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County releases draft of Plantersville zoning proposal
5/9/2008 | Today's Georgetown Times Online Edition
Published on 3/27/2008
By Tommy Howard
thoward@gtowntimes.com
Plans for zoning in the northwestern part of Georgetown County were released recently. A public meeting will be held on the plan on Monday, March 31 at 7 p.m. at Plantersville Elementary School.
The Plantersville community stretches along U.S. Highway 701 north of the City of Georgetown and currently has about 600 households.
Because some of the villages or communities in the area have their own names and identities, the county Planning Department is now calling the area the "Highway 701 Corridor."
Among the villages are: Annie Village, Jackson Village, St. Paul's, Bromell Town and Historic Plantersville.
Many residents want the area to retain its rural lifestyle and are concerned that growth could change its character.
Director Boyd Johnson and his staff of the county Planning Department shared a 30-page document with the various zoning categories. There's also a spreadsheet that shows "Area, Yard and Height Requirements" and a map of the vicinity. All of these will be shown at the public meeting.
The documents may also be viewed and downloaded from the Georgetown Times Web site, www.gtowntimes.com.
To see the county's existing zoning ordinance, visit www.georgetowncountysc.org.
From there, pick "Property Services" on the left and select "Planning." Once on that page, you can find the existing zoning ordinance, development regulations, and links to the proposals for Plantersville.
Draft document
The first page of the 30-page draft document acknowledges that growth in the area is expected, and that current residents don't want high density development. It states that Choppee Road and Plantersville Road should be buffered from negative impacts.
People who live in the existing villages like what they have, and want to be able to have room to expand. Landowners want to be able to subdivide their property.
The statement assumes that U.S. Highway 701 will be widened to four lanes in the future, and says that commercial uses should be allowed.
"A balance will be created between land use controls and property rights so that residents will not experience a congested lifestyle, yet property owners will have a reasonable use of their property."
Some of the existing zoning districts that would be used in the Plantersville area include:
* Conservation Preservation (CP)
* Forest and Agriculture (FA)
* Residential One Acre (R-1)
* Residential Ten Thousand Square Feet, Mobile Home (MR-10)
* General Commercial (GC)
* Neighborhood Commercial (NC)
The draft document needs some "tweaking" in several areas.
It lists the above current zoning districts and provides examples of most, but does not have MR-10 or FA. The text of the document also includes Residential One-Half Acre (R-1/2), but it's not listed in the introductory matter.
To get information on what the MR-10 and FA districts include, visit the county's Web site listed above.
New zoning districts
Several new zoning districts would be created and used in the Plantersville/ Highway 701 Corridor to address at least some of the concerns expressed in the various public meetings during 2007.
* Preservation Agriculture (PA) -- This district is an off-shoot of the conservation preservation district. The current CP district in Georgetown County is tailored for wetland areas. The new PA district has been established for properties that have conservation easements in place. This district requires 25-acre minimum lot sizes and allows single family dwellings such as a farm house or plantation house. The CP district allows uses permitted in adjacent zoning districts if federal and state permits can be obtained. This allowance was not carried over to the PA district.
* Forest and Agriculture/Rural (FA/R) -- This district mimics the existing Forest and Agriculture District, with the exception of certain commercial uses. In order to provide additional protection to adjacent residences, convenience stores and similar commercial uses less than 3,000 sf have been removed from this district. Other changes from the traditional FA District are the deletion of commercial fishing including processing and shipping; the clear exclusion of nightclubs; the exclusion of airfields; and mining activities have to be approved by the Planning Commission instead of staff.
* Residential Five Acre (R-5) -- A residential district has been created that establishes a density of five acres per dwelling. A parcel exceeding ten acres may cluster the dwellings on one acre lots as long as the density for the parent tract is met. Unlike the R-1 District, par three golf courses are not permitted.
Overlay district
Also, the "Plantersville Scenic Roadway Overlay Zone" would be established to protect Plantersville Road and portions of Choppee Road and Exodus Drive. They would have a 100-foot zone where no development could occur, except for road access. Tree removal, construction and signage are prohibited.
Dead or diseased trees would have to be certified for removal by a horticulturist or other tree expert.
"Trees, with the exception of landmark trees, may be removed in order to construct a driveway to County standards." Other than that circumstance, no trees could be cut in the overlay district.
Marvin Neal, Planning Commission member for this portion of the county, has said "Trees win" in regards to a specific rezoning request. That seems to be the same sort of motivation for the tree protection in the overlay district.
Highway 701
The proposal calls for a 90-foot setback along Highway 701, which it states is the same as Highway 17 on the Waccamaw Neck. However, Highway 17 in that area is already a four-lane highway, while Highway 701 is only a two-lane road. If 701 is widened with a median, that would take up much of the 90-foot setback.
Johnson said that S.C. Department of Transportation officials have said informally that the 90-foot setback would be sufficient for widening Highway 701.
Under the draft Plantersville zoning ordinance, rezoning of property would be allowed as it is elsewhere in the county.
Trees would be protected if they have a circumference greater than 8 inches, except pine trees. Even pines would be protected in the overlay district.
Low density?
One item that will likely be a sticking point for many residents of the rural Plantersville area is that the draft ordinance still calls lots that are a half-acre in size "low density." Many of the people who spoke out during the 2007 meetings were clear in their belief that low density on the Waccamaw Neck does not have the same meaning as low density in Plantersville.
When looking at a map of the Plantersville area, it's obvious that most lots are fairly large. That's especially true when you take a direct west-to-east line about 7 miles. Such a line would cross from the intersection of Choppee and Plantersville roads near Nightingale Plantation, go over the Pee Dee and Waccamaw Rivers and over True Blue Plantation to U.S. Highway 17.
By highway, it's about 12 miles from the city limits of Georgetown to Pawleys Island on the Waccamaw Neck. Thus, just about half the distance from Georgetown to Pawleys is a whole different growth pattern from the Plantersville / Highway 701 Corridor over to the "Neck."
How big?
Also, an acre is 43,560 square feet. The county's current and proposed zoning allow just 10,000 square feet to be called a quarter-acre, and 20,000 square feet to be called a half-acre.
Dividing one acre in half results in 21,780 square feet and dividing an acre by four results in 10,890 square feet. While those are not huge differences they are not the same as the result of the actual calculation.
One in 25
Much was said in 2007 about restricting development outside the "villages" in the Plantersville area to one house per 25 acres.
The draft ordinance allows for that type district, called "Preservation Agriculture," or PA.
It allows for one house on a 25-acre parcel, and for hunting, fishing and farming activities. Commercial uses are not allowed.
Under the proposed Plantersville zoning map, most of the PA district would be in former rice plantations that already have conservation easements on them.
Along with the one in 25 zoning, there have been suggestions for graduated zoning. A core area would have higher density, and as distance from the core populated area increased, density is lowered. An element of that would be 5, 8, 10 and/or 15-acre zoning categories.
The proposal to be presented at the March 31 public meeting allows for R-5 (Residential 5 acres) zoning, but does not include designated larger lot sizes. There is, however, a provision that "A parcel exceeding ten acres may cluster the dwellings on one acre lots as long as the density for the parent tract is met."
Timberlands
The spark that set off the zoning and land use questions in 2007 was a proposal to zone some 39,000 acres of timberlands owned by four large timber companies. Opponents of that zoning expressed their fear that allowing Forest Agriculture (FA) zoning for such large amounts of land would leave the area open to rampant development.
The current proposal and map show thousands of acres of timberlands west of U.S. Highway 701 with a FA designation. Also, most of the area north of the village of St. Paul's on the east of Highway 701 is shown as FA.
The core areas of Plantersville/ Highway 701 Corridor have other designations, but even so, much of it still has the new FA/R. That cuts out most of the commercial uses, but still leaves the one house per one acre designation.
Reaction
At first glance, several people who have seen the draft zoning ordinance liked what they see. On closer scrutiny, however, some question the lack of graduated parcels and the use of the same low density definition as in more urbanized areas.
The new Forest Agriculture/Rural district removes commercial uses, but an omission is lot size. The language for this district does not state whether it is one acre in size or larger. Nightclubs are specifically excluded, though there is an allowance for private or semi-private clubs or lodges.
Planning to go?
Monday, March 31, 7 p.m.
Plantersville Elementary School
1668 Exodus Drive (about two miles off U.S. Highway 701)
For more information
* County Planning Department Web page
http://www.georgetowncountysc.org/planning/default.html
* Georgetown Times Web site
www.gtowntimes.com
