. I mean, they already paved, widened our road to four lanes, five lanes, and you still can't get through. You have to pick the time of day you want to get out of Fort Mill. So I'd like for you all to consider this. I think this is a fantastic opportunity for our district. And I think you all let the people of our district and consider what they want. Thank you for your time.

Thank you, sir. Anyone else?

How are you doing? I'm Bobby Long. I live on the house. I live out there. I got a lawnmower shop. I've been there 68 years. I bought that land in 1949. And this looks a whole lot better than what we had to begin with. I do like the buffers across the front and the back and sides. I still think, almost need to do a road traffic thing, because our road is like a speedway. We've already had three or four cars hit the church wall and tear a wall up. So I'm just saying, they're saying they will come out right there on the road right there at Flint Hill. That's right there near the church. So I mean, I don't know. I don't think they need to come out there at all. They just come out right there on 21. They're showing two coming out right there on Foothill Road, one at the front and one at the back. So I don't have a problem with that. See, the church is right there on the right. So I do have a problem with that. Trash trucks were having problem with some of the litter problem. We got a little problem. I've tried to dress with a lot of different people, including your county. It don't seem to stop trash trucks down there. At this place where they go in there and they put the trash in bigger trucks. They come down the road, the trash flies out all up down the road from the church from my house. I cleaned it up for. 2030 years, maybe now. I quit. I can't do it no more. I just. I can't keep up with him. It's that much trash come out in the truck. But if I started covering their load a little bit better, I gotta give him a little bit of credit. For the credits do. But that looks better than having that Super Walmart. Thanks is I do like the buffer right there in front of our house. The house is right there in the middle. So. But I have this in a Walmart and we'll leave it at that. Thank y'all.

Thank you, sir. Is there anyone else who wishes to speak in favor?

Move to close. Second.

Motion and a second to close public hearing. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Do we have a new motion?

Motion to approve. Second.

Motion and a second. Any discussion?

Yeah, I have some discussion on this. So Highway 21 is currently under construction. Road improvements aren't ready. That area, just like we said on Highway 557, is a nightmare for traffic. GC has less intensity than LI. The staff and Planning Commission said it should stay for GC. It seems like it's a little pre, preemptive to be rezoning this currently until we get some road improvements out there and take care of infrastructure. As we've discussed before previously, this site plan doesn't necessarily mean this is what they're going to build. Once we approve the rezoning, it could be a bigger warehouse, whole lot more traffic, whole lot more trucks. So those are just some of my concerns. I would think a little bit harder maybe on this before I jumped into a light industrial in this area. It just doesn't seem to fit necessarily as much as GC does.

Mr. Rowdy?

Y'all vote as y'all please.

Can we narrow down, I mean, just to address Councilman Litton's concern, can we narrow down and put some restrictions so that the unseen, unknown can't come versus what they're pitching to this property? I guess that would be more important.

Can we ask that of the developers since they're here, Christy?

Well, I think. No, this would be a staff question. I think one of the, staff made a request that if council was going to consider this, that we consider deed restrictions. The applicant has come and listed all of the things that, I couldn't tell from that what things run with the previous and what are new deed restrictions. I guess they're. I'm not sure on that. So I do think, is there a way to take what they've presented and to at least restrict it based upon what the applicant has said, at least initially? And did staff have any other recommendation?

Yeah, and so there's kind of two different ways the restriction can be applied. Either it can be done through restrictive covenants, which would not require a motion from you all, or as part of your motion, you could apply them as conditional to the zone.

Can we go back to the screen, or do we have it up, the applicant's list of things they're de-restricting? All right, so as I understand it, they are basically agreeing, if this were to be rezoned to light industrial, they're agreeing to expressly prohibit these uses on the right side with red. Are there any other deed restrictions that exist on the parcel now?

That's the information we can provide for you.

OK. Well, I guess to the extent that you're asking the question, Councilman Roddy, I mean, it would seem to me that at a minimum, if folks are going to consider this, that you would narrow it down to what the applicant is at least saying they're going to do. So it would require an amendment that first reading would expressly prohibit via deed restriction all of these listed.

So do we have to include these as part of a motion or the deed restrictions to kind of move forward? Or can we do that later? Do we do it now to reflect what they've expressed they would prohibit with this rezoning.

Yeah, maybe Jonathan can speak to it. But again, you do have those two options. You can either make it as part of your motion and restrict these uses as part of the zone, or you can put it on the applicant to add it as a deed restriction later.

So I guess my question now goes to legal. Can we just include these to say to include the express prohibited uses without reading them all individually?

I think we'd read it out. If someone wants to make the amendment, don't you? I'm sorry. I jumped the gun. I'm sitting here listening to other folks down here, too.

Yeah, I would say best plan would be to read those out. I presume the applicant has already reviewed all of that, agreed to all of that. And if that's the case, it should not be an issue.

Well, could we just include it in the second reading and have it as an amendment? Yes, you could. That would be much simpler and cleaner.

I mean, in my opinion, in Walmart also. What do you mean? Don't they have additional deed restrictions? Wal-Mart besides this? And these are the ones that the applicant.

Yeah, that's an important point. So there are deed restrictions already encumbering the property. So what's listed on the right side of the screen here are the uses that they have agreed to restrict from the property as part of this rezoning process that they're voluntary. Now, I would recommend that If you're going to incorporate it into a motion where it becomes part of a condition of an approval for the rezoning that you do that by referencing a specific date of the draft deed restrictions that you would want recorded. So that captures everything, not just the uses. And to hear the applicants tonight, I think they have some other things that they wanted to commit to in terms of how the site is developed that goes beyond just uses. And so if you have the full draft, and we've done this with other complicated rezonings in the past, you have a full draft. It's got everything that they're promising to limit the property to or to develop the property in a certain way. And by capturing a date certain and have referenced that document directly, we capture all of it.

can that be second reading is the cleanest way to do it yeah yeah yeah it's yeah can you make sure to send me i would like a copy of this presentation where the applicant has bound themselves i'd like to see that if council's leaning towards doing it all at one time at second reading i think the so y'all aren't Y'all aren't, I'm sorry, do you have the list of existing stuff that you can share with us just as, or?

Not on hand, but we can provide that. What we do have on hand, it's in the staff report, is the proposed additional restrictions from that.

I think, yeah, I think we should.

Is that lengthy? I'm just curious. Looks like it's three pages. Can you give a synopsis of what those protections are? You don't need to read all of them. There are some folks here for the public hearing, and we kind of skipped over that. But I think to the extent that what we're saying is, At second reading, all of these restrictions that have been presented by the applicant, as well as all of the restrictions that already run with the land from Walmart, the folks have heard from the applicant. Is there a way just to kind of share with us, or is it too complicated, at least to provide?

So really right now there is one section on loading docks and where they shall face and the language is very specific in here that these restrictions would apply as long as the property is zoned ally and maintains that classification. So if it's ever reason in the future that would fall away. So right now it's really limited to those two items, prohibited uses, your background statement and preamble language for the covenants, but it really looks like it's limited to prohibited uses and where the loading docks are oriented.

OK. So I'm hearing council kind of say that if first reading passes, the inclination is for these things to be identified at second reading versus first. I would incline to say do it at first. But I think for folks who have come on public hearing, I think it would be nice if they could check with staff and get a copy of all the other staff report to the extent they can't make it to the next council meeting. And this passes.

So the reason why I was asking that, because we heard neighbors who didn't like the idea. We heard neighbors who do like the idea. And we have council members who are concerned with some of the future uses. So try to accommodate everybody to make it work. I think it's only right to try to exclude some of the things that council or community wouldn't want to see happen if this didn't come through, because we see the Walmart didn't happen. It was planned for a Walmart. So now if we put some protections in for some neighbors, maybe they can get comfortable. Also give Flint Hill community what they have expressed that they want to see. I'm always of the opinion to try to do what we can to make it work. And if it doesn't work, it just doesn't work. But I don't want it to not get the full council support because of what may happen down the road or what may come. So we can put those protections in now to exclude certain things to come if this happens to fall through. Because we've seen things be pitched to us, they fall through, and now it's wide open to what can come in under that particular zoning. But if we exclude certain things that community doesn't want to see, we kind of give them some protection, but we're hoping The community feels good to some degree about it. I definitely like the 250-foot buffer that they've expressed that they would put in versus if the Walmart was there. My first concern was how close this was going to be to the neighborhood before I saw the slide. I saw the slide that showed, hey, we're going to be ways away from the residential that it would back up to. That eased me off, having some overwhelming concern. And some of the things that she expressed, the sight lines and things with the topography, says that it could work, and obviously putting some things in that can't come or won't come, and obviously some restrictions that are already with the property, I think there's a way it could work. I'm not saying that it would get approved, but at least we don't kill it and say, no, before we've thrown everything, every option to make it work. Like I said, if it doesn't fit, it doesn't fit, and it won't pass this council. But I think there's some avenues to get neighbors comfortable, council comfortable, and try to make it work, and if it doesn't, go back to square one.

Okay, can we address the Flint Hill and the fact that it's gonna be, as far as I know, once the new 51 happens, and aren't they revamping Flint Hill the way that it comes in?

I'm not aware of that construction timeline.

For the Penny's, not timeline, but how the actual Flint Hill Road is going to be revamped? Is it not going to be revamped?

I'm not sure. I'd have to consult with Penny's on that. Go ahead.

I think it is.

As part of the current Penny's project, just the highway is being revamped and the intersection will be improved. But Flint Hill is not seeing any new construction.

Okay, but we still have construction on 21 that's gonna finish out Patrick has told me like maybe a year and a half, two years in that realm. And then there's the stoplight right at the corner of Flint Hill and 21, correct? So that's that's another big plus. So it's just really coming out onto to Flint Hill. There is going to be a reconnect. I do know on 51, which Flint Hill kind of takes off a 51. So I think that the traffic that is currently on 51 is going to be lessened once the new 50, I mean not 51, that's on Flint Hill is going to revert over to 51. I mean, it's just the way, if you live there, which I do, you have to see how that traffic comes out. And so it's, I think it's gonna take a lot of the burden off of Flint Hill once the 51 is revamped.

So are we going to move forward with a motion, or are you going to do an amendment? I had another question.

Motion has already been made to approve.

To kind of piggyback on or ask, along with what Councilman Roddy was saying, is the 250 setback and some of those other, like the height of the building, is all of that in the restrictions also, or is that just on the plan and

So the 250 is required by ordinance, so that's for any warehouse and distribution use of a certain size, and this would be over that threshold. So that would apply to any of those uses up against residential. But other features like building height, sight line, things like that, those are not captured in ordinance, other than maximum building height, obviously, and they're not covered in anything additional in the covenants.

How soon can staff put together a list of the deed restriction pieces, just so that folks who have came out and spoke, that can be sent on when we're asked questions?

Yeah, we can do that this week. This week? OK. We can even provide what's left, right? So if the applicants are proposing to restrict certain uses, we can provide you with what's left in the district. That's probably helpful.

So a list of all the things that have already been represented, what's in here today. And I do think that there have been some requests from the community that maybe the applicant hasn't heard. I think it would be helpful for y'all to connect today to see if there are things to talk about. They're sitting behind you shaking their head. So if you want to talk to them, that would be good. The motion on the table is to approve first. Madam Chair. I'm sorry? Oh, sure. Yeah.

If you don't mind. Yeah, go ahead. Before we vote. Just a point of clarification. So Walmart's the owner. So this will be a Walmart warehouse and distribution facility, or will it be some other type of facility?

I believe they are selling the property.

They are selling the property. Okay. So we don't know 270,000 square feet. We don't know how many trucks are going to be coming and going per day?

I think the applicants indicated they had done a preliminary analysis. When they come for development, just like any other project, they'll have to do a full TIA.

I just did some quick research, and it looks like about 84 trucks a day, maybe 238 vehicles a day. That's one trip in, so double that coming out. So 476. Point is, when you go back and you look at, it's zoned GC currently. If you look at all the uses that are available under GC, I think there'd be a whole lot more traffic on 21 whether it's two lane, four lane or whatever it's going to be one day. So this this particular project would more than likely generate less traffic than GC. So for that reason, I could support this.

Yeah, I agree. So yeah, the only comment I have on this thing is that Just as we did on the earlier reading, I think that we have an opportunity to really get this right as we move forward with each of these projects. I think it's important that the applicant does meet with the community on this and does set up meetings to move forward to have discussions around what else do we need to add in for additional restrictions on here as we move forward. But I think the consensus here is that We're going to include whatever is on this list here, plus what Walmart had for deeded restrictions. And then again, recommendation that the applicant does meet with the community that's around them. That would be my request, and I would be supporting this.

Any other comments? Is that right? 6,100? All right. A lot of things will transpire between first and second, so all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Aye. Motion carries. um we that concludes our public hearing section of our agenda we now move to old business um do we want to take two minutes push on fish on all right council to consider second reading of an ordinance to amend chapter 155 zoning code 155.1246 interpretation of zoning map to permit a parcel with more than one district boundary to be governed by the development regulations of district making up the greatest area In Chapter 154, Land Development Code 154.004, individual plots for land divisions to allow combinations or recombinations of lots comprised of more than one residential zoning district to provide for public hearing and to provide for other matters relating thereto. Do we have a motion, or do we have questions for staff?

Yeah, I've got a motion.

All right.

I'm worried Laura enough all day.

So you've made the motion? Yeah.

All right. My motion is to approve second reading with the following amendments. Delete all the changes to 155.1246E. Amendment changes to 154.004 to read the following. split zone residence lots existing on or before September 17, 2026, may be platted and recorded the same as single district lots and may be recombined with adjacent partials containing to the same zoning district. But I stress, this only involves into residential, because we got emails and people were confused about that. And I think through this, Correct me, Laura, if I get this wrong, but the goal was to make sure that split-zone property owners had the same right as all other property owners and allowed them to buy and sell property, combine their lots with exact same districts, and allowed them to add on to their existing structure and to build a house consistent with their zoning area. Reducing rezoning is not really the issue. This solution only solves situations where somebody wants to build one new home. It doesn't advocate the need for rezoning or approval of lots for subdivision. We have five rezonings a year, not knowing how many of them you could not tell what the zoning district was, in other words, we won't prove it because they basically say they can't find the land or whatever, which I don't understand, was located in the purpose of development. Only in the cases where unable to determine the zoning for the location of the proposed development is that needed. If you cannot tell, it needs to be rezoned or resplit.

Mr. Atkins, can you repeat the motion part of what you just said?

It's a long one, and it's confusing.

Just the motion part.

The motion part was to delete all the changes to 155.1246E. The amendment change to 154.004E is to read the following. Split zone residential lots existing on and before September 17th of 2026 may be platted and recorded the same as a single district lot. and may be recombined with adjacent parcels containing the same zoning district. Because that's what stands right now. That's the motion. That's the end of the motion.

And I'm sorry, Council Member Atkins. You said September 17th. I think you probably meant September 21st, 2026. If you wanted it to be third reading.

Third reading. Yeah.

all right so do you do you do you agree that your motion makes that change to september 21st if we went over this thing right it does all right so the motion is just have the date for third reading mixed up that's all all right so the motion the motion has been read um is there a second and then i think we'll ask for some just it sounds like laura's got

I'll second it so we get to discussion. OK.

So we have a motion and a second. Now we move to discussion. Is there anything you want to add?

Well, if you, I mean, don't get me wrong. This whole split zoning thing is just, And in my mind, whether you own the land or what, I mean, it really gets down to you just having two pieces of land in your name that happens to be. Because if you got ag and RUD right here, but your neighbor owns that, it ain't no issue. But if you own land right here that's ag and RUD and it's both in your name, right side by side, then it becomes an issue. You get what I'm saying? But if somebody buys land, then they ought to be able to plat what they've purchased, whether or not it's split zoned or not. And they really ought to have the right of whatever that zoning is, it covers all the setbacks and everything else. You get what I'm saying? I mean, I was just saying just because this is split zone lot and both of them happen to be in your name. But this only applies to residential. Nothing to go toward general commercial or industrial or light industrial.

I guess I'll start off. When we talked about this last meeting, I'll just express my concern. Laura, I'm going to direct this question over to you.

If you're all set, real quick.

Yes, sir. Okay, all right. So when it came to the discussion we had last time, the concern I had was when we had two or three people that are wanting to do this, but yet we're affecting multiple people. The concern was, what was the long term ramifications down the road, and how could we foresee additional concerns coming out of this motion? based on this amendment, how do you feel like that addressed that concern?

So I'm certainly invite Mr. Buona to weigh in on this, but I'm going to be very clear and tell you when you are dealing with a zoning item, It is not possible to foresee every potential outcome in the future, right? What you have to do is make the best decision you can based on everything you can reasonably foresee. And so what Councilmember Adkins' motion does is, number one, it limits it to lots which already have a split zone. It maintains the limitation that the planning staff had proposed that this be applicable to residential lots only. And it doesn't allow the creation or addition of new split zone lots. I'm hoping that that makes sense.

Okay.

And Mr. Audet, happy to supplement apologies. I was speaking with a constituent while you were asking your question, if you don't mind repeating.

Yeah, so I guess, you know, the overall concern when we start making broader policy changes is, you know, what is the long-term effect that we can't predict, right? on this and especially when you have two or three people that need this and how can we streamline that process but not kind of pull everybody into this mesh, right? So having said that, I guess my concern is that when I listen to what was proposed here, does it in your eyes clarify some of the concerns we had last week?

Yeah, so a couple of things on that and with split zoning, because we have so much of it in the county, and as we've all come to learn over a couple of meetings now, it creates a lot of complications, right? And a lot of permutations about how things might unfold. But really, in the form of a text amendment, really, we're just choosing the shade of lipstick to put on the pig that is split zoning. So really the only way to cure it where there isn't any problem going forward about, well, you know, I've got two districts. What can I do with my property? Can I combine? Can I split is to rezone the property. So short of that, that's what we're looking at is what can we do by a text amendment to make some of these land swaps between neighbors? a little more accommodating. It could be done administratively without having to go through the rezoning process with county council. They're not changing district lines, they're changing property lines. So that's kind of the goal there, is to make that a little simpler for folks. Though, yeah, I heard Mr. Atkins read out a date, effective date, so that limits the opportunity to create new split zoning going into the future for parcels that are out there that might be purely in a single district now. The last part of that, I had not heard that before, so happy to take a look at that to evaluate that further. But yeah, the date part certainly makes sense. And the majority rules part coming out of 155, totally understand that as well. There's a little bit of trade off there is you get some certainty about what uses and what rules apply to your property with codifying how that works in 155. But, you know, then we're having to work through some nuances of, well, it only applies to residential and things like that that have been written into the amendments and discussed so far. But the other end of that is if we take that out, we revert to the status quo where staff is having to be subjective about, well, which rules do we apply when you've got a split zone parcel and it's vacant and they want to develop something new on it. So that's what would be reverting to status quo with these.

So the last question I guess I have on this, and I'm going to think about what you just said. If you have a property, say you've got one acre here and then you've got a property in between, you get two acres over here. In order to quantify or qualify under that, the two properties somehow have to connect, correct?

Yeah, so when you are combining property, whether it's you're taking two full parcels and you're just erasing the property line in between them, they do have to be adjacent. Or if you're recombining property, say you're you've got a property, your neighbor's got a property and you want to take. a little 10-foot strip to put in a fence on your dime and your neighbor wants to give you some property to help you do that, all of those have to be adjacent shared property lines. So you can't recombine with a property that is not adjacent.

Right. So everything's, no matter what, it has to connect in some manner. Yes, sir. Okay.

Next. After, my first concern is all the amendment changes, and I have no idea what all those changes are, and having to read it in printout, I wish I had gotten that ahead of time so I could prepare. But beyond that, after last time's discussion, even being on the P&Z committee, I'm deciding I think this thing has more problems down the line than it's solving right now. And I don't think I want to support it at this point. Anymore. This is it's not exactly what I was thinking and hearing all the additional discussion really kind of changed where I thought of it. And I think we're going to create a future nightmare for sure. And it turning out that it's only very rarely an issue. It's just not something I think that needs to be changed.

Are you comfortable responding to what he just said? Councilman Litton just shared.

I didn't hear a question.

He didn't ask a question.

So, is there a question? Well, are you comfortable responding to what he just said? that he's concerned about the unintentional consequences of passing this for the future. Can you elaborate?

I'll jump in there.

And let me say this, too, because I, too, agree it would have been great if I could have read it beforehand, too, because I'd be more informed actually being asked to vote tonight. But with that being said.

Do you have that motion in front? Do you have the existing ordinance in front of you that was last time?

Yes. OK. Yes. But anyway.

I think how I would answer that is Jonathan kind of answered that earlier. We're happy to take a look at it, but we're not prepared to have that conversation right now.

So am I correct in understanding that this only applies to residential? Because I know someone said something early in the meeting about the commercial. So to clear the room, this is only for residential. And it's going, if your neighbor's zoned one way and you're zoned this way, you happen to buy your neighbor's property and you want to combine them, you have to combine them to the larger Well, if Thomas' motion is correct, you can't even do it after third reading. It already has to be split zoning as of third reading. You can't create a split zone situation just to rezone to the larger portion. Is that correct?

Yes. And I'll add that both the second reading draft before you all, and as I heard Mr. Atkins read out his motion, it would be exclusive to residential.

Since one of the biggest issues is somebody goes out here and buys land and finds out it's split zone, then they can't plat their deed. But if they're sitting there and say they got 16 acres of ag land there and just a little bit of it's RUD or whatever. It all goes down. Well, if you don't even do the bigger partial, they still have a right on that 16 acres of ag land to do whatever they can do, just like if they had enough RUD, they'd have a right there. We're just talking about whether it's the two lines adjacent owned by the same person versus whether it's a neighbor sitting here and they got this and this is sitting here. You get what I'm saying? Why should that make a difference if they still comply to that zoning on what they're able to do on their property. And then that, the only time it affects is if they either want to do something that's outside that guidelines or they want to sell it again, then make them rezone it, or if they want to change it. And that would still give the public The ability, some of them were fussing about, well, I think that we need to hear if somebody's doing something, then that would bring the public in if they still wanted to rezone for some reason. Correct? Wrong? The way me and you discussed it. Yes, sir.

I'm trying to understand, as I understood the conversation at the last meeting, what the concern was with the ordinance proposed was that it extended to businesses, that it potentially created more split zone issues, and it didn't solve the problem of a couple of folks who had come in to just address it. So right now, I just want clarity about the motion that Mr. Adkins has made. If currently in the code, there is a provision that says if you are split zone, if you are a split zone parcel, you can't do anything. You can't sell your property, you can't buy it, you can't plat it, which means you can't actually consummate a sale without rezoning the property so I do think that that we need to fix that we need to treat folks who are currently in a split zone situation residential folks to allow them to sell their property without having to rezone it before they can sell their property that that I think does this affect does this fix that I'm sorry

Who says you couldn't sell?

You can't complete the sale because you can't record the plat, which means you can't record the deed. There are two individuals, Mr. Sandifer and another individual who came. So let's start with this. There is something in the code that says you cannot have a split zone parcel, right? We have 850 of them residential right now.

Right. So what the code says is you can't split or combine your parcels so that you create a split zone parcel. So for land out there that is already split zone, any time you cut it or combine it, you're creating a parcel of split zone. There's nothing that prohibits somebody from recording a deed or selling property that is split zone.

So you can sell. I think that's what we want to make sure you all understand. You can sell it.

I think in both of the examples that were referenced, those individuals were looking to, in addition to acquiring property, also cutting property lines.

Right, but his motion says solely to allow folks to... Yeah, they got to be of likeness. Basically, it allows folks to have split-zone property without having to come to council. And if they have an addition, my understanding is that all the rezonings we've had typically deal with an existing, somebody owns a house in one of these split-zone properties, and we make them rezone it before they can add a deck.

No. We don't require that? No, we do not.

All right, maybe what we need to do is let's get the, you guys provided all of the information on this rezoning. Like you said, there were 30 of them in the last five years or 20, what is it, five a year? Why don't we get all of the details of all those rezonings and see what we're fixing? I think that might be better. Yeah, we're good with that. And then this other piece can move on and we can just defer this and everybody get it up to speed with what we're trying to fix and what we're not fixing. Mr. Atkins, do you mind changing your motion to a motion for deferral, and let's get this additional information? It doesn't look like you want to support that.

Yeah, but I mean, this is... Simple. In my mind.

I think if folks see what you're saying and have a chance to ask the questions, it probably will clear that up.

We'll be the meal to death. It's a good thing that he's flying colon. I swear.

I remember when I was on the planning committee, PNC, we did have something come up that if something was non-conforming and if they wanted to add a deck or do something different, they had to rezone. Am I accurate? Is that an accurate statement?

Mm-hmm.

No, so those are two different topics. So nonconformity deals with uses and structures and your split zoning is you just happen to have property that's multiple districts on it. So you might have a property out there that, you know, they've got a commercial business that's operating on residential property. And if they look to subdivide that, then, yeah, they would need because what what

Chairman Cox, Chairwoman Cox mentioned, made me think about that, and I think that's what you were thinking, about they would have to rezone it before they build something on it. Oh, that is the case.

We're just going to get two weeks to confirm that, because the ordinance currently says that lots shall not include more than one zoning district. If someone who has a split zone lot comes to the county and says, hey, I want to add a deck onto my house that sits on this area, we have had to rezone that in the past in order to allow them to just do that deck or I think there was a pool. So currently the code does not allow folks with split zone property to exist, essentially. Basically, they have to get rezoning. Yep. Well, we'll get clarity on that then. We'll get clarity on that. Can we have a motion?

Yeah, but the same person, their pocketbook bought the land.

Right. What his amendment did was it said that anybody who has a split zone property, they get treated the same way as someone who is AGC. So if I own property that has RUD and AGC, then his amendment would say, you can go ahead and sell your property. You can plat it. You don't have to come to us. And you can, if you want to buy property that's right next door that has the same problem, just like AGC. If I want to buy, if I own AGC land, I can buy AGC next door and I can recombine that, but it has to be the same exact zoning. So this would simply put the split zone parcels, it would not create existing, new existing, new new um split zone problems it would allow a split zone parcel who has residential to be able to sell and plat their lot and to combine their lot with other existing lots i mean it is a narrow but it addresses the two um requests that came up i mean it would just address those two issues that were confirmed.

I'd have to review that draft text. We'll do that.

All right. So will you consider a motion to defer?

I will. I should have bailed hay and worked on the bunkers today. I wasted my whole day trying to figure this out.

Do we have a second? Second. Motion and a second. Any other discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right. I remember to counts to consider awarding bid number 3033 for the construction of the bullets Creek volunteer fire department building addition to the lowest responsive and responsible bitter Salem builders of York. Poor total cost of $102,000, which includes the base bid of $99,000 plus $3,000 owner allowance contingent upon county attorney review and approval.

Yes, Madam Chair, we have a presentation we're prepared to show if y'all want to talk details. Yeah, we'd like to.

Sure.

All right, so we appreciate the feedback we got at the last meeting, and we talked with many of y'all over this period to try to make sure we understood your questions and concerns, and we've worked that into this presentation just to make sure we have a conversation And we talk about how we got here and what are potential options. But with that, I'll hand it off to Dave Garner, our Assistant County Manager of Public Safety.

Thank you, Mr. Manager. And to give a little bit of background that I didn't include here, just by way of context. So this was originally a discussion with the Bullet Creek Fire Department. In their expression over a year ago, they have some equipment that is being located at a member's house that cannot be located in their current facility. Additionally, as part of their apparatus replacement, they have a truck that is on order. However, we'll be replacing one that will be removed from the fleet. So in the discussion with Bullet Creek, they were requesting assistance or anything that they could to engage with this project. Funding was obviously an issue for them. I believe that they had used approximately two years of v-safe grant funding to get ready for this project, to do some drawings and prepare for that. Their original intention was to mortgage this project, essentially committing their direct assistance that the county provides them. That was their original intention. Not sure what the legality and justification for that would be through the county, with that being direct assistance funding. But in discussion with our late county attorney, Mr. Kendry, we were discussing how we could assist them with this project and prevent them from having to mortgage or borrow money from this. And the conclusion was essentially that for us to invest in a project like this, the county would have to have some type of ownership in it, which Bullet Creek agreed to back then. So we went through the process of budgeting that through the CIP, and that's where we arrived at this point to actually engaging and bidding out that project. So this was really to avoid issuing debt and any issues with that. So our engineering department engaged. Karen, if you can advance to the next slide. These are just some pictures of the current facility and then the proposed addition on the side. If you can go one more. And then that's the engineer drawings that they received back, and this is what was part of our bid package. So you see the addition of approximately 560 square feet onto the side of the building, which would give them ample storage space for their equipment that is being housed at a member's property currently. And you can go to the last slide. I'll come back to this, but just to wrap that up. So, Bullet Creek really agreed that they would work with the county on this, and again, in discussion with Mr. Kendry, the county should have some type of ownership in it. So, since the second reading, I'm sorry, the first proposal for this and at the request of council, trying to develop a policy for this process, given that this may be a typical request in the future or similar request and how these would be evaluated. So we sent a policy to council that would kind of govern this and also have these weighted criteria that they would be evaluated against. And it'll actually issue kind of a recommendation. Is it a candidate? Is it a strong candidate? Or are there other concerns that should be considered? In weighing the criteria against this project, this was one that was a strong candidate that it would recommend. So that's why we're bringing it back to you and would happily answer any questions you have related to the project itself or the policy.

So when this thing was first, when they originally came to you, was there, I thought they had applied for a grant for this construction.

They wanted me to help them.

So they had applied for grants and they had used those grants previously just to complete the drawing phase of it. But they did not have grants identified at the time that they were looking to accomplish the project. So that's where the discussion was. They were going to have to borrow money to essentially accomplish it.

So they hadn't applied for additional grants to move forward with the construction piece?

I'm not sure if there were any at that time.

When they first originally reached out to me and wanted to know if there was a way or anything, I said, I don't know. I'll check into it if you remember, David. And we're going to look in to see if they could get some help somehow. And then through that process, it changed over to this. I don't know. How long has it been since you talked to them?

Since I met with them originally about this?

Well, yeah, the last time whenever y'all talked about as far as taking ownership of the property.

That was during the budget planning last year, or the last when we were preparing for this current fiscal year. However, I did recap just to make sure I had my facts correct with them earlier today.

Yeah, because I talked to several of them, and they said they didn't really know what was out now.

So each of the correct, so when I'm looking at the request for evaluation of following weighted criteria, documents, graphics, facility condition, et cetera, is that an overlay of how this was evaluated on the county level, or is this something that was structured in order How was this piece of it structured? I guess coming up with these numbers.

Yeah, so it would just be a best practice in developing the policy. So the policy did not exist at the time that we had this discussion, but I ran it through the matrix to see if it would have been one, I wouldn't want to apply evaluation criteria and come back and say it was a strong candidate when it wasn't. So I utilized that to come up with a recommendation to put before council.

So did we, I guess, because this is the first time seeing, maybe I didn't see this, and it might fall if I haven't seen this, but did we approve this as a council, or how did we come about coming with this matrix?

So this is in response to y'all's request at the last meeting. So y'all asked us to develop this, and so the staff, we went and did this. This is just an example. Obviously, this can change and be improved, but this was our take as staff. As this policy, this would be a manager's office policy.

So it's something we haven't, we're seeing this for the first time based on the fact that you guys just structured it. And we'd love any feedback you have.

Okay, okay, okay. Do you have the actual matrix for this that we could see?

Yes. Do you want me to send it to you? I mean, it's exactly that right there, but you can see the criteria that actually would lead to certain scoring.

Right, I'd like to see the actual scores.

Oh, the scores. Yeah, I believe that was sent perhaps.

Was it? Did I miss it? Not for this individual.

So I apologize. So it ranks from essentially 100 to I think the lowest score is like 40 or something like that, if it were to meet just basic criteria. This one was a 70, and so the interpretation is that it's a good candidate to be considered for ownership into the county's asset pool, but I will absolutely share that and send it. Susan.

Okay, we're gonna have a workshop. Go ahead. Right, the workshop on, what's that, 14th? Is that on fire service, and would that be, would this be a part of that workshop?

I think that would be a natural place for this to be discussed. The policy was drafted and circulated to council Friday. I think the issue in front of us now is a bid that was bid out in April. I personally appreciate that we're starting to have the discussions about what What is the county going to do in terms of taking on parcels or ownership? I think the question is, are we at that point now since we haven't had a chance to digest this?

I think there's a lot of different ways we could handle it. David, do you know how many college they run last year?

Sir?

You know how many calls Bullet Creek run last year?

I don't have the number off the top of my head.

I'd be guessing. 56, 57, and the majority of them were brush fires, accident, and assist. And we're going to spend all this, and all they wanted was a lean-to to park a truck and an ATV that they fight brush fire under.

guess looking at this you know my concern here is is the second part of line one when the facility transfers the ownership transfers to your county how i mean this I'm just concerned the extenuating costs that would impact the county overall from a long-term perspective when we do that. And the other concern is the local ownership of this facility, et cetera. I think, again, those are two concerns that I think I have just off the top of my head just looking at this, David.

How would that work?

Well, are there any questions? Because we don't have a motion. The issue before council right now is the issue of the bid. Are there any other questions for staff before we entertain a motion?

Yes, just one question. I'm going to have to put you on the spot. I apologize. But if we were following our 10-year plan for one York fire, would you be asking us for this money to add on 560 square feet to the building?

Yes.

You would? Yes.

And to further answer that.

For short-term benefit or long-term gain?

Both. OK. And largely, one of the highest criteria is the documented public safety need in the geographic coverage area. This is the only fire department that exists in that section of the county. And so without it, it really does make geographic sense. While there may not be a large population, or to Councilman Atkins' point, may not be a large call volume, there is still a tremendous benefit for the ISO and the credit that the community gets just from that station being there, even though it's not heavily utilized. And again, this is a smaller project on the scale of what you would consider renovating or adding on to a public safety facility. It's on the very smaller side of that scale.

Thank you.

And I agree with you there, because that should be the main criteria that we're looking at. Whatever it takes to establish for our public to get the best rating for their insurance and all that to qualify, you get what I'm saying? But how would it work if the county made that deal with them and they end up owning this facility, but it's volunteer fire, who's liable?

Well, those are the, those are the extenuating concerns that I have when, when I, when we see ownership of the facility. Well, when you say who's liable. Yeah.

Are you referring to like?

The firemen in that station, the property, because.

Right, so they're, they're covered under.

Y'all taking the building, but not the land.

right which both but it has deed restrictions on it there's reversion clauses on that but to answer your point so i mean workers comp insurance uh and the facilities are insured currently so i mean it's not like they wouldn't go insured and those are all insured through tax funding somehow whether it's through direct assistance to the fire department or through the county just to prove some of that today so

I will say that some of the folks who were with the Bullets Creek reached out. I think there's some confusion about what is being, since there is, are there any legal documents that have currently been drafted? Any MOU with the Bullets Creek about how this would work? Or would it include the land? Is there anything with legal on that?

No, Madam Chair. I'm unaware of any documents like that. I'm operating based on what's been conveyed to me, which is that the county would accept the facility and the property, and then certainly we would work with them to establish an MOU.

So my personal opinion is before we would accept a bid, we would want to have this discussion, have the workshop, look at a prospective plan for how we're going to take property in, because this would be a major departure in what the county has approved. There are also some questions I have because there was suggested that they did have the funding in place in order to do this themselves and to get a loan. We've requested that other departments do that and they could have accomplished it for a bit of this amount. I think it would be good to have the workshop before we commit to something and come up with the structure. I think this is where, and also looking at countywide, where are the areas that we need to invest? What's the level of service for each station? What equipment is needed for each station and staffing for each station? But there are also some pending questions that I think the department raised today. Do we have a motion to defer this until after that workshop?

Motion to defer.

Second. Motion and a second. Any other discussion?

So one thing I'll just add, this is a bid, and I don't think it will be extended beyond tonight. So the bid itself might not be good by that time. I just want to make sure everybody knows that.

And I want to make one additional clarification. I heard mention of a workshop. When are we deferring this until?

Next council meeting.

I'm sorry? We've been told that the bid is ending after this meeting. Did y'all reach out to the contractor and ask them if they would extend it?

Since the last meeting?

I couldn't tell you. This was the agreement.

Laura, has anybody reached out since the last meeting to see if the contractor would extend the bid until we had our workshop?

I am unaware if they've made contact with the contractor.

OK. The motion on the table is to defer to the next council meeting. Any other discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, motion is approved. We do not have any new business committee and other reports. Economic Development Committee meeting. Chairman Watts-Huckabee.

I'll be brief. We had a meeting and all three members attended, had a report from the Economic Development Office about small business and a small business initiative that Eduardo has been heading up. It was pretty interesting about what they've done going out in the community talking to small businesses. They're finishing up in Lake Wiley. They may be doing that this week actually. Look forward to seeing how that gets incorporated into what we're doing, maybe in assisting small business moving forward. Council will be making that decision. We had six projects shared with us in executive session, and I won't get into the projects, but I'll say these are projects It's impressive how the types of industries we are attracting and looking at from a wage perspective, number of jobs, just quality of employers, too, that are really connected to the community. I mean, I think when you all hear about these projects, you're going to be impressed with them. So anyway, that's pretty much all we discussed in the meeting.

Thank you, sir. You're welcome. We do not have any citizen concerns. Any council member new knowledge in the comments before executive session?

I just want to say we have a Public Works Committee meeting coming up on the 29th, I think it is. So there will be an update on the animal control facility.

Thank you, sir.

York County Fall Livestock Show, Shallow at McCarter Farms this Saturday. Go out there.

Anyone else?

Yes. Question for Mr. Tom Couch. The small area corridor plan for 161 and 274, will it reach Mount Gallant? Will it reach that far? Mount Gallant from 161 all the way to Museum Road by chance?

I think we, I don't know that that area is included in the map that we put into the proposal. It may be fairly close. Of course, we just received 10 proposals for the comp plan where we did an ad alternate for the Newport plan. Yes, sir. So that could be subject to negotiation efforts.

OK. So let me bring this up real quickly. I know it's 9 o'clock. We still have to go to an executive session, so I'll talk quickly. Many of our areas are growing and they're somewhat growing out of control, right? And so when you look at Mount Gallant as an example, there's a proposed 55 and older development going in on Mount Gallant, proposed to go in on Mount Gallant. I went to the neighborhood meeting and I've had meetings consecutive. John Black and I have been in meetings with the developer talking through what could take place and when the TIA came out, we met, discussed the TIA as well. If this happens, it's York County land currently. It'll get annexed into the city of Rock Hill. But even though it won't be county land anymore, personally, I have a concern over what's taking place, not just on Mount Gallant, but all over York County. But I'm gonna use this as an example, please. Can you pull up what I sent you today? And so... What you'll see on this, to me, is pretty concerning. And that's why I would like for the small area and corridor plan to go down to Mount Gallant and 161. All right, flip to, I think, the sixth. Go to the third page. All right. Keep going down to number six. So what's kind of interesting here is that if you look at this, this is a TIA. This is what they got back on this particular project. And you see no build and build. So they're grading areas that could be affected by this development. They're grading them out. And if you look at this, there are already In the no-build category, there are already three that are Cs going to Ds if this thing builds. There are already three areas that are going from Ds to Es, and then there are four going from E to F. So there are 10 out of 14 areas that they're saying are going to be impacted by this development. There are 10 out of 14 areas that are going to be impacted. But of these 10 that I've noted, they're all already There are three that are graded Cs, three that are graded Ds, four that are graded Es. So my concern with this is, I know this is the first time you're looking at it, if you're even looking at it at all, but in our area here, we already have an area that's in trouble. Forget about more development on Mount Gallant, which is coming. I met with somebody today that wants to develop something else on Mount Gallant. It's coming, by right or not, so my concern is that As a council, and selfishly, I'm looking at District 6, and so are the citizens of District 6, and they're saying, we need some help with traffic. And this is a great example why. If you look at this page and on the next page, there's two more. This is just what the TIA is considering. So we're talking to the developer saying, listen, we're going to need some further assistance just with your project, the impact it's going to have, but furthermore, Help us see and understand what else we're missing that we need to look at as a county. So again, if you look at this, 10 out of 14 are graded C or worse. And so therefore, I mean, I live out in this district. I ride on Mount Gallant Road. I'm sure some of you do as well. And I'd like to see this included in that small area corridor study to see what can we do to mitigate this traffic. It's not a question of mitigate the traffic. When it comes, it's here right now. And it's grading poorly, overwhelmingly poorly. So I'd like to see the study extend down to there from 161 down Mount Gallatin to Museum Road. This particular developer's gonna do what they can if they were approved and they do get zoned for this. They're gonna do what they can to make an impact, but it's the areas outside the area that are concerning to me even more so. So the question is either can we wrap it into the small area corridor plan, or could we find a little bit of money to fund a study with this area from Museum Road to Heckle and Museum Road and Mount Gallant out to 161?

I think we can examine both possibilities.

Okay. So when we, when we rate roads, you know, and we look at the, we looked at the existing impact of the road itself. The question I think that you're also raising here is how do we overlay future growth and how does that factor into the impact on that road based on that? Yeah. Um, and, and when it comes to funding, then that plays in, that plays a role on how we can predict where we need to put more road funds.

And this is off topic, but this is exactly what I was speaking to, not even knowing this was going to be in front of me between last meeting and this meeting. It goes back to when we are bringing industry in, and you look at the industry that's coming to Rock Hill, well, a lot of those employees are living in y'all's districts that are outside of Rock Hill. They're living in York, school districts, that is, York, Clover, Fort Mill. because those areas are seeing increased student populations, Rock Hill student populations going down, because there are a lot of people living in other places. So when you look at the fee deals we're talking about, and I know some of you may be thinking, well, I've got congested areas in my district, too. How are we going to pay for a study and an improvement plan there? And I think we have a tough question to ask ourselves. Where is this money going to come from to get ahead of this? And I think that the fee deals are an opportunity for us to selfishly look at the needs of the entire county, that's the municipalities and the school districts, and what growth is happening around the county and fund these improvements before they turn into problems.

But we need to get the municipalities to kind of help us out on it because they've caused the majority of all the problems.

That's why I suggested that we have a meeting with all of them at this day.

And they need to get a lot of control off of the administration. We're beyond where we are. Does anybody else have a council member do not agenda comment?

That's the only one I had. And I appreciate you responding. Thank you.

Exactly. Well, I'll just say this. This Friday marks the 25th anniversary of September 11. And it's hard to believe that it's that long, that that time has come so quick. But I think, obviously, it's the time for us to reflect on the lives that were lost and the brave men and women who helped. rush towards danger and help our community um i also remember i think we all remember where we were on that day and how the community and came together and i'd love to see i hate that it takes those kinds of things for for folks to to pay attention um hopefully we will we will learn from that and and remember that this friday um yeah i just i again i guess at this point i do want to do a shout out again to again our first responders i think that

piggybacks off of your comments there and um you know the the what they do for our community is is second to none so i do want to thank you all okay what you all mentioned All right, yeah, executive session, yes, we had a few. Receipt of legal advice, litigation update, personal matter, contractual matter, county attorney, personal matter, contractual matter, county manager. Contractual matters, Project Blue Mako, Project Elevate, Project Bolt, Project Pier, Project Gateway, Project Utopia.

Second.

Motion is second. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. We will go into executive session. We are out of executive session. No action was taken while in executive session. Do we have any motions?

Motion to adjourn? Second.

Motion and a second. All in favor say aye. Aye. We are adjourned.