 the City of Columbia Planning Commission for March 10th, 2022, intercession. Welcome to Planning Commission members, staff, and guests. We ask for your patience during this meeting. Multiple staff members are here and behind the scenes. With us today are Lucinda Stoutler, Planning Administrator, Hope Hasty, Zoning Administrator, Jonathan Chambers, Land Development Administrator, and Andrew Livinggood, annexation coordinator. If you're watching the meeting via City TV, you will see live images or still images of Planning Commission members and the administrators. However, images of the applicant and public will not be visible. Today, public participation will be heard here in person or via email by those watching on City TV. When participating, please provide your name for documentation purposes. The public may stream the meetings through City TV accessed at www.youtube.com slash user slash Columbia SC government. The public may submit letters and statements via email to COC board meeting at columbiasc.gov leading up to and or during the meeting, as this account will be monitored during the meetings. Emails or 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 2903. If you're here today to speak about a case, you must speak up when the chairperson calls for public comment. And I'll call the roll. Mr. Cohn. Here. Ms. Davis. Here. Mr. Harp. Here. Ms. Hartz. Dr. Mandel. Here. Ms. Thomas. Mr. Tupper. Here. And Mr. Frost. Here. We have a quorum. I'll give a brief meeting overview. Applicants with a request before the planning commission are allotted 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 planning commission or staff regarding requests. Members of the general public are given the opportunity to address their concerns and intervals of two minutes. The administrator does have a timer and will make presenters aware of when their time has expired. The planning commission does reserve 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 vote. 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, you must speak up after the consent agenda is read, then that item is removed from the consent agenda and considered during the meeting. The planning commission then approves the remaining consent agenda items. Are there any changes to the agenda? We did have a couple of changes since the agenda was published. Case number four, which was under preliminary plat review, SPLAT-2021-0107 was deferred. And under major site plan review, case number five, SPLAN-2022-0003 has also been deferred. Other than that, the agenda still stands. Thank you. And I'll go ahead and read through the consent agenda. The first item is to approve the February 10th, 2022 minutes. Next, under interim comprehensive plan map amendment and interim zoning map amendment for pending annexation, we have case two, annex dash 2022 dash 0003. This is 1.229 acre portion of 181 Newland Road. Request to assign an interim land use classification of Urban Edge Community Activity Center and assign interim zoning of light industrial at the time of annexation. The property is currently classified as neighborhood medium density and zoned M1 by Richland County. Case three, annex dash 2022 dash 0005, 28.24 acres on the east side of Riding Grove Road and 0.07 acres on the southeast side of Riding Grove Road. This is a request to assign an interim land use classification of Urban Edge Residential Large Lott and assign interim zoning of plan development district for a portion within the, and a portion within the flood plain overlay district at the time of annexation. The property is currently classified as neighborhood medium density and zoned PDD by Richland County. Case number six is S plan dash 2022 dash 0004, 1.68 acres south of 7743 and 7749 Garner's Ferry Road. This is a request for site plan approval for the extension of a road within the Burnside Development. The properties are zoned plan development within the Burnside Farms PD. Case seven is a zoning map amendment, ZMA dash 2022 dash 0003, 5901 Fairfield Road. This is a request to rezone the property for general commercial district to light industrial district. Case number eight, a zoning map amendment ZMA dash 2022 dash 0004, 1101, 1105, 1107, Balsam Road, and 1405 Canal Drive. This is a request to rezone the property from residential single family medium lot district and residential single family small lot district to mixed use district MU1. And that is the conclusion of the consent agenda. Thank you. We've heard the consent agenda. Is there anyone from planning commission that would like an item removed from the consent agenda? Seeing none. Is there anyone from the public, either in person or watching via live city TV that would like to have an item removed from the consent agenda? If so, please speak now or send an email. When participating, please provide your name for the minutes. We'll pause briefly to see if there's anyone out there that may send an email. No emails have come through. Okay. No calls either, it looks like. Okay. Having no revisions to the consent agenda, I'll entertain a motion. Got a motion to approve. Can I get a second? Got a motion and a second. All in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed, no. The ayes have it. The motion is approved. First case on the regular agenda, and I wanted to just remind everybody to please try to speak into your microphones. I guess some people might have to share. I guess everybody has a microphone. It's in trouble last time with just being able to hear some things on the tape, so please make note of that. Case number nine is annex dash 2022 dash 0004-2905 two-notch road. This is a request to annex the property and assign a land use classification of Urban Core Community Activity Center, UCAC2, and assign zoning of mixed use district MU2 at the time of annexation. The property is currently classified as mixed residential high density and zoned GC by Richland County. I believe the applicant may be calling in. If there's any questions about this proposal. Okay. We've heard the case. Any questions from planning commission for staff at this point? Is the applicant available? Do they want to speak? Did they just want to answer questions, Andrew? Is there anybody from the public that would like to speak for or against this project? We want to wait and see if there's anybody watching via TV to see if there's any emails that come in. Yeah, let's give it a minute, thank you. I have a question for staff. Yes. Was there some reason this wasn't on the consent agenda? I believe we had received a call some questions about it, perhaps. Staff met with the applicant and is recommending approval of the request. And if they're, the proposal will come back to the planning commission for a site plan review if required, if it meets the threshold, so. Wonder if there was something controversial about it. I still don't have any emails about this case. Let's give them another minute. The computer is having an issue with, just to make sure we don't have any callers. Yeah, no, absolutely. Are we doing away with having any callers call in? I'm sorry? Are we doing away with having any callers call in? In previous meetings, I think we were able to have folks call in too, but I just didn't know. Oh, no, they can still call. Yeah, that's what Andrew is monitoring, is we have the public input system, so that's still available. That was good. No calls have come in for that case, so. Okay, thank you. Any additional follow-up questions from planning commission? Hearing none, hearing no callers or no emails, I'll entertain a motion. I'll move that we approve the annexation of 2905. Got a motion to approve. Can I get a second? Second. Got a motion and a second to approve. All in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed, say no. The ayes have it. The motion is approved. That's gonna take us to item number 10, which is a major site plan review. S plan 2022 dash 002, 2615 River Drive, 2629 River Drive, and 1129 Benton Street. TMS number should be 09109 dash 05 dash 16, 18, and 20. Again, that TMS number is 09109 dash 05, 16, 18, and 20. And this is a request for site plan approved for the construction of our 56 multifamily residential development. The construction will contain 78,967 square feet of a four-story multifamily residential building on 1.43 acres located at the corner of River Drive and Benton Street. The proposed building was contained 56 units, 13 one-bedroom units, 27 two-bedroom units, and 16 three-bedroom units. There'll be a covered parking area and a surface parking lot. The required number of all street parking spaces for this development is 67, whereas 72 will be provided. And the required number of bicycle parking spaces is 17, whereas 17 will be provided. The applicant has provided a traffic impact study which has been reviewed by the Traffic Engineering Division as well as South Carolina Department of Transportation. There are also several emails that we would wanna read into the record. Some of those emails were emailed to the Planning Commission. And I guess what we'll do is we can hear from the applicant if the Commission doesn't have any comments for staff and then we'll read all those various emails into the record. Okay. Any questions from the Planning Commission for staff at this point? I did have one question. It looked like maybe the application and checklist that indicated 12 one-bedroom units, 28 two-bedroom units, and 16 three-bedroom units. But I think on the case summary it showed 13, yeah, 13 one-bedrooms and 27 two-bedrooms. So I was just wondering why did something change? I believe those numbers were taken from the individual floor plans. Then we get the applicant to clarify. Okay. Any questions from Planning Commission? Okay. If the applicant is present, I would like to provide any detail. Thank you, commissioners, for allowing us the opportunity to present and answer questions due tonight. I'm Parker Zee. I'm an assistant vice president of development with Rota Cooper Companies. I've been with the company four years now and have been the lead developer on this Benton Crossing project. To answer your question, the unit mix is 12 one-bedrooms, 28 two-bedrooms, 16 three-bedrooms. The reason for the mix up in the count was there were several revisions in working with the neighborhood as well as working with our architect team to get us to this unit count. So the numbers you saw with that 13 just accidentally got carried over but it is 12 one-bedrooms, 28 two-bedrooms and 16 three-bedrooms. So as mentioned, we have been working with the neighborhood. We initially came to this property early in 2021 when we entered into contract to purchase it. Our intent with the site was to pursue South Carolina housing tax credits to construct affordable housing and that's really targeted primarily at workforce individuals, police officers, medical workers, social care workers. So after we entered into contract, we met with or we first reached out to the neighborhoods which is Elmwood Park, Cotton Town and Earl Wood in March of 2021 to get initial feedback and begin initial conversations. At the time we didn't have any plans drawn up. We actually first made our plans by May at which point, at which time we shared them with the neighborhood. That site plan that we initially came up with is actually what is shown in the traffic study which is the incorrect site plan that was our original site plan. What you see up on the board in our application is what we have updated to. When we submitted our site plan with and that had access off of Benton Street to the neighborhoods, we received plenty of feedback. We actually held a neighborhood meeting and one of the main points of concern was with access on Benton Street and having Benton Street so close to the intersection of River Drive and Main Street, there was gonna start to, neighbors were concerned it was gonna start to back up behind the light there which is one of the reasons that we've moved the entrance to the northern section of the parcel as far from the light as possible on River Drive to help mitigate that concern. Another concern was that the Benton Street is a pretty small, narrow street as it is and having cars turn on to Benton Street and then turning into the site would cause a lot of cars, I guess one, there was fear of cars parking on the street because cars frequently do park on the street, on the sidewalks on that road and in talking with the neighborhood, one thing that they would like and we would also be willing to do and find to be beneficial for the neighborhood and this properties to put up no parking signs in front of our property on Benton Street just because there are so many cars that try to park there, there's the daycare across the street where some of the customers there will park occasionally, some residents will park and that will create, just having the cars turn and off of Benton Street was gonna create an issue where it's already a tight street the parking on the side makes it tighter so we got rid of that, we did keep the emergency access there in consultation with emergency vehicles such as police officers and firemen to just provide better emergency access throughout the site just in case of need, that will be controlled by a secure access gate so residents wouldn't be able to use that for entrance or exit on to Benton Street, all access would be on and off River Drive. We also, in conversation with South Carolina Department of Transportation, it was stated that their preference on the site is that the entrance is all the way at the North on River Drive as currently shown and they would also likely require us to put in a left turn lane so as not to disrupt traffic coming from Main Street and turning onto River Drive and there should be enough room on, or enough width on the River Drive as it currently is to allow resurfacing and repainting without actually widening the road to allow for that left turn lane and so after I'm a couple, so the one in the traffic study was our first iteration, we actually had a second iteration that we also presented to the Elmwood Park Neighborhood Association and that was to enter onto Benton Street and then exit onto River Drive without any exit onto Benton Street but there was, after we sent that, there was further concern over any access at all on River Drive and there was also the request to put in a fence along the single family residential to the south-west of the site which is also part of the reason that we moved entrance to that Northern Portion River Drive and as you see, we did include a six foot fence. I actually spoke with Mr. Wilkinson, the president of the Elmwood Neighborhood Association last night and he stated that there was a preference to change that to eight feet which we would be willing to do on this site and we'd be willing to make that a condition of site plan approval and with that, we're happy to answer any questions we have. All right, any questions of the applicant? So I do have a question. Has the DOT approved your traffic study? Okay, have they seen the latest site plans? They have, okay. Yes, we've spoken to SEDOT to confirm about the left-turn lane and that is one of their recommendations. Okay. Yeah, I'd seen somewhere in the case summary or in the application about the six foot tall fence but you say you are willing to go to eight foot. Yeah, I don't think I have any other questions for the applicant. Any questions from anyone else on planning commission for the applicant? I'd just like to ask a clarity question as it relates to the interest on River Drive. I know you said the North end but I'm looking at the site plans and having a little trouble figuring out where that is. Can you help me with that a little bit? It's at the very top of the site, yeah. Okay, got it, thank you. Well, Lucinda's passing out some of the correspondence that we have received since the publishing of the agenda. Some of them you've received via email so you already have them. Those are also included and then some of those came in after we sent you the email so we want to make sure that everyone's comments get into the record. So exhibit number A is an email with an attachment dated March the 9th, 2022. And it's from Jim Daniel. And I was already emailed to you yesterday. There's also exhibit B, which is an email from Daniel Shealy, dated 39, 2022. That was emailed to you also. Exhibit number C is an email from Wanda Shearer and we're gonna go ahead and read that into the record now. Good evening. I'm addressing the new proposed apartment complex that is discussed at this meeting. I believe based on what I have seen on the media outlet that this property in question is main in river, I have no problem with any dot, dot, dot. My apartment is terrible. Maintenance and the building are terrible in sign. Mine is anyway. I want a better place. However rent needs to be controlled. It's too crazy in the city with no reliable mass traffic, terrible roads, feeling like I live in a slum, but it's almost the only affordable one I can find, right? Then exhibit D is an email dated 310, 2022. And it's from Brad Pettit. We'll read that into the record now. Hello, these comments pertain to item number 10 on the published agenda for today, 310, major site plan review at River and Benton, 56 unit residential unit Benton Crossing. Please read into the record during today's meeting as I may not be able to attend in person. The site for this proposed five story complex is wedged into a space with bungalow homes on one side along the same street and the two story normal flats apartments on the other. Neighbors have consistently voiced concerns about the scale and location of the project. A building of it this size simply doesn't feel appropriate for that spot, especially when there's too much empty land all over town, including in high density areas and even very nearby main. All one needs to do is to visit this location to see how unsuitable it is. The building would be a monstrosity on this tiny site. I would alter and harm the, it would alter and harm the architecture character and diversity of the neighborhood. The existing normal flats apartments, it should be noted are low rise attractive and a better model for how we can achieve viable density housing in this area. Residents myself included don't object to welcoming new neighbors or providing local businesses with new customers. It really is a matter of putting such a big building right there on top of houses. The out of state developers proposing this project don't live here and aren't concerned with the impact of putting a high rise building right in our neighborhood. Neither do any other individuals who have profited from this deal. We asked then that the commission act as advocates and safeguards of current residents' interests. Perhaps a two or three story design would be more appropriate for this location or perhaps the developers should place this complex as conceived in a different specific location. Thank you for your time and consideration on this matter. Many neighbors are currently feeling unheard and frustrated. That's from Brad Pettit of Earl Wood. Then exhibit E is an email and also contains an article it's dated 39, 2022. It's from Jim Daniel and the title of the article is Spartanburg sells downtown lot and add 55 affordable apartments. And then the last exhibit is exhibit F which is an email that also contained a chart. 2021 low income housing credit awards list which I believe this project is on would be all the exhibits that we would like to place on a record at this time. Okay, thank you. Is there anyone else from the public that would like to speak or against the project? Please state your full name for the record. Good afternoon. My name is John Wilkinson. I'm serving as the president of the Elmwood Park Neighborhood Association. I'd like to start by thanking Parker and his team at Woda Cooper for engaging openly with our neighborhood. As Parker mentioned, they reached out early in the process and we've had a number of neighborhood meetings, including an information session in which they went into great detail into the project and incorporated our neighbor's feedback, heard our concerns and did the best that they could given the constraints of the site and what the zoning allows to address those. So the two major concerns from our neighborhood that we heard were regarding traffic which Parker's addressed and regarding simply the size and the height of the development. We understand that the zoning allows for this height and size but it's still a striking contrast as has been mentioned in some of the other comments but given that we are grateful to them for doing the best they could to ease the transition. They've adjusted the site plan from the original drawings to ease that transition from the single family residents into the larger part of the development and we're grateful for them for working with us to do that. Our three remaining points that we'd like to emphasize are the no parking on the end of Benton Street, the eight foot wall that was mentioned and also consideration for any grand trees that are along the property line and not to disrupt or remove any of those trees. So that's from the Elwood Park Neighbor's Association. Thank you. Thank you. Yes ma'am. Thank you, Mr. Chair and Commission. My name is Mary Williams and I am an Earl Wood resident. I actually live right there on River Drive about a quarter mile away from where this site is. I first wanna say that I don't think that there's anyone in Earl Wood who wouldn't welcome workforce and affordable housing. Earl Wood is filled of working class people and people who already live in some type of infill. However, like John did say, there are great concerns about the height of the building. I know that the developers have worked with Elmwood to address some of their concerns. Earl Wood specifically has had maybe one or two community meetings with the developers and I don't feel specifically like our concerns are being heard here, particularly with the change in the traffic going, or excuse me, the entrance and exit going on River Drive. Additional site plans for Comet are being added at River Drive in Lucius, which will put more bus traffic on River Drive, which is already a two-lane road that is having problems with speeding as is. Additionally, I'm a member of, well, I'm not here as a member of BPAC for the city, but I am on BPAC, so I do have an eye towards pedestrian and bicycle accessibility, specifically because the developers have noted in their site plan that they require a certain number of bicycle parking spaces. There is no safe way to bike on River Drive. There is no safe way to get on River to Main Street and adding a left-hand turn lane there, I think personally would be incredibly dangerous. I don't see how you would get that turn lane, I drive that street every day, so I don't see how you would get a turn lane in there without taking out some of the sidewalks that are already there because you're looking at just a two-lane road with a double yellow stripe down it. Furthermore, I noticed here that the traffic study was done on a Wednesday, June 2nd, 2021, excuse me, when the majority of Richland County One Schools were still either hybrid or virtual, you have a lot of folks coming from the, what site is that, the east side of Earlwood over River Drive to get to Logan Elementary School during these high traffic times, and this traffic study does not account for that properly. Thank you ma'am, your time is up. Oh, my time is up, I'll email. Yeah, thank you. Yes ma'am, just a reminder that we do have a two-minute time limit for- Okay, I'll be quick. My name is Dr. Ray Merck, and I'm a business owner at 2611 River Drive, which is exactly at the like, pardon me, at Main Street and River Drive. I share the traffic concerns because I and my clients take our lives in our hands every single day trying to turn out of my driveway or into my driveway is completely impossible. So to add a bunch of traffic right there, and I will agree with the resident who just spoke that when I peek out of my driveway, people gun it to the light. There's no slowdown, no yield if they have a green and it's already pretty treacherous, so that's my concern. Thank you. Yes ma'am, thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Jim Daniel. I'm a commercial real estate broker with Catawba Properties. I've been involved in 10 commercial properties between Elmwood and Somerville over the last few years. So I think I know the area fairly well. Couple of issues jump out at me, and I'm sorry I'm late to the game on this one. It looks like they have tried to cram too much into too smaller space. There's a lack of green space. There's a very small play area. Granted they have met code on parking for my experience dealing with student housing and other projects in town. The city's code dealing with parking for these type complexes is wolly inadequate. Exciting example of the nine project on UG Street where the student showed up less September with 100 more cars and were allocated for that space and the owners had to panic and work out something with the hotel next door. You have anywhere based on the numbers they're looking at here up between 60 and 200 residents of this complex depending on how many kids you have there. You could have at least 100 kids there if you're talking to two to four per unit. Where are they gonna play? There's this tiny little play area. There's no green space. There's no close park. The only space that's anywhere near there that could be possibly a place face is the SCDOT property to the north. This property is hemmed in to the north by condo project. Benton Street is narrow. I went by a few minutes ago. The cars that are parking on Benton Street are either half on the street, half on the curve. Then you can only barely get one car through. The experience we've had with these student housing complexes, they flood the neighborhood. This won't be quite as bad here because I don't think you'll see as many cars but you'll still see overflow traffic on a street that is very narrow and already has people parking on it. Somebody had just mentioned Grand Trees. I'm president of the Wheeler Hill Neighborhood Association. We've been through a pretty unpleasant situation with our developer. A number of Grand Trees was supposed to be saved. The developer came back under the city regulations and substituted other trees to remove Grand Trees that had been there on Wheeler Hill for 50, 60 years. What's to say the developer's not gonna do that here? They can do that under the regulations. They can substitute new trees for Grand Trees. Thank you, your time's up. I'm not finished. I'd like to have one more minute if you don't mind to sub up. So we have a two minute time limit. Dr. Merck, I share her concerns as I've worked with her ex-husband for years on his property next door. That is a very busy intersection at where she's located. If you ride down River, you can almost miss Benton Street. I think the compromise where they move the parking to the north makes a lot of sense. In a nutshell, they have crammed too much in too smaller space. It needs to be another quarter of a half acre there to make this property viable with green strays, play for the kids, et cetera. Thank you. All right, do we have anybody else that would like to speak for or against the project? Do we have any additional emails or anything, any callers that have called in? Let's run through the, just the public input process. I don't have any emails so far, but... So for public input, additional public input, we encourage those who would like to comment via email or the web to begin sending in letters and emails. That email should be sent to cocboardmeeting at columbiasc.gov or on the web at https colon slash slash publicinput.com slash cocpc-mar 2022. So those wanting to leave a voicemail or speak live, please call 855-925-2801. When prompted, please enter the meeting code 2903. Then press star two to leave a voicemail or press star three to speak live. Please be sure your computer audio is off to avoid any feedback. We do have someone here present that would like to speak. Outside of my wheelhouse, but my name is Molly Ironside. I'm a Benton Street resident. I spend my time working in local healthcare and as a foster parent. And I can't quite picture a parking lot outside of my home in a five story complex. Doesn't seem to be what our neighborhood wants or needs, even though we do think it is important our city has affordable housing. So for the Benton Street residents currently is not what we find best for our area. Thank you. Do we have a caller on the line? Hello, I'll let you know if you have a question. If we get back on, we'll let... Do we want to wait another second and see if they can call in? Give them another minute or so to try to call in. Again, please bear with us. If they're watching, perhaps they should email. Yeah, that's a great point. Just in case they can't get through now would be the time for them to email. That's a good idea. Yeah, we can just go ahead, I guess, and read that email address. COC board meeting at columbiasc.gov. We are monitoring email, so if anybody wants to write in, we're watching that live. Thank you for that. I have a question for the applicant. Go ahead while we wait. Sure. There was concerns about the amount of open space and the zoning administrator had recommended to identify the area that will contribute towards open space requirement. I think we had at least an older version of the site plan. Was there clarified or identified? I would actually like to invite our architect, Doug Cruz, to answer on the open space. No, welcome. Hi, Doug Cruz. I'm the designer of the site plan. And the open space, if you could... Can you adjust the mic a little bit up higher to you so you can... Sure. So there is a green area calculation up at the top, right corner. I don't know if you can zoom in. I believe it's 32% green area calculation. We have the big green area in the middle that has the parking area and all the buffer area around. We calculated that area and it's shown in the right-hand corner, 33%. So from a staff standpoint, the open space needs to meet 15%. I believe the issue was is that on the site plan that there is a calculation, however, the area isn't specifically called out. So I believe the comment was for just for them to go ahead and call it out so that we could identify that the requirement was being met. So most of it's right there around the island, so to speak. Well, the entire perimeter also has a landscape buffer and if you go back to the landscape plan, you can see where the green area is all around the perimeter and along the front of the building as well. So that 32 or 33% is that of the space that is not taken up by the building or of... Correct, all the paving, all the sidewalks and the building itself is impervious area. The rest of it is green area. So the whole piece of property, 32% of it is green space? That's correct. Including the footprint of the building. The footprint is impervious, so it is not... Right, I understand that. But so if you take the whole piece of property, what percent of the whole piece of property is green space? It's 31%. I think I'm not communicating for our case. Anyone? I'm just saying, so there's a whole piece of property including the building and the parking and I'm just wondering what percentage of the whole piece of property is green space? It's 31%, that's shown on that top corner of the site. So including where the building is, okay. It looks like sites 1.43 acres and 0.4 green. Okay, I can't read it, so. I was trying to do the same thing and I couldn't do it here. I'm sorry, can you speak a little bit more to your mic? I have a question in reference to play space for the children, can you talk more about that? So there's a playground with 12 inches of mulch and a surrounding fence in the middle. You can see it right in the middle of the parking. You have a view from the manager's office to keep an eye on the kids in that playground and also you can see, look down on that playground from the units facing. How many children would, go ahead. I was gonna say how many children can play on the playground at one time? It's pretty small, but we can make it larger. There are three play units on there. I would estimate 10 kids at a time. And approximately how many residents are you expecting? There's 56 units, so some are single family, single bedroom units, some are three bedroom units. I couldn't tell you what the population would be. Good question. Is that the 31% green space that includes the playground? Yes, that is included in the green space. I don't have that answer. So each bedroom in a unit is allowed one to two occupants, so a one bedroom unit could have one or two occupants, a two bedroom unit will have two to four, three bedroom will have three to six. Absolutely, yes, sir, come on. Thank you, Chairman, for allowing me to speak. My name is Denny Blackburn. I'm Senior Vice President with Woda Cooper Companies based in Savannah, Georgia. And I would like to say, because I think your questions are really good, is that we developed over 400 different properties in 16 different states. We have a different type of property for a different environment. Obviously, this is not something that's built in the suburbs with multiple buildings where you'd expect to find lots of children, then you end up with lots and lots of opportunities for green space. This is more of an urban infill type of development that we are doing. It is compact. We're not trying to say it's not compact, but then we're targeting, we're not necessarily targeting large families to come into this development. We've got a lot of one and two bedroom units and really very few three bedrooms. So the whole idea is to try and find somebody who wants to live near to Main Street, near to downtown. So we're looking for a different type of resident that's here. We're going to see more, I would see single people, couples, people, maybe one or two children and not with large families. That's just to give you a little bit of extra vision. Understood, thank you. Has an email come through or has the caller tried to get back through? Yes, sir, please do so. Couple of issues here. First, this is going to be available to anybody. I mean, granted they may target, but this is an affordable housing project. So I mean, I think when he says we're targeting this and that, I would take issue with that. I mean, when I'm thinking about what he's talking about is a project that's closer to Main Street where people walk. This is not walking distance to the business district. Secondly, I think you all hit the point. We could have up to a hundred kids here, two adults in a one bedroom, two kids in a two bedroom, two adults and four kids in a three bedroom. They've got a many a school parking place for kids to play. There is no Greensburg. Are they saying that a parking lot is Greenspace? They want the kids to play in the parking lot. I think this project is too small, excuse me, too big for this lot. Not only in scale, but in actuality, they put too much brick and mortar on too small a lot. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. My name is Jennifer Glass and I am the property owner of the adjacent property on Benton Street. And I would like to say that Lucinda and Christa and Sky Holder have been very responsive and there have been many, many emails. And some of the changes I've requested have already been made. So I'm grateful for that. But now that we're onto the topic of the Greenspace and I also happen to be a landscaper for 23 years, this plan does not show any existing grand trees, which I know, I believe there are seven and there were many more shortly before the closing of the property. But to stay on point, the Greenspace that they're showing is not accurate because it doesn't include the grand trees that have to be. Okay, thank you. Maybe a question for staff. Is, I mean, there's a means of getting rid of a grand tree and having more trees planted or, okay. That's correct. Grand trees can be removed. They have to be, you know, mitigated and they can be mitigated by either increasing canopy caliper size or paying into the tree fund. Thank you. Yeah, I thought I saw that in the staff comments. All right, are we waiting on this caller on the line? No caller? We'll let one more person speak if you have already spoken. Anybody that hadn't spoken can speak. I'll be really fast. I just want to point out that when they spoke to the Earlwood community, one of the things that they told us was that this housing was specifically for workforce with children. So like the single mom nurse who had two kids and she needed to be able to be close to the hospital. So I have a greater concern now that we're focusing towards a single working adult because that's just not initially how it was presented at the meeting that I was at. Thank you. Thank you. Any additional questions from the planning commission? Mr. Chair, I have one, it's just an informational question. Is this a non-smoking building? If we have no further questions, I will accept a motion. Yes. I think we just received an email. We do have a call. Okay. There's an email that says, this is somebody who had sent an email before and it was sort of cut off. And then the revised email says, the majority of this email was omitted during the planning committee meeting. The email was apparently cut and redone to show the bottom portion where I live in a slum and hearing it read on YouTube made me sound like a stupid idiot. Please make sure the emails are read and transcribed in their entirety. We read everything that we received word for word. So I don't know what happened with the transcription or the email as it arrived to us. This is from Ms. Wanda Shearer. She asked that we redact her address. So we did that when we made the, but you have hard copies of what was received. So unfortunately there must have been a problem with the email server, but this is exactly what we received. Did she respond with any additional information in the email to read? The email says, my apartment is terrible. Maintenance in the buildings are terrible inside. Mine is anyway. I want a better place. However, rent needs to be controlled here. It's too crazy in the city with no reliable mass traffic, terrible roads, feeling like I live in a slum, but it's almost the only affordable one I can find. I believe we had read that earlier. Yeah, it looks like maybe she started the email in the subject line. If you read the subject line, and I think that was read in by Mr. Chambers. We don't have any more. There are no additional emails. Okay. Any questions after hearing that from Planning Commission? All right, here and now, and I'll accept the motion. How are we feeling? Do you repeat? We spoke with, we did, we have spoken to DOT today, and that they did state that they felt, they felt like there could be accommodations made with a left turn lane. However, an official approval from them, I don't believe we have an official approval letter or anything like that, but they did confirm what the developer did state regarding the turn lane. I do have one more question. So it was mentioned earlier that the traffic study was done during the time where children went home, which means most parents were working from home. The traffic study possibly doesn't reflect what's happening right now. Is it possible that we have an updated traffic study to show what's going on now versus during that COVID phase when no one was going to school or work? My name's Joe Robertson with Kimley Horn Associates. I'm the traffic engineer that prepared the study. So at the time the study was prepared, I did coordinate with the city traffic engineer, Drew Ritter, and he was in agreement with the day we collected the counts. SCDOT was also good with that date. So it was typical weekday, which is standard of practice of how we collect traffic counts. In talking with DOT yesterday and again this morning, they didn't think that redoing or updating the traffic study would have any major impact on the findings. We have one more wanting to speak. Yes, ma'am. I'd like to speak to the traffic problem again. I spoke to the city engineers at the time of the streetscaping that was done and recommended that they put the stop bar behind my driveway and that they make a no turn right on red from River Drive to main headed south. And they agreed that it made a very treacherous getting in and out of my driveway. And when it was completed, they had not done that. So it's still treacherous getting in and out of my driveway. And what I can tell you from coming and going from anywhere from eight to 9.30 in the morning, it's almost impossible to make a left hand turn there. From the traffic that's coming from literally both directions, the same thing starts to happen again around four o'clock in the afternoon. So a traffic study that happens, what time did they say? Two or three in the afternoon is not an accurate representation of the problem that happens at that intersection. Okay, maybe I have a question for the traffic engineer because typically traffic counts are done between seven and nine and three and five. That's correct. Four and six. Yeah, this traffic study, we collected data between seven and nine in the morning and four and six in the evening to capture the morning and evening peak hours. Thank you. All right, any follow up questions? Are we ready to make a motion? I mean, I think one, I'm just gonna say, I think one issue is I have appreciated very much hearing that the developer met with the neighborhood. That's something that a lot of times doesn't happen. And I think realistically what y'all are wanting to put in is probably not at a fundamental level going to please people in the neighborhood because of the density and the worries about the traffic. All that being said, I'm struggling with anything specific to say that it would be something I would vote against because Columbia does need housing and I believe that y'all have made some concessions. I am concerned that the additional concessions that you have addressed, you said that you would put in on the fence, that if there is a motion that that be included, that all staff comments be included. If there's a way to make it contingent upon the fact that the DOT does actually approve this because I would want to make sure that that happens before this moves forward. And additionally, I do wonder about the green space. There was some comment thrown in about the idea that you could make the playground a little larger. I think if that's possible, I would, again, I'm not in a position to readdress everything that you have put in here, but I do think some of the questions are around the idea of there are kids where they're gonna play, what's the quality of living gonna be in this space and how can we mitigate the effects on the neighborhood. But those are the things I think send a text or something. So I guess that's what's rolling around in my head and I don't know what anybody else is thinking. No one seems to be making a motion to jump in here. So I'm just throwing that out there. That's what's rolling around in my head that if those things were accounted for, and I would. I think staff comments do address the fence. Staff comments do address SCDOT approval. So I'm with you. In my mind, I would recommend a motion to approve this based on staff comments, but I'd like for somebody to throw out a motion. Mr. Chairman, if it's appropriate with regards to the fence, I believe the discussion was with regards to an eight foot wall. There may be the need for a wooden fence in some areas because I believe they're gonna try to preserve some of the grand trees. So would, if there is a motion with regards to an eight foot fence or wall, that there needs to be room for the applicant to work with staff regarding the need for the wall and or the fence to work around trees, grand trees. Thank you. There needs to be some flexibility that allows for the privacy, but also supports any efforts to save any grand trees and any green space that can be made. Yes. The applicant. I would like to add that we'd be willing to condition that we double the size of the playground as it's currently situated on the site plan. Thank you. I'm willing to try a motion. Okay. Please do. I'd like to approve the site plan for 2615 River Drive, 2629 River Drive, 1129 Benton Street with the following additions, that all staff comments be taken into account that there be an eight foot privacy fence rather than a six foot privacy fence installed where needed with staff input to make the effort to preserve any grand trees that can be. I think everything else you noted was included in staff comments, so that would be the conditional on Department of Transportation approval and any other staff comments that are in there. Got a motion on the table. Can I get a second? Second. Got a motion and a second. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed say no. The ayes have it. The motion is approved. Sure. Yes. Ms. Davis. Yes. Mr. Hart. Yes. Dr. Mandel. Yes. Ms. Thomas. Yes. Mr. Tupper. No. Ms. Hartz. No. And Mr. Frost. Yes. Okay, the motion passes. Five to two. Do we have any other business? Do not believe we have any other business this evening. Mr. Chair. All right, no other business? I don't think we did the approval of the minutes. Ma'am? Did we approve the February? Yeah, we approved the minutes during the consent agenda. Oh, okay, got it, thank you. All right, if there's no other business, I'll accept the motion to adjourn. Got a motion, can I get a second? All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed, no. The meeting is adjourned.