Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

I call this July 13th meeting of the York County Planning Commission to order. Are there any changes to the agenda?

Motion to approve. All second.

All in favor? Moving on, we have two sets of minutes to approve. Looking back at the June 8th regular meeting, any additions or changes? If not, I'll make a motion to approve.

I'll second.

All those in favor? And now on to the special meeting that took place on June 30th. Any additions or corrections to those minutes? If not, I'll make a motion to approve.

I'll second.

All those in favor? Our first order of business this evening is a public hearing for waiver W26-4. Andy Wicker, on behalf of the South Carolina DNR, is the applicant requesting a land development waiver to allow for gravel parking. The subject property is located at 510 Annie Alexander Court in York in its zoned office and institutional OI. and is identified as tax map number 3950000043, Council District 3. Is there anyone here to speak? We'll present it first. Okay.

As you mentioned, to summarize the request is a waiver from our requirements for parking area design. They made a much larger building, almost three times the size, and kicked in all of our development REGULATIONS FOR DOING THAT. AND SO THE WAIVER REQUESTS TO FORGO THE REQUIREMENT FOR OFF-STREET PARKING SPACES TO BE SURFACED, AND ACCORDING TO CODE, THEY NEED TO BE IMPERVIOUS. ALL WEATHER MATERIALS, SUCH AS ASPHALT, CONCRETE, ARE TO MISS SURFACE TREATMENT. The requirement is triggered by the application to replace the 1,200-square-foot building with a 1,450-square-foot structure, 1,250. Development proposes to provide 16 parking spaces out there, too, which will be paid for handicap access.

My keyboard's kind of funky.

Here's your big area. It's almost on Liberty, but you have this little access that apparently was Highway 5 at one time when they rerouted things. So it's kind of sitting in a sea of county land and across from city land and so forth right by the Moss Justice Center. Here's close up what it looks like now. You'll see some drawings from the civil, what they're proposing. You'll notice here that the driveway comes off. Right underneath where it says Annie Alexander in the corner, so it's kind of shared with that other entrance and it goes over to the parking lot. And the next slide will show, this is from their civil, so they're going to straighten that out, go right to the building. You can see they'd have to have a paved apron, and they got a couple handicapped spots next to the building. The rest of it they want to be graveled. The next one should be a picture of what it looks like now, and kind of an example of why we do this. So that's the entrance there to the left, and you can see we're dragging stuff out. There's a hole there. surface up there as a service so those are handicap stalls on the right hopefully they fit in the handicap so then we got a couple findings we need to make here um it talks about that you know somehow the The provision of the regulations will cause an unnecessary hardship because of topographical or other conditions peculiar to the site. And I don't think this is a very flat site. I don't see any particular conditions that cause an unnecessary hardship that would impede them from doing this improvement. Train's flat in the intended areas for drive and parking. The site is directly adjacent with the City of New York, which would have the same requirement for paving such a project, and we find that it didn't meet this criterion. The next one is you'd have to find that a departure may be made without defeating the intent of the provision of the chapter, and this is kind of why we do this stuff. The paving requirement provides a consistent durable surface that contributes to minimizing Particulates in the air and avoids tracking and washed out materials from entering the roadways Pavement is a modern standards consistent with the expectations nearby City of York and a proper support for 4,500 square foot building Which is frequented by the public with almost 16 spaces. Therefore I would find it didn't meet this criterion So we recommend denial because it didn't meet the criteria

Any questions? Yeah, I do. I do. A couple or three. With the asphalt parking, I'm assuming that it meets all the impervious surfaces?

Oh, yeah. This is a very big lot.

Okay, so it's three acres or whatever. Yeah. That's my first question. Second question is, has the county looked into developing impervious surfaces that actually are almost like asphalt? I mean, there are products out there now, and I was just asking, has the owner ever come up with that?

We haven't talked to SCDNR. Matter of fact, they had revised this to show this was concrete and gravel, but they do have that out here. In my short time, I haven't been here, but I've dealt with it in the past. So there is products that would be impervious for that purpose. They do require a good deal of maintenance. They need to be cleaned out. They'll get clogged up with everything. Where I came from, they'd freeze for several months out of the year or something like that.

But there are new products out there. I didn't know if the owner had ever asked that question to the county on that.

Yeah, we could look into that. It hadn't been brought up. Like I said, when I was looking at the civils, I asked them for this drawing, and it showed pavement. The original one we made, I think I had, we made a comment, and they addressed it, and then they came back on this waiver.

Yeah, it's almost like geotextile matting and stuff like that, but it works. It's a product that works really well.

So that would be up for the applicant to research.

Right, that's why I wanted to bring it up, because there is an option with that, and it is impervious, or pervious, Actually, it's considered pervious, which is surprising.

As long as it's operating like it's supposed to.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, to keep it washed out.

Yeah. What type of vehicles are we taking? Are we taking just the public vehicles, you know, just regular vehicles, not heavy trucks or anything like that?

I wouldn't think heavy trucks, but trucks. I mean, I don't know how many people go down there with their trailers and their boat on the way to somewhere or not. I don't know. I'm not sure. Sportsman's vehicles, I'll put it that way.

Could be passenger cars as well. Yeah. Sure.

Yeah.

But I'd like for us at least to maybe give them, the owner, an option. Maybe deny it, but give the owner an option. Well, they could come back.

I don't. We haven't tried to apply this. And I don't know of all the pluses and minuses of those surfaces here, if they actually save money. I know that if you really were running into an impervious situation where you needed to minimize that, that would be the ideal use for them. In a big lot like this, we're not too worried about impervious surfaces. And whatever you say, gravel is, as we calculated, impervious. The coefficient for what comes through is negligible compared to pavement after you drive on them for a while.

But these products have been out a few years. Yeah. And actually, they're less than asphalt.

Yeah, we could mention that. I would have to think about it, because I haven't seen it in a civil review. That might pass civil review, I would imagine. We could mention that, too.

OK. Are there any additional questions? If not, is there a motion?

Even though there's nobody here, just go ahead and open it and close for the public hearing.

My mistake. Sorry. So there is no one here to speak either for or against. So I will.

Motion to close public hearing.

I was going to say open and close. I'll open the public hearing. Is there a motion to close it?

Motion to close. I'll second.

We have a motion to open and close. And any discussion? All those in favor? And now is there a, let's see, moving on to.

Then we have to finish this up. We have to have a motion to.

Oh, yeah, we do need to vote, sorry. Would you like to make one?

Sure, I will make a motion to accept staff recommendation and deny.

I'll second.

Is there any discussion?

I just want to make sure the condition is out there. I don't know if we can put a condition in there, Diane, that further study or whatever.

Not so much a condition, more just, you know, to have staff follow up with the applicant about potential other uses, other materials.

Yeah, I'd like for staff to consider that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So we have a first and a second. All those in favor? Anyone opposed? Okay. Moving on to new business, we have a road name change request by Bryce Miller with LMS1 LLC applicant. They're requesting to change the names of two roads, which were previously approved with the Lowland Meadows preliminary plat. The subject property is located on the northern side of Bridgewater Road in Rock Hill, and it's zoned Rural Development 1, which are RUD 1, and is identified as tax map number 534-000029, Council District 5. And as we move into this, I'll just make a note that I've asked the question, but this has already been approved by 911. Yes, it has been. Okay. Okay.

And this is on the west side of Rock Hill, and this is the request in approval. for a change of road names found on a previously approved preliminary plat. These roads are in stages that haven't been developed yet, so they're undeveloped roads. We want to change the names of Badlands Drive and Big Sky Lane to Clearwood Drive and Fieldview Lane. So we don't see any big problem with that. GIS, who operates with 911 or gives them the numbers, have approved the name changes. I think we have a picture here of where we're found if the buttons work. That's where the subdivision is. And again, we've got another one in here that will give you the, this is the plat if you want to change. So pretty root, kind of pedestrian request here. We'd recommend approval.

Okay. Any questions? If not, I'll make a motion to approve.

I'll second.

Any discussion?

Just a real quick question for my own edification. So I heard about 911, but... Just real quick, how does the county check other names and make sure they don't conflict? There's a process for that, too.

That's what 911 does.

Oh, that's what 911 does. Yeah, they make sure we don't duplicate.

They work together through GIS to coordinate for the road names and making sure they're not duplicated and everything. So that's what 911 does.

So, but I have seen in places where you might have a name drive and a name road.

Mm-hmm.

And that's still permissible as far as 911 is concerned? I believe so. Yeah. It was always odd to me how you would get those two straight. Okay. I was just curious. That's all. That's all I had. We had a motion and a second.

Okay. So we have a motion and a second. All those in favor? Anyone opposed? Moving on to our first rezoning of the evening, which is 26-19. MJ Rooster Investments is the applicant. Lloyd H. Quinn, owner, requesting to rezone a 95.8 acre parcel from AJC to RUD. The subject parcel is located on Lawrence Road in Clover, and the property is referenced as tax map number 2820000010, Council District 3.

Good evening. This request, as she mentioned, was going from RUD to AGC. It is a 95-acre parcel located on Lawrence Road, and Lawrence Road is sort of between Clover and York, and it connects 321 to 161. The current applicant proposes here to be able to build a site with a residential neighborhood of 60 single-family detached homes. As you can see from the pictures here, this currently is a hay field, and so they do harvest hay at this location right now. The applicant has submitted this concept plan for potential single-family development, and this is showing 60 homes. It's turned to make it fit on the slide better here, but this is to be 60 one-acre tracts. It's zoned RUD. Zoning for the area here, the majority of the area in this part of Lawrence Road is AGC, and some part, the southern part, there is some RED and RED1 in the area here, but the majority of it is AGC. The future land use map here for the area is agricultural. Lawrence Road is a dividing area to the north of that. It's agricultural to the south of that rural residential, and there's a small part of single-family residential that reflects an existing neighborhood just to the east of there. And a map we don't very often show, but we wanted to show what the urban services boundary is. This does show the boundary right now and where this parcel lies in relationship to the USB, and it's truly outside of that USB. And we refer to that in our staff report. So we're recommending denial. It is not consistent with the comprehensive plan of the future land use map. It's currently a farm or hay field for agricultural purposes. Subdivision here will produce lots that are smaller than many of the lots within the area here. And the future land use map expresses the county's policy to maintain agricultural reservation. And we also refer to the comprehensive plan goal LU 1.2 that the objective is to the county to limit increase in the result development outside of the established USB. So this is adding more houses and area outside of the USB. And just for those, just kind of background for the USB, it's typically related to utilities for water and sewer, but it also can include things like fire, police services, and want to keep all those within that USB area. So we're recommending denial. Any questions for staff?

I have a couple. If this remained AGC and they wanted to develop it as a neighborhood, they'd be limited to five acre lots? Correct. But then is there any tree save or anything that would take them away from just being able to do as many five-acre lots as they can in the 97-ish acres?

I don't know if they have a tree save area at AGC. To be honest, it might be exempt of that, but I'm not 100% sure. But there's no buffer requirement or anything like that. But they have to construct roads and then put in the homes.

Right. So with that, it would... It could stay AGC, it could be subdivided into five-acre parcels as it is today, and that would be roughly about a third of what they're proposing, because that would be about 20, 19, right? Yeah, yeah.

Which you can actually get, because you have to get out the road area and everything for that.

Right, so about a third of the 60 that they were talking about.

They could do.

And would something like that be more acceptable? Because even though it's...

It would be by right.

It would be by right then.

So they can do it by right. They wouldn't come back to us. They would just go ahead and develop that way. And we would be acceptable to that because those are five-acre tracts. It's the 61-acre tracts that's out of character. Understood.

Okay. That's all I had.

Anyone else? Is there a motion?

I make a motion to deny.

I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Anyone opposed? Excuse me. Moving on to rezoning 26-15. It's council-initiated. The council is proposing to rezone Ash Downs, Coal Creek, Pikeview Place, and Town Square, which are existing townhome communities from RMX10, RMX20, GC, UD, and PD to RMX6. The proposal includes 367 individual parcels in the Fort Mill area listed in the staff report, and this is all within Council District 7.

All right. This is our second batch of this type of development or rezoning here, and this is part of the project to rezone all the townhomes within the county. to RMX 6. And just in case you weren't told this, this is approximately 3,000 townhomes. So there will be 10 batches of these spread out for the next couple of years. It's going to go on for a while. But these ones here are within District 7. These are mostly located off of Regent Parkway, and there's one also off of Coal Creek Road. I'm sorry, off of Flint Hill Road. These are all established townhome developments that were built over the past 10, 15, 20 years. Yeah, that's about right. So as we were saying, it's 367 properties here to go from a variety of different districts to RMX 6 that was created in 2022. This is going to apply as the appropriate use, dimensional standards, and development standards for any future improvements or addition. And it has no effect on the manner the properties are currently used. So staff recommends. Oh, let me go back. Couple things here, I can tell myself this is for the zoning for the area. Like I mentioned, there are some PD, there's some GC, RMX 10, RMX 20, there's a variety of different districts over here, and they're all going to go into RMX 6. And the future land use map here has this big neighborhood residential, and that does actually go along with RMX 6 and townhomes. So we recommend approval. Any questions?

Yeah, I think that either Coal Creek or Town Square are the oldest. But anyways, and I know I asked this the last time, but I just want to make sure. These owners of these areas, they're not going to be

thinking about redoing any kind of redevelopment aren't six but no these are you'd have to convince every single property owner to sell their property to demolish you know existing homes to then come back and rebuild so you know no crystal ball but i'm going to say it's probably never going to happen yeah i figured that and um

Yeah, these aren't in the area of the old PTL, the old PTL properties, so I'm okay with it. And it's right down the street from you and I. So, yeah.

Any additional questions?

A couple real quick things. So none of this is vacant land. All of these have got...

these are these all have homes on them right now approved primary flats existing town homes you know there is some areas that's vacant that's probably their common open space but they may have had stub out roads to be able to put a couple more town homes there maybe i don't think so but they have preliminary packs been approved Um, but these are consistent, these are completely, you know, built out.

Yeah, that's what I, and I wasn't noticing any, um, open lots is what I mean in the area in red is what we're talking about. Right.

And then just the area that's in red, the ones that are shown up in red, those are the ones that were rezoning. Okay. is it the blue happening no no so that one that um cole creek let me get back see if i can get back to a different map i'll leave it here cole creek actually that neighborhood has gc rmx 20 and there's a little bit of pd that's in there from years and years ago and so that one does have three different zoning districts um but the pd to the south of that those are all single family attached to detached homes so they're not changing

So my question around the PD part was, if it leaves PD,

The PD, I'm sorry, the PD is changing. Yes, I thought it was the other PD. Yes, the PD portion of this is changing to RMX 6.

Right, which is, so on the big spreadsheet, anything that's PD on the big spreadsheet was going to go to RMX 6. Correct. So could there be restrictions in the PD that would no longer happen because it went to 6?

No, we've looked at that to make sure nothing is going to conflict with that. Okay. It really should not have been a PD.

I live in a what should not have been a PD years ago, and I get it, I was just curious about that.

And to go along with what Mike was mentioning, I mean, does it really, really meet RNX 20? No. It looks like it's smaller. No, this is all home.

No, I understand. So back in the day? I'm asking. So back when it was built.

Right, that's what I'm asking.

It was RD2, and you could do townhomes back in then. So, yeah, things have changed over time. So back when these were built, and same thing, you can do it in UD. You could do townhomes back then.

You could do them in UD.

You can't do them now. Yeah, yeah.

It's all the old crazy rules.

Yes. Yeah, yeah.

Any additional questions?

No.

Would anyone like to make a motion?

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

Any discussion? All those in favor? Anyone opposed? Okay. Let's see. Moving on to our last piece of business for the evening. The Planning Commission is to review and provide a recommendation to amend Chapter 155, Subchapter C. which is use regulations to add trade services as a permitted use in the GC zoning district and to add building material and supply stores, farm and garden supply with equipment sales and service, and vehicle service repair and customization without overnight outdoor storage as permitted uses in the ID zoning district.

Okay, the background, this came from P&Z. They talked about it at one meeting, and then I made a motion for your recommendation to change some of the ID and GC you mentioned, and we wanted to change all that to permitted, except for one use, which is a motor vehicle, recreational vehicle, or boat storage, which is conditional wherever else is found. And that gives us design guidelines for the actual lot, with some landscaping and also provides for the, not the landscaping, screening. Just the screening. Yeah, screening. Yeah, so I have to have an opaque screening, you know, just so that stuff isn't sticking out. And so on the next one, he mentioned a long list of uses to add to jurisdictional comparison. It's kind of all over the board with this. It wasn't like it wasn't found in these districts, but some people have different schemes.

Some have several different types of industrial zones or commercial zones.

But more than not, these kinds of uses were found in other jurisdictional boundaries. I thought I tried to get big enough. This is what the table would look like. We have all the trade services as a P on GC, the rest. R and ID, and they're all permitted except for the motor vehicle, recreational vehicle, boat storage item. So we do support the Planning and Zoning Commission's recommendation for that. I got a question.

With the C, when you say conditional, that would have to be brought for us?

And not a special exception, just had the standards to make sure they get the screening and design of the parking lot. That's what the conditions are.

So that could be at staff level, right? Yeah, at staff level.

Yeah, it would still be permitted outright. And did you say there was a triggering event for this? Oh, no, that was the other – well, I don't – We had a waiver, which a guy had a bigger building, which triggered the design guideline. This was brought up by a member of the zoning committee. I'm sure there were some things that he had seen that wanted to change.

Have you seen a lot of this recently?

Not really. In-house, I run into the trade services requests in GC. That is kind of a down, because they generally are in higher, more into the purple, and then more industrial categories there. The rest of them, I haven't seen that.

But apparently, one of our- If I may, I can speak to a couple of these things. So the trade services ones, that actually came, I think, triggered it was when we had a rezoning for somebody who wanted to do an HVAC business. And they were going to have to go to LI. And so that, I think, started the whole thought process with the council person about really, is it a liar? Could that be more of a over of a GC? Because it's not always going to be where it's a lot of times that's going to be more of your landscapers. So you have a lot of outside storage, but doesn't have to be. And so they were doing the HVAC company for rezoning was it was actually denied. And so, but it may have been okay for GC. The boat and motor vehicle, also we had a rezoning. Somebody had the property and they rezoned LI, and they had another zoned ID, and they had to get rezoned a portion of the properties over in Rock Hill. It was like he had a business in the top part of it, and he had to rezone the bottom of it to LI to allow boat and RV storage. So those were two recent rezonings that may have triggered some of the discussion of those. And then I think in looking at that,

they just picked a few other ones in the whole discussion but there were other ones there were no triggers that i'm aware of just those two so i'm thinking in terms of equipment sales and things for the farm and garden i mean that very much could look like outdoor overnight parking so we would have we would want to approve that but not outdoor of an art storage? Am I looking at that right? Because if you've got equipment sales, wouldn't that be like tractors and trailers?

Are we talking about that compared to the motor vehicle storage? You can have outdoor displays of merchandise, which is kind of that world for that in the GCA.

Yeah, those ones are products that are for sale. So, I mean, looking at it, it looks very similar. So here you have a whole bunch of equipment sitting outside.

I'm just thinking like a person driving by. Yeah, so that's good. It's not okay, but, you know. Are we going for an aesthetic? Is that what's pushing this? Or are we going for...

Going into ID, so you're going into a heavier district where that doesn't matter as much as GC or something.

Maybe something that would help is for that last category, it's pretty much conditional across the board, right? Yeah. that motor vehicle yeah it's conditional across the board so what are the sorts of i didn't go back and look at 3.24 but what are those blanket conditions that kind of apply to that type of business is this the fencing and the the shielding of being able to see and that sort of stuff that's like you can certainly do it here if you meet all these conditions

Yeah, it's mostly screening. That's probably the biggest part. Maybe some additional buffering or setbacks or anything. I think it's maybe a depth of the buffer.

Yeah, not even so much. There's a design of the parking lot that has to have an aisle width and that kind of thing, a geometry to that. But other than that, it is screening is the one thing that people would notice. They may have to surface the area that they parked the vehicles on and things like that with the design for the storage.

Did that help clarify that some or not? Because when I was thinking about it, I was looking at that too, and I said, well, they're all conditional for that one use.

But just not for, I'm just, well, I'm just thinking. I'm thinking about back home where there's a big John Deere sales guy, and he's got lots of tractors and everything sitting out, and it would look just like, you know... I mean, yes, they're all for sale, but they're six deep, and they're... I guess, are there maximums for sales, equipment sales, where they could have their display but not all of their inventory? I mean, I don't want to hamstring anybody, but if we're going for... I mean, again, that's why I asked what we're really going for. Like, what's the point is the point so that we don't look like we have a used car dealership when we drive down certain streets, or is it because we want to, you know, is it just the, the buffers and the, yeah.

Yeah. You might, you mean for just in general, putting these in ID. I mean, these are just to give you more options from the lower level uses than the highest uses to it. Some people have kind of wanted to be able to do that. I don't know that displays should be any different in ID than they would be for anything else of that nature in the other districts that they have up there. I wouldn't put special things on it there.

The other districts might be more important to do that with. when dealership fall. Car dealership? It's not on this.

No, no, no. And they wouldn't be allowed. We're not adding that to ID. That's allowed in GC. So a car dealership is allowed in GC. But equipment sales. But equipment sales for the farm and supply equipment sales, that would be permitted in the ID already allowed in GC.

And so what about the vehicle service where it did have overnight storage? Where would that one fall? Don't we have a category for that? Yeah, we're not changing that. What I'm saying is on this, we're saying, hey, it's permitted there if you want for outdoor without the outdoor storage. But if you had outdoor storage, Where would that...

I think it's already in there.

I think it's already in LIID. It's already in LIID. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that if you have outside storage, it's already allowed in both LIID. And so they're just adding the one that has the without overnight storage to the ID. This is to be able to expand, to be able to allow more types of uses in the ID district. That's the purpose of that. It's just to be able to allow more things there that might be okay. The, you know, yeah.

And that's kind of how I was reading it, because as I looked across, an underlined P or an underlined C, which means it's an add, is consistent with what's already in that across.

So it's just adding more places where you can do these uses.

And bringing trade services back into GC, which will give them a little bit more flexibility of where those go.

Yes. Thank you for the clarification. Any additional questions? If not, is there a motion?

We haven't made one yet. I'll make a motion to approve. I'll second. All right, great.

Any discussion? All those in favor? Anyone opposed? Okay. Any questions on the rezoning tracking sheet? And if not, is there a motion to adjourn? Have a good night.