Full meeting transcript - March 31, 2026

» good let's be called to order sorry sorry danny a little little bit strong right um let's be called to order on this tuesday march 31st 2026 special called meeting for kershaw county council welcome everyone out tonight who is attending thankful to have you here we've got an invocation and pledge allegiance that we led by councilman sammy tucker let us all stand please bow your heads and open your hearts lord father god almighty once more we're here asking you as humbly as we know how for your grace and your mercy asking that you touch our hearts and our minds help us to deliberate the business which has become before us from the smart growth committee allow us to be able to discuss it and understand it and ask for appropriate questions lord father and let it be good for all of the citizens

» the builders the developers and the citizens now lord father bless our nation uh many troubling things that's going on in our nation uh many troubling things that's going on in our nation uh many troubling things that's going on in our nation uh many troubling things that's going on in our nation uh many troubling things that's going on in it touch it heal on in it touch it heal on in it touch it heal it put your hand on it lord father and keep it put your hand on it lord father and keep it put your hand on it lord father and keep our men and women safe that's protecting for our men and women safe that's protecting for our men and women safe that's protecting for our freedoms and liberties we ask these things in our freedoms and liberties we ask these things in our freedoms and liberties we

» ask these things in your son jesus name amen amen pledge allegiance your son jesus name amen amen pledge allegiance your son jesus name amen amen pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america to the flag of the united states of america to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one and to the republic for which it stands one can you hear me hey mr. chairman yes sir I'm here and for staff do we have anyone else on the line if you could make sure you resend the number to mr.

» Brazel just in case he had any plans on calling in miss Anna thank you all right that moves us to item number four on our special agenda tonight adoption of the agenda do we have a motion make motion we adopt the agenda as submitted is there a second second got a second mr. Tucker any discussion no sir else on the agenda all those in favor of the agenda present voting raise your hand it's unanimous for those who are present and voting and mr. Thompson how do you vote on the agenda that's your chairman of it yes on the agenda okay thank you mr. Tomlinson and we'll just note for the record that mr.

» Brazel is out of the country I believe on work travel that brings us to item number 5 a discussion item placed on by councilman Shoemake is there a motion I'll make a motion for a discussion there'll be there'll be no vote as a result of this discussion the votes will come in the ordinances and I understand this is generally report from the smart growth committee in the work you've done correct is there a second we have a second yes or second okay all in favor of having this discussion raise your hand it's unanimous for those who are present in voting mr. in favor mr. mr. Tomlinson how do you vote Mr. Chairman I vote yes for everyone voting miss Hennett's unanimous yes sir mr.

» Shoemake yes so if we could bring up those slides so basically what I wanted to do is give a very brief discussion on what the smart growth committee's been doing and the ordinances that have been put together that we'll be voting on tonight first off I want to thank the committee for all their hard work councilman Tomlinson who's obviously on the call with us is a member planning Commissioner Robert Horton planning Commissioner Jackie Montgomery former councilman Steven smoke and Kershaw County chief operations director operations officer Billy Smith in addition to Jonathan Proctor planning Commission chairman who's actually in the audience tonight those seven members have been working fairly diligently we've met ten times formally since August 12th when we were established that represents

» 15-16 hours of work and that doesn't include the work we've spent outside the committee meetings reading ordinances working on you know working with our various constituents you know getting public input and bringing some of that public input back into the smart growth planning committee we had a brief from Jeff Burgess the economic development director and the goal our goal short-term was quite succinctly to fill the gap from when the moratorium expires until we get a full ZRD right which rewrite which could take some time on that front we'll talk about this more later but we're still working to finalize the contract with the consultant and get that where it needs to be so we can start that work in earnest so this fills the gap while we rewrite these ordinance hopefully these are good enou

» gh to stand the test of time and through the rewrite they'll stay and if not we'll have time to adjust them so nothing we're recommending tonight it will not be revisited in the next 24 months so with that in mind I just wanted to walk briefly through the ordinances that you have on the agenda tonight there are nine ordinances but generally fall into three buckets the first bucket which is the more intensive one and the rest are pretty quick is the permit allocation system so the permit allocation system is a system that does what it says it does it allocates permits into the county screen you get it on screen you don't have it on yours no it's a screen you don't have it either oh yeah yeah yeah sorry sorry I'm sorry yeah no no so I was just gonna say what it is is a system that allocates p

» ermits now there's one jurisdiction doing this in South Carolina now and that's Mount Pleasant they've done it fairly successfully however we would be the first County to do this and I see that as a positive so the big question is why do we do this well if you haven't seen this chart on Facebook yet this shows how many people move to various states in per 10,000 and what's great about these numbers is it normalizes everything so a place like California with many more residents it's the same per capita data so we see that South Carolina is number one with a bullet we have the fastest-growing per capita state in the country 79.7 people come here for every 10,000 people that were here before if we drill that down a little bit we see that if we look at per 1,000 same stat just looked at differe

» ntly mathematically 12 people come here for every thousand people that live here compare that to 9.8 out in the near near out sort of you know on the west coast and then nobody comes close I mean we are growing at a pace that outpaces for example Georgia by you know nearly you know six times so in almost double North Carolina in fact North Carolina and some stats here North Carolina is losing people so we see massive massive growth so let's talk about Kershaw County specifically here's what we're seeing we had 6.1 percent growth from the decade prior to 2020 2010 to 2020 6.1 percent we are seeing growth rates that are astronomically higher we're looking at you know somewhere in the neighborhood of 11.8 percent that we've already seen based on US census estimates and we can see here a breakd

» own of how that population works now you may look at this and say well the growth rate is slowing a little bit that is somewhat true but I would point out that a that growth rate is still very very high South Carolina is the fastest-growing state in the United States and it's only grew at 1.5 percent so we're still eclipsing the growth rate of South Carolina and we don't know how accurate this data is because this is census data it's backdated this is the data as of last July the World Population Review which does an estimate of the more updated data has us at seventy four thousand eight hundred and four people so that growth would be much more comparable to the two and a quarter percent we saw the prior year you also see the permits increasing from 24 to 25 so we see 497 permits versus 490

» the year before we are the seventh fastest-growing County in South Carolina the only counties ahead of us are either close to the beach or on the coast or they border a neighboring state which makes us the fastest inland County in South Carolina. For growth in South Carolina and I would posit we're getting growth not only from out of state but from within the state people that are moving from these more expensive coastal areas as they grow and they want more rural area they come out here so then we talk about this is the why so then we go to the permit allocation system what is it and again there's all the all the ordinances are here in the packet and are available to the public but here's the short of it it caps the permits at a fixed number each housing type gets a percentage based on pri

» or use in years prior we'll look at those numbers but you have basically four buckets single-family homes within major subdivisions single-family homes outside of subdivision which includes mobile homes because for a planning purposes that's the same type of single-family use multifamily these are your apartments duplexes we consider one permit for each unit so a five you know a ten unit apartment would be ten permits or ten units accessory units this is the house for grandma in the backyard this is a separate physical structure that's an accessory dwelling unit we've had very few of those historically this is first-come first-served within your bucket so individual property owners aren't fighting the developers for permits but they are in line with other individual property owners the perm

» its release every six months so if you don't get a permit you're at the top of the list for the next six month period council will evaluate these numbers every six months and the program has two years on it it'll be a two-year program that would be extended renovations like if your house gets destroyed or burns down those are exempt as our PDD's yeah of course councilman so he said every six months the evaluation from council if we do this is that just a say we want to make a modest change does that takes three readings in a public hearing or will that be a one vote I think it would be one vote what do you think John well as this ordinance is drafted it is establishing the numbers within the ordinance we could certainly look at adding a provision that explicitly says that it could be adjust

» ed on one vote I would have to look at that though and make sure equal dignity rule wouldn't in fact require three votes but certainly something I'll explore if that's a desire of counsel and I think it if it's more well we can act on it immediately it would be better for us to make the adjustment correct right and once we put this into place though since it wouldn't be a new rule once we put it into place the first if it had to report acquired three we would be pending ordinance for the first one anyway correct right so worst case scenario Sammy if it needed three readings our new numbers would go into effect on that first reading and you have special called meetings - well you would have to you would just make sure you knew in the six month period was coming and you would just have in the

» meeting just prior to that you could set the numbers that'd be the easiest way to do it so you don't have special meetings and to be fair this brings up a great point councilman Tucker is again no county's ever done this again I see that as a positive some make out just as a negative but I think this is us showing we're taking the lead on a problem that every cat well almost every county in South Carolina that is facing and we're taking the lead on it so there's gonna be some adjustments no doubt which is why the six month review is built in there PDD's are exempt and the reason for that is if you're bringing in a PDD you have to negotiate directly with council to address your infrastructure the whole reason we have this is we're getting a growth that over taxes infrastructure so if you wan

» t to come in and put 50 grand a rooftop in your development then we may be able to have a discussion with you because you are not going to be part of that problem so that's the basic setup of the system so how many permits are the baseline so that's the first question so excluding our spike here and the reason I think that's important is you notice that there's a year here where we had 725 building permits that is a massive outlier for the year be in and again you're around kovat time so I think there's some explanation for that so with my numbers I've excluded our spike here so that we're fair because if you look past our spike here the numbers are pretty similar so if we exclude our spike here we average approximately five hundred permits a year the census says we average 2.53 people per

» unit but we've actually seen more than that but conservatively we're seeing 1 245 people for every 500 permits that's a pretty good number so 500 permits a year which is what we're getting equals a growth rate of at least 1.72 percent annually or 8.6 percent over the next five years 20 over the end of the decade now noted we've seen 500 permit years where our population increased even more so I think what we're seeing is newer homes are putting more people in them but I think it to be completely fair and completely uh I guess sort of completely defensible if we use the census numbers I think it's the most defensible way to go I think you've low-balled this you've done a good job totally I think I'm right and so here's the kind of the point as I go into my recommendation for the numbers and

» then we'll vote on this later but this is just my uh my recommendation later on the numbers the only way to slow growth is to slow growth I get and I've had discussions with some of you individually that you know we don't like the idea that you know individual plots of when they're going to go down you know individual plots of land that are being built on outside of a subdivision may reach a permit cap I hear you that's a real possibility but if we're going to slow growth we have to slow growth and to that point let's take a look at the type of growth we're seeing so what this chart shows you is the buckets that the permit allocation system would address and we see here using last year as an example 497 permits 118 were inside of major subdivisions that were single-family homes 318 outside

» of subdivisions including mobiles 53 multi-families that could have been it wasn't but that could have been a 50 unit apartment and a triplex right those are 53 living units across these multi-family virtually 100 percent of the multi-family uses occur inside a major subdivision it's not all but virtually 100 so you can sort of take those two numbers together to look at big subdivisions and then adus we see a very very small number eight was a big year last year but typically we're hovering in three two or one so what this chart tells us though is that we see the vast majority of our growth each year is in outside of subdivisions I think what's also interesting is 2025 half of 2025 we had the moratorium yet in 2025 we saw permits increased by seven we actually saw an increase in permits dur

» ing the moratorium that tells me that the moratorium perhaps wasn't the best mechanism well we know it's not a mechanism to control growth it's a pause while we address growth but I'm not sure it even accomplished that if we're going to do a moratorium moratorium it's going to have to be an across the board moratorium this is a model that avoids a moratorium um so my personal recommendations now again everything I just told you was addressed by the smart growth committee it was voted on the concept was the smart growth committee did not pick a number they left that to Council because it's a policy decision so the next slide is Councilman Derek shoe makes personal recommendation it does not come from the smart growth committee my thought is we we are already well over our we've already doubl

» ed our growth from last decade if we did a 30 percent reduction we would still see an annual growth rate of 1.2 percent so reducing our permits and capping them reducing our permits by 30 percent would still give us an annual growth rate of 1.2 percent which to your point Jimmy is the smaller I mean that's a conservative number probably be higher a growth rate of six over the next five years and 18.6 over the decade so even if we cap it at 30 percent we're still likely to grow them as 19 this decade if we cap it at 40 percent we're going to see about 18 growth over the decade you can see the numbers if we did a 30 cap 208 homes would be permitted under the single family 40 multifamily now the accessory dwelling unit 80 user two I think we could very easily legally justify upping that number

» on its own and increasing the total number of permits given they become a more popular use it's really hard when you're talking about a number between 0.8 and one percent to properly allocate a number so that one could be up to discussion we may also see multi-families drop with some of our new ordinances and we could roll those back in hence the point of a six-month review but I think what you're going to see is a roughly 60 percent of the permits will go to the single-family homes outside of subdivisions including mobile homes and the rest will go to the major subdivisions or these adus that's the approximate math as the math changes we can adjust these numbers so that is an overview of the permit allocation system and the last thing I want to say before I leave this is the elephant in th

» e room which we've already addressed under this if you are the 209th person in Kershaw County to apply for a building permit you want to build a home on it you've lived here all your life in a smaller house you have 10 acres of land you want to build and you're the 209th person you're going to be told no you're going to be told wait until the next permit opening and then you're first in line now that may sound harsh but here's the reason I personally don't think that's harsh one is we can't legally treat these people different than major subdivisions especially when we see they are responsible for sixty percent of our growth there's no legal justification for us treating those people differently two you have a fairly short wait to get on you know the next list three I hear what everyone's s

» aying with that but understand if I live in Kershaw County and I have 10 acres and build a home when I move into that 10 acres my home's now vacant someone's going to move into that if that happens to be a Kershaw resident originally then they're going to vacate a home and what I mean by that gentlemen is it is a virtual statistical certainty that every dwelling unit created in Kershaw County creates an additional number of people living in Kershaw County it may not be from that unit but the cycle is everyone keeps moving until eventually there's an empty home and someone from outside of Kershaw County moves into it so we are creating growth with every permit this gives us this also gives planning and staff an ability to say look we know no matter what we're not going to get more than 350 d

» welling units in a year and they can plan around that and obviously if we extend the program you know these the first year we may adjust a little more I suspect after the first year will be a little more consistent and here's the thing if growth naturally slows then this becomes if this makes itself obsolete if growth slows and nobody applies for more than 350 permits or in those categories then the permit allocation system could probably just go away because we would have come under the number so but again yes I have a question Mr Chairman if I may what about if somebody would put a pump house on the property or like where I live I've got you know six seven eight acres there I mean they are they we would have put a storage building on the property are we talking about that too not unless t

» he storage building had plumbing and a bedroom and was considered a home if it did it would likely be an ADU an accessory dwelling unit which would be in that other category may have plumbing and yeah electricity but would that count as taking it well I don't want to get into because I'm not in the planning department I think that it probably would if it was we need I think we need to clarify that if you're okay with that yeah yeah I mean that's that's fine I think I think it's like what you've done yeah I think it's probably I think a pool house is probably going to be considered an accessory dwelling unit if someone can live and sleep there Mr Temple you might hello everyone Zach Hoover director of planning and zoning so the answer is kind of it depends if the primary use of that pool hou

» se is to have a bedroom and be a living quarters then we'll classify it as an accessory dwelling unit but if you have a room and a bathroom and a kitchen in it you're hosting parties doing that sort of stuff that would not be an accessory dwelling unit it would just be an accessory stand-up shower and a toilet oh okay that's what people normally like to put in their pool rooms yep that's easy yeah so if you have someone actually staying in the night there sleeping in it then we'll consider nobody would be doing that but well I'm speaking for myself but I guess I just wanted to make sure that they would be able to because that's not a dwelling it could be a dwelling now it's like you use it against us you know as a loophole but I think you guys do a pretty good job of inspecting and checking

» things and making sure they are what they're supposed to be thank you yeah no and one thing that's important to stress we talked about this big picture before I leave this one the rest will be much quicker but before I leave this one one thing to stress is you know the reason that we are doing this is you know public services are being stressed and overwhelmed I mean we all see that right we've heard in the last budget cycle for me EMS how their call volume is shooting up we hear from the sheriff every year about how their call volume is shooting up we see in our sewer system that we're engaging in a major expansion that may only get us caught up to where we need to be instead of actually adding true capacity so we're we see it in our on our dirt roads that we maintain and we see it of cour

» se in our DOT roads we see some projects 10 years behind in Elgin now we can't control DOT but what we're seeing is the growth is killing us you know a county and I've said this so many times you know and that and the chairman has said it at multiple events I've heard him say this a county grows or dies right nobody's going to stay exactly the same like those out there that want us to stay the same that's never going to happen we don't want to die so that means we have to grow but there's a difference between growing and growing to the point that our services are so taxed that we can't keep up with them that's why I'm going to propose tonight a 30 reduction now again we'll get this again the 30 will just go to planning commission and we'll have it again for two more readings the 30 is I don

» 't want to call it a placeholder because I think that's the right number but obviously you know we can debate that but I just think we can debate that as we get more information this is obviously the first time many of you are hearing about this so we have approximately 40 days until our final votes there'll be plenty of time to dig into this I also want to recognize uh planning commission chairman Proctor if you want to come to the podium sir and just to ask him if there's anything I have missed that he would like to add before we leave this particular section and then if anyone has any questions Jonathan Brocker planning and zoning chair I think you've covered it pretty well I got a lot of the same questions that you got from some of the public when I was talking about what we were doing

» and um I think you've answered all those questions that I've got mainly the person that wants to put a house on their home or their land I should say that they purchased and won't know if how this is going to affect them but as you said it's going to be different for the into subdivisions the out subdivisions so I mean I think we've addressed that concern I can't think of anything that that you haven't added I think Mr Tucker has a question yeah it's actually for you all right and I have a statement as well but I want to tell Mr Proctor thank you and the smart growth committee man for the tremendous work that y'all have done I've seen you up there because you've been meeting after my our finance committee meetings and it's been very very daunting and tasking but you guys have buckled up and

» just made it happen so thanks pleasure to serve um so I just want to piggyback on what you were talking about as far as the stress on the system um quality of life means something and we've got to make sure that as we grow smartly as we grow because I'm like Councilman Shoemake we're going to grow or we're going to die I don't like the uh the alternative so I hope we grow but we need to grow in a responsible way where services won't be so stressed where quality of life will not be compromised these things are very important to people until you um you don't have them anymore so we need to treasure this and make sure that happens my question for you Councilman she made is can I get a permit caps at 20 done by you sometime between now and the next reading talk about numerically yes yeah yeah s

» o you can see the difference yeah absolutely for sure I can I can compare absolutely I can have that I'll send that out to everybody I can absolutely yeah the math is easy I can do that for any percentage yeah thank you so go ahead yes sir the the numbers you have here we keep talking about every six months the permits rolling over but these numbers say take for example the other single family including mobile homes 208 permits is that for a year period so so in every six months they wouldn't be but 104 permits issued in a six-month period that's correct I did the annual numbers because it's easier to conceptualize annually but you're exactly right we would evaluate it every six months and so to your point Councilman Kato it'd be 104 but at the end of that six-month period if we felt like t

» hat was too low or too restrictive we could increase that second six-month tranch to to whatever we wanted to so it gives us the opportunity to in theory we could decrease it I don't see us going that direction but we could increase it from like so the first trance would be 104. and then if we got to that six-month window we could say okay let's bring that 104 to 150.

» just understand every increase we make in that category we have to make in the other one so that means for every more every great every percent of allowance we give to single families outside of subdivisions we're giving the same allowance to the big developers yes I agree with Councilman Tucker I'd like to see it I'd like to kind of see maybe start low then go high if we need to and we can absolutely do that and I can put those numbers together again I I'm going to amend it at 30 just as a but I fully acknowledge that that is not and I want to make that clear I'm doing that so we can have a number at planning because planning may come back with a recommendation that's closer to that as well and like I say I'm you know I've always been a big believer in one step forward is not going backwar

» ds so if we do it at 20 if that's the will of this body I'm not going to fight for a particular number as long as we can see some reduction I may later but like all of you we got to see how this plays out before we realize if we need to adjust it so well and what I want to make sure that we're not putting chokehold on Grove versus controlling and doing Smart Grove that's that's what I want to make sure that we're doing as the policy makers before we move on from this point I just want to check with Mr Tomlinson do you have any comments remotely no I have no comments remotely um being in the Smart Growth ad meeting um Mr Shoemake did a great job really spelling out everything we had some really good conversations and this this topic alone was one that um had a lot of debate and it was for a

» good reason because in order to have change change is always scary but this is a way that we can really effectively manage how many homes are being built in Kershaw County and the six-month test period and to go back for Council is a is a good thing to have in there and there's going to be some changes that come up but I'm only in support of permit allocation that's all Mr Chairman thank you Mr Tomlinson and also before we move on from this point I just had a question about process it reminds me uh perhaps of college or any other thing where you're trying to get a class or something online or in person we're going to create a rush uh January 1 or June 1 or however we um split the dates up would the Smart Growth committee get into any of that on best process to receive applications for impro

» vements or is it just going to be defer to staff on the best way to handle it so at this point obviously we don't know that it's going to pass so we haven't asked staff to kind of give us a full revamp but assuming that it's starting to looks like it's headed for passage Mr Hoover's already started the process of figuring out what that would look like so I don't have an answer for you but I suspect by third reading we'll have he will be able to brief you on what staff plans to do um is that fair Mr Hoover yeah by third reading he'll be able to brief before before we vote on third reading he'll be able to brief us on that uh but he's taking that now to see what that process would be but I don't have that answer if we can for staff and legal because I you know there's a whole slew of unpredic

» tables that come up and unintended consequences when you Venture into something like this though it seems like it has significant merit let's try to get the alternatives prior to second reading if we can so we can start to really weigh get public feedback and then be ready to vote on something if we need emotions by third reading correct um and this ordinance does um under application requirements procedures contemplate the fact that the building official and planning director will devise procedures and requirements and forms um you know subject to uh Council's uh vote tonight I think staff would probably have pretty clear direction about whether to uh start that and again I think we've just received some direction to start looking at that so um yeah we'll we'll work on that prior to the um

» meeting on the 14th or 28th whenever second reading is thank you Mr bows Mr she make you have the floor well I think Mr Jones did you oh you got a question yeah just a couple quick things right quickly thank you and Mr Chairman I agree with what you said just now as well I I feel a little guilty or bad that that I'm bringing this up because you guys have worked so hard and I'll tell you at our committees I've never liked them never thought they were a good thing this one has done a great job I think I I was saying there's too many people you know it's an ad hoc committee boy y'all sure turned it around and made a success out of it and I appreciate that for the people of Kershaw County here's where I'm at I can go along with the 30 I like the 20 better but I can go along with the 30 because

» you you put a lot of thought into that um I would like it specifically maybe in one to five points somewhere put in there when we say a pool house or a or a garage or a storage building that instead of leaving it to their discretion there's no language about it I would like to have some kind of I mean I think I think we can do that we often in our ordinances list examples you know so I think we could when we talk about and this might require mending a different version of the statute where we define because it would be an ADU right Mr DuBose that type of the accessory dwelling unit yeah to Mr Hoover's point I really think it depends on whether it is a dwelling unit um definitionally like a pool house but many uses of course wouldn't fit under this because it wouldn't be a dwelling unit if y

» ou had a garage that had an apartment in it again that could be considered a dwelling unit but uh a garage with just plumbing well that would be that would be just if it was detached if it was an attached garage just another room in the house correct yes I was not referencing like a but you get some LA it's got a lot of property like you do and of course we sit on seven or eight acres of self there's other places you could put a storage building and I'm and I'm not even putting anything on my property not even a pool house but I was just thinking about that because I want to make sure that that planning is only has clear direction from us I think it's unfair or us to not clarify that if there's any way we can and understand I'm going to support this regardless because you've done a great jo

» b but I would really appreciate and respect if we could work on some kind of explanation written out I think that's very doable I don't see that as a particularly heavy lift I'm happy to kind of take the lead on putting something together and we can look at it on a second reading Mr Thomas and I heard you buzzing I not to take away from the chairman's role but I just don't want to start until you have something yeah and I just to Mr Jones point I'm glad you brought that up and I do think that was mentioned a little bit during the smart growth so I don't think we touched on a whole lot um but would it be possible if we looked at if the dwelling so if you're going to build something that will be contained considered a dwelling that would pull a permit if it was going to be in that allocation

» system that we based it upon number of days so if you're going to be an Airbnb or something along those lines um and you only have 60 days out of the year that you're having somebody living there that's really not putting a strain on resources in Kershaw County could we do something based upon uh three months if it's occupied more than three months so if I can jump in on that I think the dwelling sorry Brent or 30 days no no go ahead I was just going to say I think the issue with that I mean I would just kind of push back on that a little bit I think the issue with that is one you know who's this who is going to govern or who's going to monitor whether this Airbnb is used for 60 because but then used for another 60.

» um and then I I think we'd also have to go deeper into the code and change our definition of what a dwelling unit is a dwelling unit is a place you can live I mean I'm being a bit uh generic here but it's a place you live and sleep that is a a place of dwelling and so a place you live and sleep that you rent out is still going to be a dwelling unit because here's the other thing Brent that Airbnb is not by deed deeds aren't restricted to Airbnb so at any moment that person could sell that Airbnb and turn it right into a dwelling and I think the manageability problem is is pretty difficult that's my two cents on that I think what we can do to Mr Jones's point though is we can say hey you know we can give examples of things that aren't dwelling units you know Garage that kind of that I think

» we could definitely do that that's my two cents anything else Mr Thomas I think Mr Jones thank you Mr Thomas and I think to Mr Jones point um under this scheme there would be no cap on the accessory units like Mr Bowes was saying and so if it's if it's the pool house or it's the detached non-dwelling Garage or if it's a playhouse or a shed or something that maybe even requires a foot yeah workshop or a footing or um pole barn there would not be a cap on those under this because it's not related to any type of residential use and that's probably maybe the best place to put it uh Mr DuBose is in the section on exemptions just mentioned that this does not apply to those and that is probably the cleanest way to to work that language in Mr Bowes you have anything else because I'm done with this

» section no I just don't think that a toilet and a shower should be dictating a living yeah I mean let's give the folks something hey if we find out that somebody's violating the orders they shut down a lot of people I agree thank you yeah absolutely uh any questions from my fellow council members that that's the big topic right so that's the big the big bucket the rest are pretty straightforward there's there's two other buckets we passed nine we recommend nine ordinances to you guys tonight that was the first one the rest is much easier to talk through the second following the bucket of major subdivision standards and there's four ordinances there and you can see on your screen a very short summary of what each one of them are so basically we set up residential design standards they mostly

» relate to the exterior facade uh varying designs and Foundation requirements um they're fairly straightforward they're not particularly onerous um but they're a good start we may want to ratchet them up as time goes on but they're just a good start for design standards we borrowed some language from the city of Columbia that's been doing this to some effect for the last couple months uh we did not make them as extreme as the city of Camden I said City of Columbia City of Camden um we were talking about an annexation issue and I got me all confused um it was a city of Camden uh and theirs was pretty honest but they're also a city like for example they banned all slab houses it's a little tougher to do in a an entire County so these design standards uh are fairly straightforward I would note

» that these past 7-0 on the smart growth committee which also included Realtors so I mean it's pretty easy and Mr Proctor actually recommended it open space requirements I'm really proud of this one smart growth committee was also completely unanimous in favor of this one so it's pretty straightforward but it's revolutionary because not a lot of people are doing it open space means developable land so if you have an open we have an open space standard which laid out in the statue your open space can't be wetlands that you couldn't build on anyway it can't be useless land that's worthless to you it is land that could affect it's basically eliminates wetlands and run off land from open space so you can't you know buy worthless wetlands next door and say well there's my 20 percent wetland or my

» 20 percent open space open space means real open space and depending on the mega division so if you have something over a certain number of acreage you have to have a certain number of open spaces it's the same it's the same acreage we tell you have to have x much open space but it has to be spread out over two locations for a major subdivision I would note by the way all these would apply to major subdivisions not one-off homes sidewalk requirements are going to be required in all subdivisions also a unanimous request from the committee the other one off-street parking was when I hadn't thought much about but this actually came from our school district and EMS folks no parking on both sides of the street that would have to be in the HOA covenants if there are if there is an HOA and we're g

» oing to require when you develop a neighborhood to have off-street parking you see some maps in your packet but basically you would have little at the end of cul-de-sacs a little area for parking and what this is going to do is reduce the number of cars on the street as Mr Smith from the school district noted school buses in some of these new neighborhoods have a heck of a time getting in there picking up kids and you know same for ambulances are less onerous than a fire truck but fire trucks too um so you know the difference between a fire truck ambulance and a school bus is at least the fire truck can knock your car out of the way and not get sued for it you know school bus has to find another way around so this was something that the uh school district really mentioned and I appreciate M

» r Smith for bringing this up so it does two things you cannot allow on both sides of the street you have to prohibit it on one side uh there was actually discussion to prohibit it on both sides so we actually we backed off on that a little bit um and then off-street parking options are required so those are our ordinances that touch on major subdivisions um any questions or comments on those in our current audience ordinance now do we have any subdivisions and the reason I'm saying this is because the city of Camden is struggling with this right now is there at least two in uh two entrance and exit or any subdivision with greater than 40 Lots uh two entrances are required yeah because what we're having now for Black River Road which is the city's problem is not ours is that they expanded in

» the back and they supposed to go and turn into where it's what South Haven and come out that entrance but instead they all run out of Southern Oaks Drive because it's easier to cut across in the subdivision and come out right in front of Hanks and then make your right or your turn um I wish they would have put the they had a back exit um that came off of um Presper's Road there but um the developer or the Builder didn't didn't do that chose not to and that's a bad idea because a lot of that traffic goes to Pine Tree for their kids and that's the quickest way to go to Pine Tree is to hit press instead of come out on Black River hit Presper's Road you could ease out right on Presper's Road and go to the school so just my two cents thank you all right any other thoughts can I give you a though

» t sure a friend of mine George Speedy he has built a lot of buildings and he uh when he when he had Lake Speedy his pool house was structured like my son-in-law's pool house my son-in-law's on the city of Columbia uh planning and zoning and uh his pool house as well it has no room but it has a place to go to the bathroom has a bar with a TV and I said why is that George said I don't want somebody living here or sleeping here overnight making a house out of it but uh but I know that they are much more restricted than we are and I think George was way ahead of his time when he built that he did a great job but I just thought I'd throw that out at y'all okay yeah any other thoughts all right so our last bucket is uh process and approval and so the process and approval bucket is sort of some th

» ings we're doing to tighten up you know the actual permitting process and those are also four in this bucket this one naming private roads is one we've got from emergency services pretty straightforward if your drive is private and over two thousand feet before you're accessing more than three lots you got to give it a name within the county conventions and that's so the DMS can find you that's when you call 9-1-1 they're not trying to find you know Jimmy Jones drive that's not on any map right this is about saving lives so that's fairly non-controversial uh performance guarantees this this one was one that we'd had a lot of discussion from staff about and what it changes the finance and also passed unanimously it changes the financial guarantee which currently in our statute is 15 for one

» year so if the roads you know crash that sort of thing now it moves it up from 15 from one year to 25 for year one 15 for year two and a one-year extension if there are issues in year two so basically it just gives us the ability to reach back to a developer who's doing bluntly shoddy work and I'll tell you what's interesting is a member of the development Community actually spoke to our meeting and was resoundingly in support of this his point was good developers don't make crappy work products and if you know so he was actually totally on board um the other one is approval expansion basically particularly some of the stuff we're doing this gives staff an additional five business days for approvals along the way particularly for subdivisions and it just gives staff a little bit more time s

» o we're not rushing staff through it we have some statutory benchmarks we have to hit so we'll still hit those it just gives staff an additional five business days and community impact this is another one I'm really proud of uh that got mostly unanimous support 661 but this expressly gives the planning commission the ability to consider impact assessments which include school impact assessments in approving developments so if a development comes along in the school district provides an impact assessment that with data with appropriate data explains this development would mean that their elementary school would be maxed out that would be a ground for the planning Commission to deny that subdivision so it makes that Express allowance instead of just kind of making it almost an advisory thing

» now it doesn't mandate it this is not concurrency which is being debated now at the state house or I think it's dead this year but it's being debated as a conceptual matter at the state level this is not concurrency because it doesn't give the school district the ability to say no it just gives them a chance to have their voice heard by the planning Commission and allows the planning Commission to vote based on that voice Mr Shoemake on that point did they already have the staff internal at the school district to evaluate that data and process it would it require higher for them or any additional evaluation so that's a great question I'm really glad we had a member of the school board on our smart growth committee they fill them out every time they just there's not really teeth in our ordin

» ance to let staff vote on that basis so they do them all the time in fact there was I won't name the subdivision but there was a subdivision recently in Elgin that they did an impact assessment on and said that if this if this subdivision is built it will Max out Blaney Elementary School and that subdivision was ultimately approved um in part because of this now look will we face legal challenges if we deny on that basis probably but if we start you know legislating or passing ordinance on the basis of fear of lawsuits then you know we'll just we may as well just not show up so um so yeah but they do have it Mr Smith does those now and they're voluntary by the way the school district can just say no in which case they have no data um and some of our agencies are have the ability to send the

» m in and don't but the school district is really good about sending theirs in and Mr Smith has been doing it already he sends that to the planning Commission it goes through well I threw staff to the planning Commission right yeah so gentlemen that is the end of my discussion and uh unless anyone has any questions um that's the end of this agenda item yes sir I do have so you've gone through Mr Chairman yes sir um you've gone through each and every one of these pretty detail it is there since its first reading is there you any grouping that you want to do or you want to do everything individually so so when we get to the motions my plan is when we get to the actual ordinances I'm going to move on the permit allocation system independently because I've got to make those amendments for the nu

» mbers and then I'm going you know obviously it'll be up to you gentlemen but my plan would then be to move to pass all the other ones as a group um since we've discussed them and that would just require one vote so we don't have to do nine separate votes it would just be two um and again of course if anyone objects then the vote won't carry and we'll go through all nine right I I love talking about this stuff I can tell so far you've missed it saying this was a 15-minute meeting you've missed that oh yeah I thought I said 30. that was the Lord I thought I said 45.

» any further discussion questions from Council members are present Mr Johnson before we conclude this agenda item any further discussion or questions no sir no further discussion all right we're done with 5a as no vote is required that moves us on to ordinances first one up is item number 6a do we have a motion Mr Chairman I would make a motion and let me ask this a point of uh point of order from legal if I have an amendment can I make the initial motion with the amendment yes okay so what I would do Mr Chairman is I would make a motion that we pass item 6a on first reading with the following amendments that we expressly include in the ordinance that it is a two-year program beginning from the date of third reading and that we put in a percentage cap of uh 30 percent with the requisite math

» to work out as a placeholder for Planning Commission so my motion is to pass it on first reading with those amendments and to clarify that's a 30 reduction 30 reduction right the chart you saw on the screen okay that's the motion is there a second second you got to say Mr Townsend I yield okay we've got a second already Mr Shoemaker you have the floor I think I'm beating this horse to death okay well I'm just I'll kick it a little bit I'm just I'm just going to give you one more chance because you made the motion all right for the council members who are present any other discussion or comments I'll just I'll just say um thank you Derek for the work that you and your committee has put into this there's there's a lot of thought and a lot of a lot of work went in and um if I sit here and and

» I'm to be honest to tell you that I'm in love with everything I'd be lying I there's a there's some things that I think we need to maybe tweak and look at but uh all in all um I'm good for the first reading but I do think there's some things I think we can have some further discussion on sure thank you Mr Kato Mr Thomas and uh you were going to have the second any comments or any discussion no sir no comment okay good thing is uh gentlemen we have a a good runway to be able to edit tweak get feedback from the public and see if we need to amend this any further I do like the idea like Mr Kato I'm not in love with everything but I also don't love the idea of considering tax increases to fund infrastructure improvements or taking out significant amounts of debts through bonds and otherwise to

» pay for this growth that's coming that often you have to front load and pay for it typically does not pay for itself unless it's in the form of economic development and businesses and so I'll be able to support it for first reading with the caveat that we need to get some of the data we talked about a little bit earlier so we can make informed decisions any other questions any other comments or discussion seeing none call it for a vote all in favor who are present raise your hand it's unanimous for those voting in person Mr Thompson how do you vote on 6A Mr Chairman I vote yes on 6A that's a yes on 6A remotely so it's unanimous Ms Hanna for those who are voting and it passes first reading next up is item number 6B but I heard a discussion of taking these as a slate is there a motion uh yes

» Mr Chairman I would move that we pass items 6B through I which are first reading of the other eight ordinances recommended by smart growth committee and that we pass those on first reading for clarification these were the ordinances that were just discussed at length in my presentation okay we have motions or a second I'll second Mr Cato has the second do you want to kick the horse again at all no no kicking the horse the horse will lie dormant under the rules Mr Cato you get the next chance to kick the horse I'm done you're done um I'll just note for the public's benefit before we uh move to a voter check if Mr Thompson has any comments that typically first readings can be done in title only the information has already been put out in the packet so the public has a greater period of time t

» o to sort through and honestly reach out to Council members or communicate otherwise and evaluate these growth control suggestions and ordinances in Kershaw County but again this is a slate B through I on item number six for first reading Mr Thomason any comments or discussion remotely no sir no comments or discussion and for the vote I vote yes we'll go ahead and take your voters yes remotely Miss Hannah for the record and for those who are present and voting raise your hand if you're in favor and it's unanimous for those who are present in voting Miss Hannah and so the slate 6B through I passes first reading and I'll just check before we move to adjournment Mr Templer primarily this is a uh these meetings are for Council communicate with the administrator but we had a very straightforward

» agenda tonight anything that we've missed or anything else you need to bring up for the good of the body uh no sir but just given the chance I would just say this has been a very impressive body of work by an impressive body of work the uh this this committee I've seen a lot of committees in action and the results but very impressive thank you Mr DuBose anything for the good of the body no all right um thank you to those who served on this committee I'm sure that we'll be talking with you and reaching out much more over the next 40 plus days and Mr Jones I just I had the thought you did like the fire at hot committee didn't you no you didn't like that one I thought we'd get him to like two minutes but it's just this one Mr chairman this is the first one one point of clarification if I may g

» o ahead um I just want to known because I've mentioned this to the committee I don't want them to hear and feel something different so based on the the what this Council has passed the vision would be that when it's time to plug back in with the consultants the Smartville growth committee would come back to that so this committee would still exist to go through the rewrite because of those like that's why so I don't want for those committee members listening to think that that this is it like we have discussed they've all agreed to serve through the rewrite process yeah and I don't I don't think that um I put any end date on that committee you did not I checked yeah I was uh going from memory on that one but I think um it's at the willingness of the committee to serve for as long as needed

» and you know this is a process that we have to go through Mr statute or otherwise yes sir yeah one thing that I've picked up on it correct me if I'm wrong but it's almost like this committee is a problem it could be a model for other areas am I because you're not really copying any I mean you came up with this on your own well well let me be very clear there was a lot of people that came up with this but you're right no none of them were outside of Kershaw County though I met you the committee exactly yeah and I'll tell you it's been you know Mr DuBose and I started talking about a permit allocation system gosh a year and a half ago probably just as a conceptual idea I've talked about Mr Proctor brought up the real open space idea and the design standards Mr Smith brought up the idea of the

» parking issue I think uh actually Miss uh Jackie Montgomery Miss Montgomery brought up the idea of the sidewalk so really I mean it was the right committee for this and I think will remain the right committee yeah we're we have a chance with this packet of ordinances I think to take the biggest step to manage growth in a smart way more so than any County of the 46 counties in that committee I'm talking about the committee as a whole and especially the chairman for coming up with that committee as well good job because now we got some direction well put together um Mr Chairman if I may yes sir um I would also say to this body on this Dias and uh Mr Thompson on the phone um the smart growth committee will along with staff be going through some um numbers with this consultant and don't be surp

» rised if the finance committee bring you back um a little bit of increase for costs I'm just putting that out we're too far gone to start over um and they're trying to drill those numbers down and Mr Temple will let us know when they get to that point but I'm just giving you a heads up all right anything else gentlemen all right that concludes the agenda uh we're on to adjournment we don't have any briefings tonight is there a motion to adjourn let's still adjourn Mr Chairman is there a second second any discussion seeing none let me take Mr Thompson's vote first on adjournment I vote yes that's a yes Miss Hannah Hill everyone uh present and voting raise your hand if you're in favor of adjourning and we are adjourned it passes Miss 53.