 Welcome to the City of Columbia Planning Commission, members, staff and guests. We ask for your patience during this virtual meeting. Multiple staff members are behind the scenes. With us today are Lucinda Statler, Planning Administrator, Rachel Bailey, Zanning Administrator, Jonathan Chambers, Land Development Administrator, Andrew Livinggood, Annexation Coordinator. During the meeting you will see live images or still images of Planning Commission members and the Administrator. However, images of the applicant and public will not be visible. In addition to watching the meeting virtually, the public will be able to participate in several methods. You can email, phone, log into a web session, or participate in person. When participating, please provide your name for documentation purposes. If you would like to watch the meeting, the public may stream the meetings through CityTV accessed at www.youtube.com slash user slash Columbia SC government. To email, you may submit letters and statements via email to cocboardmeeting at columbiasc.gov leading up to and or during the meeting as this account will be monitored during the meetings. Emails and letters sent during the meeting will be read into the record. Emails and letters received prior to the meeting have been forwarded to the Commission. The public may participate via phone. You may call 855-925-2801. When prompted, please enter the meeting code 8688. If you're here today to speak about a case, you must speak up when the chairperson calls for public comment. And I will now call the roll. Mr. Cohn. Present. Ms. Davis. Here. Ms. Hartz. Here. Ms. Thomas. Here. Mr. Tupper. Here. And Ms. James. Here. We have a quorum. Brief review of the meeting format. Applicants with requests before the Planning Commission are allowed at a presentation time of 10 minutes. This time should include but is not limited to an overview of the project, case history, and any pertinent meetings held regarding the request. This time also includes all persons presenting information on behalf of the applicants such as attorneys, engineers, and architects. This time limit does not include any questions asked by the Planning Commission or staff regarding request. Presenters of the general public are given the opportunity to address their concerns in intervals of two minutes. The administrator has a timer and will make presenters aware of when their time has expired. The Planning Commission reserves the right to amend these procedures on a case-by-case basis. The Planning Commission uses the consent agenda to approve non-controversial or routine matters by a single motion and bid. Examples of such items include approval of site plans, annexations, and street names. If a member of the Planning Commission or the general public wants to discuss an item on the consent agenda, that item is removed from the consent agenda and considered during the meeting. The Planning Commission then approves the remaining consent agenda items. We've just had one change since publication. Case number 6, which is S-Plan 2021-0017 on Atlas Road, has been deferred. So other than that, the agenda stands. And I'll go ahead and read the consent agenda items. The first item is to approve the August 2nd, 2021 minutes. The second item under the Future Land Use Map Amendment and Zoning Map Amendment for pending annexation is annexation-2021-0016 at 7800 Garner's Ferry Road. This is a request to annex the property and assign a land use classification of Community Activity Center and assign a zoning of general commercial at the time of annexation. The property is currently classified as medium density and zoned GC by Richland County. Case number 3 is annexation-2021-0014, annex 3900 River Drive, also known as 3800 River Drive. This is a request to annex the property and assign a land use classification of urban core mixed residential type 2 and assign zoning of employment campus at the time of annexation. The property is currently classified as mixed use corridor and zoned GC by Richland County. Under site plan review on the consent agenda, case number 4, S-Plan-2021-0016, 294 Harveston, Boulevard request site plan approval for the construction of a restaurant with a drive-through. This is the Chick-fil-A. The property is zoned PUD, Planned Unit Development Commercial. Case number 5, S-Plat-2021-0058, 4.23 acres, the 100 block of Island View Circle, request site plan approval for the construction of a five-lot single-family residential subdivision T-Box Court. The property is zoned PUD, our Planned Unit Development Residential. Case 6 was deferred, as I mentioned, and case number 7 is a street name, dash 2021-0003, name a street within the Wood Creek Townhome Subdivision, Hibiscus Leaf Way, the property is zoned PUDR, or Residential Planned Unit Development. Okay, is there anyone from the Planning Commission that would like any item removed from the consent agenda? Do we want to ask if anybody's here to speak regarding one of these items, if anybody from the audience? That's the next, yeah, the next prompt. Oh. Okay, is there anyone from the public, either in person or virtually, that would like to have an item removed from the consent agenda? When participating, please provide your name for the minutes. Please communicate by sending an email to cocboardmeeting at columbiasc.gov. Please communicate via phone by pressing star two to leave a voicemail or star three to speak in person. We will pause to allow communication from the public. The phone number is 855-925-2801. The meeting code is 8688. I guess we can ask also if there is anyone in person, since that wasn't a prompt. Okay, do we have anyone in person that would like to speak regarding the consent agenda? I said would anybody else from the public like to speak? Okay, we're hearing none. Do I have a motion and a second? I apologize. I'm still actually waiting for people calling in, and I apologize because it does seem like it takes forever, but there's about a 30-second lag. Okay. I know I need hearing aids, but you could just please speak how I would appreciate it. Okay. Sure. I do not have any callers on the line. Okay. Hearing none, do I have a motion and a second to accept the consent agenda, subject to all conditions contained in the case summaries? I'll make the motion to approve the consent agenda in the August minutes. Okay. Do we have a second? Second. All in favor, say aye. All opposed, say no. Aye. Aye. Motion carried. The Planning Commission will now move forward with those items on the regular agenda. Regular agenda items will be presented by staff. We will use the following outline for regular agenda items. The administrator will introduce the case. The applicant will have 10 minutes to make a presentation. Planning Commission may ask questions. The public will be allowed to participate via email, voicemail, voice in person, or via the web. Planning Commission may ask additional questions of the applicant. Okay. So the Planning Commission will now move forward with those items on the regular agenda. Thank you, Madam Chair. That's going to take us to item number eight, which is S Plan 2021-0014. And this is a request to construct a five-unit town homestyle multifamily residential development. This 15,396-square-foot parcel is located within the 2,200 block of Blossom Street at the corner of Blossom Street and Lowndes Road. The applicant is proposing a group development that again will contain five attached units in a town home configuration. Some of the existing trees on the site will remain, whereas the ones that are located within the building footprint will be removed. Each unit will have two off-street parking spaces that will be accessed from Blossom Street. A little bit of background. This project was previously approved in 1985, but was never constructed. And although the project was approved in 1985, the project has lost its vesting, and so reviewing approval is currently required. And if the current application is approved by the Planning Commission, the applicant would have two years from the date of the approval to obtain permits for the necessary construction. And at this time, I believe the applicant is present and can go into further detail about his case. Hello. Hello. My name's Craig Stoneburner. I'm asking for site plan approval again of the five-unit townhouse project in Five Boins. I'm probably one of the oldest developers to come before you recently, but this has been a dream of mine since 1977 when we first bought the property. Since then, you had the markets go up and down, you had partners that you had to buy out that didn't want to take the risk on it, and so forth and so on. And during that time, it was approved, and I knew I could eventually do it. Every time there was discussion about a change of zoning, I would call Jonathan or whoever and say, is it going to affect my property. It happened several times. It never affected it. This time, it would change it to two duplexes, like student duplexes or whatever, and that would kill me to see that done. I don't know if you've seen the renderings or whatever, but it's designed after the kind of the garden district, New Orleans townhouses. A lot of character, and we spent a lot of time on it. And during that time, I did two mid-rise condominium projects in Five Boins and another 13-unit project up in Shandon. So there's always something to do. This was the one I figured one day I would get it done. I would just hate to see it be two duplexes. I think it would be a great project for the neighborhood. Definitely upgrade the area. We waited for Hill Hardware to clean up their lumber yard across the street. This is kind of next to Fiddler House. We tried to get a lot, and about the only thing we've done with it is try to keep it up and park cars during St. Patrick's Day. But anyway, my kids did that, and I would hope that you would prove it again so that I could see it through. If you have any questions, I'll be glad to try to answer them. I do have a question. All right. I saw that Mr. Chambers had sent you an email asking, had you talked over the project with Shannon Neighborhood Council, and you did say you talked to the president. Were they okay with this project? Yes, and I have a letter in the file where it was approved by the Shannon Neighborhood Council in the past. Historic Columbia Foundation, the University of South Carolina, went to everybody. This time I went to Andrew Parks and the president of the neighborhood to tell them what I was doing, and if you had any questions, let me know, send pictures of it and the whole thing. And he knew where it was, and I said I can't believe anybody in the neighborhood would rather have rental duplexes on the property, but you never know. And he said, I'll have, if anybody has a question, I'll have them contact you. And they did their homework and checked on it. To my knowledge, there's nobody, I'm sure there's somebody opposed to everything, but I doubt there's anybody opposed to this project versus what the options could be. Thank you. Okay. Are there any follow-up questions from the planning commission members? I have one question, please. Okay. Looking at the renderings on the third floor of these apartments, it seemed to be an open deck. Is my interpretation correct on that? A recreation? No. No. Okay. There are two of them that have porches. Okay. They're open deck. Okay. All right. Thank you. I mean, I have, I'd like to see copies of the old letters in the... Sure. You can send that around. My grand or whatever. I do have a question. So what you have, or what you're about to present to us, is from 85 or is it correct? I think it started in 77, and then it was re-approved I think in 85 or something of that nature. Okay. So it's from that time frame? Okay. When I applied for this permit, it was approved. I mean, it was approved. But it wasn't going to be developed immediately before this planning commission hearing. So I was told to get this in ahead of time. Okay. This is... Thank you. I'll pass it down on your own. Okay. Thank you. This is rendering that I've had in my office for all these years, knowing at some point that it would be part of five points. Thank you. We encourage those who would like to comment via email or the web to begin sending in letters and emails. Email could be sent to the COC board meeting at colombiasc.gov or on the web at https.backslash-public-input.com backslash-cocpc-september-no-sep-sept-2021. For those wanting to leave a voicemail or speak live, call 855-925-2801. When prompted, please enter the meeting code 8688, then press star 2 to leave a voicemail or press star 3 to speak live. Please be sure your computer audio is off to avoid feedback. First, we would like to hear from anyone in the audience who would like to speak. Okay. Please come up. Can you say your name, please? Judy Anderson. And I'm with the Shandan Neighborhood Council over the zoning committee. And this gentleman indeed has spoken with Mr. Clarkson. However, Mr. Clarkson, this has not come before the council. We actually were meeting in a few minutes, but we have not, the council has not reviewed this application since the 1977. So it has not actually been approved by the council. Yes, indeed, he did speak to Mr. Clarkson. Mr. Clarkson is the president of the council, but it needs to go before the council. Okay. It actually was the information we were giving to Mr. Clarkson immediately upon working doing this with Jonathan. And it was before their last meeting. So, you know, my understanding that they, you know, didn't seem to have a problem. Don't know if that's a requirement that goes back before them again or whatever, but he said he would go to the committee and tell them about it and so forth and so on. Okay. We will now hear comments that have been received in writing. We do not have any emails that have come through about this case. Okay. We will now hear any voice emails received as well from those calling in live. We'll wait for a minute. Have we received any new correspondence or are there any new callers in the key to speak? Still no emails. And I do not have any callers. I wish to speak. Okay. Do I have a motion? Question prior to a motion. This for Lucinda and Jonathan. Is this just so I'm correct. This is only to approve the site plan. If there was another, if the project was to proceed, the actual vertical construction would have a separate review. The vertical construction would be reviewed at permitting. Okay. But this is for the site, this is for the site plan and this is not architectural review. Okay. Thank you. Do I have a motion? I'll take a shot at it. I'll make the motion that we approve the applicant's request for site plan approval of a five unit town homestyle multifamily residential development at 2200 Blossom street in accordance with the requirements of staff recommendations. Okay. Do I have a second? Second. All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed say no. Okay. I'll have a motion hearing. Okay. We can move on to number nine on the agenda. Thank you. Thank you. That's going to take us to item number nine, which is S plan 2021 dash 0015, which is located at 22 22 Main Street. This project entails the construction of a 30 331,306 square foot three story multifamily mixed use building on 5.3 acres within the block bounded by North Main Street, Scott Street, Sumter Street, Franklin Street and Cotton Town Way. The proposed building will contain 250 units, an amenity space, parking garage, surface parking. The required off street parking spaces for this development is 400, whereas the applicant will be providing 407 with a combination of parking garage parking and surface parking spaces. The applicant has provided a traffic impact study, which has been reviewed and approved by the city's traffic engineer. And I believe the applicant is available via zoom to add additional comments. Are there any follow up questions from the planning commission members? Okay. Hearing none. Hearing none. We encourage those who'd like to comment via email or the web to begin sending in letters and emails. Emails need to be forwarded to CAC board meeting at columbiasc.gov or on the web at H2TPS backslash backslash publicinput.com backslash CACPC dash SCPT 201 For those wanting to leave a voicemail or speak live, call 855-925-2801. When prompted, please enter the meeting code 8688 then press star 2 to leave a voicemail or press star 3 to speak live. Please be sure your computer audio is off to avoid feedback. First, is the applicant here or is anyone in the audience who would like to speak? I think we are trying to get the applicant on zoom, I believe, to make some additional presentation. Okay. This is Steve Middleton. I'm here. I have, yeah. I have this, I have about a 45 second delay in what I'm saying, so that if I'm listening to people talk, I get two tracks of talking, one that's sort of live time and another one in the background that's about 45 seconds later. So I'm not, I was attempting to call in, but that's not going to work. So I'll, if it's okay, I'll go ahead and give my presentation and then. I have this, I have about a, I'll just have to deal with questions as they come up. I think that'll work. I'm listening to people talk. Okay. I'm sorry about all that. I've never had it before. So I'm not sure what it's all about. Anyway, my name is Steve Middleton. I'm the president of Commonwealth properties. We are a small privately held real estate investment and development company been in business for about 23 years. We are located in Richmond, Virginia, but really no strangers to Columbia, South Carolina. We've developed three previous projects in Columbia to up the northeast of town in the Wildwood area and one downtown in the Vista area called Vista Commons that we opened in 2001 and still own recently spent about three and a half million dollars or so renovating the apartment interiors and the pool and building an outdoor kitchen and are now completing a clubhouse renovation. So if you'd like to come by and take a look at it, we'd love for you to take a look at it. Even though it is 20 years old, it still gets some of the highest rents in that sub market. We've been working on this, the Jim Moore Cadillac site on Main Street for almost a year now since November of 2020 have spent quite a bit of time designing, redesigning, rethinking, reconceptualizing and meeting with different groups to come up with the plan that you see before you today. We've met with downtown coalition. We've met with the Elmwood Park neighborhood and we've met with the Cottontown neighborhood. And I believe the city has a lot of support from Elmwood Park and an email of support, I hope from Cottontown, which received the last week. We got through our, we've made several presentations to design, design development review commission and got our design development review certificate at the meeting last week. Our plan is for a mixed use development that's primarily multifamily, 246 apartment, luxury apartment units and four live work units that would front on Franklin street. It's two, three story buildings that are joined by a three or four story parking garage depending on what part of it you're looking at. I will, there's been, there was some concern raised about what type of housing we would develop and this is purely luxury housing. That's what we do is basically for what is called renters by choice. It's not student housing. It's not housing. There's a, there's a place and a need for that in our world, but that is not, that is not something we do. That's sort of a specialty niche. Our apartments would have nine, 10, 12 foot ceilings, glass front cabinets in the kitchen, granite countertops, glass doors on the tubs and showers, ceiling fans in the bedrooms, ground molding, all the things that you would expect to see in today's luxury homes, stainless steel, stainless steel appliances. And then we really focus and spend a lot of time on our amenity package. Here we've got about 12,000 square foot of amenity space, which would include a fitness center, would include a co-working space, which has become even more popular in the face of the pandemic. We have a bike shop. We would have a pet spa. We have a dog, a dog park. We would feature a fourth floor club room that would have an open-air deck that overlooks one of the two courtyards on the project and in downtown would, I think provide some pretty, pretty dramatic views. The two courtyards and one of them, we have a more active courtyard and that would be a swimming pool with a heated swim spa area, an outdoor kitchen, cabanas, umbrella lounge area, that sort of thing. And then the other one is a more relaxed area, which would have cornhole, bachi ball, an outdoor yoga area, probably a putting green and just a more, we call it the chill courtyard, more relaxed area. We spent a lot of time working on the street-facing design of the buildings, incorporated some, I'll call them, vendor areas along Sumter to do two things. One, to create more street interaction and secondly, to hide the face of the parking deck. So the parking deck would have 350 parking spaces and then we have another 60 or so parking spaces. I'm having to do that off the top of my head. I know it's in the site plan package that we presented, but about 410 or so parking spaces. We commissioned a traffic study as well as a parking study. The parking study I think confirmed what our experience has been, which is that we have adequate parking for visitors as well as our guests on site. So we would not anticipate having to use any on-street parking for our needs. And then the traffic study has been reviewed by the city as well as by South Carolina DOT. They came back and said we could only have one point of entry and exit on the main street and asked us to mill and overlay and restripe a portion of main street from Elmwood up to River. So we're still negotiating with them on that, but that was their request. Our buildings are three stories. One portion of the three-story building has a basement, but for the most part, the buildings as they face the street are three-story buildings. So we think it really kind of blends and helps segue from the more commercial areas up on main street back to the historic neighborhoods that we joined. Like I said, we've done quite a bit of work on this over the past 10 or 11 months work with staff and I think have come up with what we consider to be a really excellent plan and one that we hope will be some of the nicest, if not the nicest apartments in Columbia. I mentioned that we don't do student housing. We specifically structure our leasing guidelines to exclude undergraduate students or students who are under the age of 22 who can't otherwise qualify under our income and the word net worth guideline on their own. So I suppose there might be some particularly well-hilled students who could qualify, but for the most part, they could not. We would welcome graduate students because they're a little different breed and we would expect to get from a demographic standpoint, recent graduates, young professionals, maybe not so young professionals, divorces, empty nesters, retirees. One of the, I think the great things that we've experienced recently in our apartment projects is really the inclusive demographic mix of folks that we lease to. It makes for a really, I think, wholesome community and we're looking forward to being a part of the North Maine corridor. Welcome any questions you all might have. He's one of the, I think the great things that we've experienced recently in our apartment projects is really the inclusive demographic mix of folks that we lease to. So it makes for a really, I think, wholesome community and we're looking forward to being a part of part of the North Maine corridor. Welcome any questions you all might have. Thank you. Any questions from the commissioners? I do have one and I'm sure it was said earlier. How many total apartments? It's 250. 250 apartments and 350 parking spaces? I believe it's 407. 60 being for guest parking, I believe, is what I heard. He didn't have the exact numbers. I think it says here 360 for the parking garage and 47 for the surface spaces. For a total of 407. How many total apartments? We don't separately designate guest parking areas. The parking areas are open for everyone. 250 parking spaces. Do we have anyone in the audience who would like to speak? Do we have all the comments that have been received in writing? We do have one letter that came through. Just bear with me for a second. Here's the one email that was received. This says, I support this development, but it should seek to improve multimodal infrastructure and not merely mitigate its impacts. Number one, bicycles. Currently the outside lane of Main Street is 14 feet wide shared lane. A full road diet should be considered for both northbound and southbound main, which will allow for four to five foot striped bike lanes. This will improve multimodal use and safety and should be extended to Sunset Drive. Two, new signal needed for safe crossing and to connect Elmwood Park and Contantown neighborhoods and the growing number of businesses on both sides of Main Street. Three, driveway. Full access on Main Street should line up directly across Bryan Street to meet SCDOT requirements. Plus, this could become a signal. Number four, reduced speed to 25 miles an hour. This section on Main is too fast. A recent crash at Confederate and Main almost took out a business and the people in it. Posting for 25 miles an hour will mean people drive at 30. Current speeds are 40 to 50 miles per hour on this city street. Support safety in all modes of transportation. Thanks Doug, Douglas, Giovannetti, 611 Gremont. And that's the only letter I believe we've received. Okay. We will now hear any voicemails received as well as from those calling in line. Have we received any new correspondence or are there any new callers on the queue to speak? I do not have any callers on the line at which to speak. Okay. Any further discussion from the commissioners? Any questions, concerns? Hearing none, do I have a motion? Mrs. Chair, I make a motion that we approve the site plan review case for 2222 Main Street with staff comments. Okay, is there a second? Second. All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed say no. Ayes have it, motion period. Lisa, did you have any other business? We do not have any other business. Okay, hearing that we do not have any other business, can I get a motion to adjourn? Madam Chair, I move that we adjourn this meeting. Okay, all in favor, or can I have a second? Second. All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed say no. Ayes have it, motion period. Meeting is adjourned.