Meeting for 83 minutes Tuesday evening, the Clinton Planning Commission put on hold two potential subdivisions and heard that it will receive a recommended, additional zoning designation for the potential events venue inside the city limits.
The Commission voted 5-2 to delay action, requesting more information, on a request to annex 11.8 acres at 105 Mississippi Drive, and add that property to an adjacent tract on Hwy 72, of 11 acres, to be an R3 - High Density Residential area.
The Commission voted 6-1 to delay action, requesting more information, a request to annex 102 acres on Hwy 308 and, with the addition of two unaddressed parcels, to designate that land, also, as R3 - High Density Residential.
No plan was submitted for the Mississippi Drive tract. A preliminary idea of the Hwy 308 development was for 200 homes on the 102 acres.
If the tracts are not annexed into the City, they could be developed under Laurens County subdivision regulations, but neither has approached the County, as far as City officials were aware.
This issue — City annexation and zoning vs the County’s land-use plan but no zoning — also has been an issue in the Cambridge Farms annexation and housing development plan, moved ahead by the Clinton City Council at its Oct. 5 meeting.
The Clinton Planning Commission makes recommendations to the full Clinton City Council, which has final say by ordinance in annexation and zoning matters.
For a property at 500 East Carolina Avenue (next to First Presbyterian Church), the commission previously voted 4-3 to recommend a commercial zoning, from current residential, for an events venue; but that matter now has gone to the City’s Design Review Board.
Under DRB review, the house would be made a part of the city’s historic district, and would have even more stringent requirements related to signs and colors. The DRB met Thursday evening.
At the Planning Commission’s Oct. 13 meeting, citizen Nick Nichols expressed concerns about the Mississippi Drive proposal, adjacent to his auto-repaid garage. He said no matter how the property is developed, if traffic leaves a subdivision onto Hwy 72 / South Board Street, at Clinton Elementary School, it could create a traffic bottleneck.
Commission members felt they could not move forward until there was a preliminary site plan, and an answer by the developer to the question of whether or not they would be willing to close Mississippi Drive to cars. It could continue to be a pedestrian route from the nearby Landau Apartments to Clinton Elementary School.
In the Hwy 308 request, the owner of adjacent property, Josh Tallen, discussed his concerns; and Waverly Wilkes, of Gray Engineering Consultants, addressed potential subdivision/site questions.
She said R3 - High Density zoning is being requested to keep a back portion of the property in play for development. But, she said, the new RS3 zoning also is a possibility, because the developers have no intentions of putting apartments on this tract.
Hwy 308 is the road that connects Clinton to Interstate-385.
Tallen said his concerns are water run-off onto his 365 acres, and the fact that there could be trespassers.
He said the property had no problems with trespassers until the City of Clinton built a recreation complex (on Hwy 56) adjacent to the backside of his property.
Planning Commission members expressed concern — “a gunshot waiting to happen” — if people wandered from a subdivision and/or the recreation complex over onto Tallen’s property, which is used for hunting.
The commission also asked Wilkes to inquire of developers what the price points would be of houses envisioned for the Hwy 308 property.
That’s so there won’t be a “glut” in thew local market for houses at a certain price point (example, $200,000 - $250,000). With other developments already approved, and in various stages of building, the City needs more R1 - Low Density houses, the commission expressed.
The Commission also was told that action approving Shell Creek Manor’s final bonded plan is being postponed until more city inspections are done.
The next Clinton Planning Commission meeting will be November 10.
