 be a board of zoning appeals. I am Gene Dinkins Jr, chair for the board. This time I'd like to introduce other members of the board. To my left we've got Celia McIntosh, Captain Finner, John Gregory, Gerard DeVall, and Marcellus Promise. We'd also like to introduce the staff that assist the board. Hope Hasty is your zoning administrator. Erica Hyen, deputy zoning administrator, and Sky Robinson Barnes assist the board as well. The board is charged with hearing applications for special exceptions, variances, and administrative appeals. All testimony is recorded for the record, and anyone wishing to speak will need to be sworn in and come to the podium to speak. No testimony can be taken from the floor. When you come to the podium, state your name, and please speak clearly into the microphone because the meeting is being recorded. Applicants with cases before the board are allotted a presentation time of 10 minutes. This time also includes all persons presenting information on behalf of the applicant. This time limit does not include any questions asked by the board or staff regarding the case. Any member of the public may address the board in intervals of three minutes or five minutes if you're a spokesperson for an established body or a group of three or more. The applicant then has five minutes for a buttle. The board reserves the right to amend these procedures on a case-by-case basis. All right, those of you who plan to speak must be sworn, so if you are here as an applicant or if you were to hear to speak in any case, please stand at this time and raise your right hand. Okay, do you affirm or attest that the testimony you will give today is the truth and nothing but the truth? Okay, thank you. All right, this time we'll turn the meeting over to Ms. Hastie. All right, good afternoon. The first thing I want to announce today is that an item on the regular agenda, 2023-0004 SE, it's a special exception request to permit a convenience store that has been deferred by the applicant and so we do plan to move that to the March meeting agenda instead. Thank you. At this time we'll review the consent agenda. First item on the consent agenda is the approval of the January 5th, 2023 minutes. The next item is 2023-0001 V, 5408 Middleton Street, the variance request to the required transitional buffer yard standard. And the next item on the consent agenda is case 2023-0002 V, 6604 Christie Road. It's a variance request to the required side yard setback standard. And that concludes the consent agenda. Would the board like to remove any items from the consent agenda at this time? Okay, we're going to take a vote on the consent agenda. Does anyone from the audience wish to remove any items from the consent agenda because we're getting ready to vote one way or another on this matter? Okay. All right, let me ask for a motion. I move that we approve the consent agenda subject to staff comments. Second. Okay, we have a motion to second. All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, motion passes. Thank you. All right, moving on to the regular agenda. We've got one case today, 2023-0003 SE. It's 408 and 436 Blossom Street, and 519 Hugie Street, and 401 Wheat Street. It's a special exception request to exceed the maximum density of bedrooms per acre for a student dormitory. And the applicant is here this afternoon to present the request. Okay. Thank you. Please. Yes, please approach. Mr. Chairman and Board, we appreciate the opportunity, and we want to especially thank all the staff of the city for all the help. Please state your name real quick. Okay, sorry. Layton Lord, I'm with Nexon Pruitt. Thank you. Thanks. We want to thank all the staff for all their help in getting this project going. This is an exciting project for the City of Columbia. This project will be at one of the most important gateways to the city, and we believe it's exactly what the Inovista District envisions. A five-story building with a beautiful facade, with some retail and hidden parking. And if you drive through the Inovista District, this is exactly what it is turning out to be, which is the vision. The request before you is for a special exception to increase the density of this approximately 3.8 acres. We believe we meet all the requirements of a special exception. They're outlined in our application, and we're happy to go over any of them in detail if the Board has any questions. Succinctly, we believe it will not only not cause any harm to the area, but will greatly enhance and increase the value of the area and is consistent with a similar project right across the street. What's important about why we're here today before you is the increased density is a threshold issue to the viability of this project. There is a lot of infrastructure that needs to happen to make this site work. There's a four-foot storm drain underground that needs to be relocated, there's a sewer line that needs to be relocated, and there's a gas station on the site that needs to be remediated. Those are all things that my client's subtext is going to have to incur to make this project work. If this project did not have the density we were requiring, they would not be able to financially do this project, and we don't believe a project like this would be feasible. When you have millions of dollars of infrastructure that you weren't planning for, you've got to have a bigger project to make it work and into budget. And on top of that, subtext plans to put power lines underground and do things that would beautify the area that are also, as you all know, very expensive. This site is unique, and we think it requires the kind of density that is being requested in order to make it financially viable, but also to make it the gateway that the Inavista District envisions. We have talked with some of the neighbors in the Grand Villain and Olympia area, and we know they're here today, and we respect their concerns about traffic, and we have talked to them, and we will continue to talk with the neighbors about traffic concerns. We want the traffic to be as calm and good for us as they do also. As you all probably know, student housing is a little bit different than an apartment complex. Everybody doesn't come and go at nine in the morning and five o'clock at night. Traffic's more intermittent. Many students just store cars in a parking garage. There will be a 500 car garage, and we have some control of how they'll enter and exit, and we're willing to work with the city on how that comes out to make sure it is the best for the area. We also are close to the campus. We hope that kids will skateboard, scooter, and walk to campus also. We're right near Fraternity Row by the Strom Thurman Center and by the campus as a whole, but we are committed to continuing to work with the neighborhoods, the nearby neighborhoods, to make sure that traffic concerns are alleviated. I know they've already reached out to SCDOT and the city, and we'll continue to help with those processes. Right now, unless the board has any questions, I want to introduce you to Bethany Rooney, who's with Subtext, who will give a brief overview of the company and the project. Bethany Rooney from Subtext Acquisitions. Thank you for hearing our request today. Subtext is a multifamily and student housing developer. We're based out of St. Louis, and we have projects all over the country, Ohio, Idaho, Wisconsin, here in South Carolina already as well. And this particular site, we did choose it because of its location. It has close proximity to the university, and it is a gateway entrance into the community, and we're looking forward to the design of our building in helping that kind of that gateway view as you come into a community. So we're looking forward to that. We've been working closely with the city already in the design of our project, making sure that we do comply with the design guidelines of the innovative district. And so with that being said, I think Leighton already made the point that there are a lot of infrastructure costs that come with the site itself, but in addition, the innovative district has a lot of design requirements that we're very excited about because we think that they add value to our project and for our students. One of the things that we are doing to help alleviate some of the traffic concerns is we will be offering bike parking in the structure, so we're hoping to encourage the use of bicycles. And also, there is a bus stop on Williams, and we're hoping to make some improvements over there to encourage use of the transit system as well. So we're very excited to be here, and thank you again for hearing our request. Thank you. Thank you, Bethany. So you operate at least, not that familiar with the company, you operate two others, do you operate, yeah, sorry, do you own some others throughout the country, or is it just these two in Indiana and Ohio? Oh, no, we have, so currently we have projects in Indiana, Ohio, Boise, Idaho, let's see, in Columbia, Missouri, in St. Louis, Missouri. So we have about 13 or 14 current projects in operation right now, and another seven or eight in development and a handful in construction as well. That's a lot. How would you, how does this density request relate to some of your other projects, just generally speaking, is this about average or? As far as the size of the project itself, you know, projects can range anywhere from, and we usually speak in beds when we're speaking about student housing as opposed to units, because the unit size can range from a studio to up to a six bedroom unit, and our projects range anywhere from, you know, 400 to 1,000 beds. It really just depends on the location and the density allowances in those communities, and financially what makes sense with the cost of construction and things. Would you say this is comparable to your other projects as far as the density, or I guess that's a difficult question to answer? It's difficult, but I would say it's very comparable, absolutely. All right, well, thank you for your presentation. Stay up there for a moment, if you would please, and Layton, we may ask you to come back up too, but how about some direct questions regarding this matter from the board? Hey, bye. I got questions. Okay, I guess my first thing is that I go through Blossom Street, and maybe this is more of a question for Mr. Lord, because he's a local. I mean, I drive Blossom Street, that's area all the time. I live just up the road. And vehicular traffic and pedestrian safety, I mean, it's like how many lanes across there, eight lanes across both one direction and I think eight, the other also. So pedestrian safety is a very real issue. It's a very large intersection. You guys have no plans for any kind of an underpass, overpass, anything like that, or they're just going to do grade crossing pedestrian. I believe the city is planning to improve that the bridge over. Oh, no, no, I know the bridge is being read. The Blossom Street bridge is a whole another question that's coming down and being replaced and all that kind of stuff. My question is, is right at Blossom and UG, you've got how many lanes in that pedestrians are going to have to walk across. That's a large lot of crossing. It seems like a safety issue to me. A pedestrian safety issue, which is one of our big questions. So I guess, without jumping into something that's slightly above my pay grade, as far as traffic engineering is concerned, that's definitely something that we'll be looking into. We've already engaged our traffic engineer a little bit earlier than we normally would because traffic has come up as a potential concern. So we'll take a look at that. And we of course want it to be safe for our students. So as the traffic is looked at, if there's a recommendation to do some things to create some increased pedestrian safety, we definitely take that very serious. And it's our traffic engineer. She recommends that we should do those types of things. We will definitely be looking at that. I think that the traffic engineer actually identified the same things you did. And on Saturdays, I'm crazy enough to ride a bike across there to West Columbia. And so I've been in that intersection before and there could be a lot of improvements. Yes. Yes. And luckily, I'll give Bob and his, they've already engaged Seth Rose and some others because, you know, there's some state roads there that could probably be improved in different ways to increase the safety of pedestrians and for traffic. Okay. And then, of course, I, as I mentioned, I live just up Blossom Street from there. And I know that when, you know, they open the Greek village, it's a parking lot there because none of the students, it seems they all want to drive there to eat. Yeah. None of them ride their bikes everywhere like you do. So I guess I'm concerned that, you know, while they don't come and go on nine to five, they certainly come and go an awful lot. And they're not always as prudent as they could be. And I know that it's been raised in one of the letters from, I believe, Mr. Gile about the ingress, ingress on William Street. Plus, of course, the issue is down, you know, farther down. I've, I also like to go to Granby Park and you have to come out William Street. That's the only way out, really. Do you have any comments or is that just a traffic engineering, either of you on that? Because I mean, that just seems like that does really say that the TIA is going to get worked on and we're going to have to follow that. Step to the mic, please. I'm sorry. Yeah. As you know, as part of the process, we're required to have this traffic impacts and analysis completed and then approved by both SCDOT and the city because we are flanked by three state roads and one city road. So once that TIA is completed, it will be reviewed by SCDOT as well as the city and then a final determination on the correct recommendations for our use and the density will, you know, be concluded at, you know, the finish of that review. Okay. And in terms of feasibility, I guess you have, you feel that from a marketing perspective, you have to have 500 parking spaces in a garage as opposed to having them take the comet. Yeah. As we do our market analysis of the city and as of the other student housing projects in the area and what is expected of our market, yes, that we do anticipate that this is something that we need. At this point, I couldn't really speak to the traffic patterns until I see the traffic impact analysis. But as far as our need and the marketability of the project, yes, this is the kind of the parking count that we would need. Yes. And I would suggest that we could be slightly under parked. And so from a marketability standpoint, there are some challenges and that is part of the reason that we're taking a look at the bus stop, right? Doing some improvements over there to encourage the use of the transit. I don't know if you've driven past there. There's a bus stop there, but you wouldn't know it. There's no bus shelter. It's kind of in the weeds and things. I don't know who uses that bus at this point, but we want to do what we can to encourage the use of that transit. And I think with a lot of the pedestrian improvements that we'll be making all around the entire building due to the design requirements and design guidelines in Avista, I think that we'll be able to encourage some of that use by doing that. No, just don't. What's the likelihood that I know that you're working with the city and you're waiting on a traffic study to come back and say that that traffic study requires some type of pedestrian walkway or bridge because of, you know, there's very little what we would call a buffer there between the sidewalks and the traffic already at that intersection. And if that, if it comes back that way, how committed do you think subtext is to being able to work with the city and the citizens in that area to create some type of to be able to work with the city of that was something that you all had to do. What is subtext position there? Sure. So when it comes to the recommendations of the traffic impact analysis, we'll take very seriously those recommendations. And at the end of the day for us, what'll happen is it will be a balance of will the project still remain viable financially? If there are certain expenses that come into play that truly make the project no longer viable, then we would, we wouldn't continue to pursue the project. So those are always things that we have to, it's a balance. And I think at this point, we are committed to going through the process that we're required to go through as far as getting that traffic impact analysis completed, have it reviewed, come to an agreement on what the correct mitigation will be for whatever the traffic concerns might be, and then put dollars to that to see if it still makes sense for the project to happen. And I guess this is, you know, there's different checkpoints and this is kind of our first checkpoint if we can get this density, then it makes sense for us to continue forward. If we can't get the density, it really doesn't make sense for us to continue forward and continue to spend dollars on the due diligence on such things as the traffic impact analysis and things of that nature. Does that make sense? As Bethany said, the traffic analysis has been accelerated and brought forward because we know there are concerns about it, but Subtex's earnest money goes hard fairly soon and they've got to decide if this is a feasible project. So that's why we're before you all today. We also have DDRC and Planning Commission, which actually won't happen for four or five months. So there's a big period of time when these traffic issues can be discussed and looked at before DDRC and Planning Commission, but Bethany and her team are trying to figure out if the project's viable. And with the density, it's viable. Possibly the traffic impact study could come back and make recommendations that make it unviable, but this is a threshold determination. I suppose the other question that comes to mind is the one about proliferation, issue of proliferation of uses of the same use all around, which of course there are plenty of student housing projects all around, including one that I really worked hard to make happen in the Palmetto Conference warehouse. I get, I mean the question is what's the area? I mean, if you consider the area also as the very charming historic Granby Mill Village, it would potentially be detrimental to that mill village. I can see where that might happen and I suspect that may be where some of the opposition is going to come from. But I mean, it does seem that that is a proliferation of uses of the same special exception use. You have to ask where's the best place for this, right? Because the university keeps bringing in new students and they're projected to keep bringing in new students. If sub-tax and PMC and those guys don't build private student housing, the university is going to build it and it's not going to be in the tax rolls. And the university will build it wherever they want to build it because they have a little bit more power than private developers. As you well know, the university was heading towards your neighborhood for many, many years and then made the strategic decision to head towards the river because there's plenty of land and I would much rather see a student housing development on a slightly blighted corner with a gas station than in neighborhoods like where you live in Green Street. It's a choice, but this is a good place. It's walkable to the university, it's walkable to the baseball stadium, it seems to be in the center of the university, center of the university, the question is for the city, you know, where do they want it and the Inovista district seems to want it here. Do you have any, any letters from the Inovista, the Vista people, I guess it's still the Vista Guild or whatever, whoever, you don't have any support from the neighborhoods? Well, when we get into the design, DDRC and planning commission and things like that, we will definitely meet with neighborhoods and talk with those folks about that. We don't have enough of a design to really, as you know, they want to see what it looks like. It looks like they're hypothetical right now, but working with the city and working with them. I got a question. I'll mention the city, the Comet Shuttle. USC has a shuttle service as well for students. Have y'all engaged them at all? Because I could see, you know, for this particular development, the people who would be living here would want to use the USC shuttle more so than the... The USC shuttle's been integrated with the Comet now. With the Comet, okay. So it would be coming to the spot, okay. Hopefully, if the bus stop that Bethany's team is committed to, what do you say? It doesn't really exist now. It's a sign. If they make it something attractive, maybe kids will use it and see it there. So that's, that's the hope. It's part of, it's in their budget. Okay. Is it on the soda cap? Is it on the soda cap connector? Do you know? I don't know that. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you all very much. Appreciate your presentation. Thank you. Sounds very good. All right. At this time, we'd like to open it up for public input. Who would like to go first? Mr. Gile? Good afternoon. Good evening, Mr. Chairman, members of the board. I'm Bob Gile, and I live at 314 Paul Mall Street in the Granby neighborhood. This is a personal experience for me regularly. I'm here speaking on behalf of the Mill District Alliance and the Granby Neighborhood Association. I've been pleased to talk to Layton and, and now his client, but only over the last couple of days because the project just dropped on us, and we really haven't had an opportunity to do more than just very preliminary investigation. Short and long of it is, I think the developer is putting the cart before the horse. In order to comply with your special exception ordinance as a matter of law, they have to demonstrate no significant adverse impact on traffic of vehicular or pedestrian safety. Now that's a precondition now. That's not a promise for the future. So it's all well and good to say, we'll look into this, we'll do a study, we'll care about this. I'm confident that they're sincere about that, but that doesn't address the deficiency in the application today. And we've asked them to defer this item, at least for a month, so that we could work with them and others. We know these are two DOT streets, Blossom and UG. The city doesn't control the signalization or the design of the intersections. DOT does. And in order to have any chance of mitigating these adverse traffic impacts, 500 more cars at the least, that's the garage. Dumping onto the wheat and UG or the Williams and Blossom intersection, they're already substantially impaired. I can testify to that. They're going to make significantly worse. And there is no assurance whatsoever that there are any mitigation measures that actually will be adopted. Let me just say that my neighborhood, the Mill District Alliance, has a long history of cooperative working relationships with private dorm developers. We're proud of the renovation of the Olympian Granby Mills, the Palmetto Compress Warehouse. These are precisely the kind of projects we support. But the city of Columbia, to the extent that the city, we in the city, encourage private dorm development, we simply have to provide the infrastructure and services to support them, or the existing residents suffer. I'd like to just share with you, if I may, some primitive hand-out and intersection photographs. If you could put up that site plan that was up just a moment ago, that actually showed the proposed parking garage. And you can see there's the entrance to the project, as they say in their submission for special exception, is on Wheat Street. And so those 500 cars will be coming out onto Wheat Street. And the first item, I'm sorry I don't have copies for everybody, but the first item is a photograph I took yesterday at four o'clock in the afternoon. And three cars are already staged to turn left into the project across the street. That's now called Park Place. But the traffic impact study that I shared with you was done for that project, for Park Place. And they said this intersection as a result of that project in 2012 would be reduced to the very lowest efficiency standard for a traffic intersection that was not signalized. And that's a grade F. A through F is the scale. F is the worst. This intersection was rated worst in the study that I submitted to you. Now that was 10 years ago. Things are gotten much worse since then because there are additional student projects that have to use that very same intersection. The intersection is depicted on the second photograph I took. This is an Apple map photo, so it's not yesterday. It's just what the mapping program shows. Wheat and UG is unsignalized. It consists of seven lanes. There are two southbound lanes that are nearest to the turning out of this project. There's one turning laid in the middle where you saw the three cars turning into the Park Place project. Then there are two left turn lanes going across Blossom Street. Then there's one straight northbound lane taking you up UG toward the interstate. And then there's a right turn lane that takes you onto Blossom. So for me to get to the university neighborhood in my car at that intersection, which I use every day, I have to cross six lanes of traffic in order to get to the seventh lane, which is the right turn lane. And I might wait a long time and see that there are cars staged to turn into the Park Place student housing dorm, and then I have to wait another cycle for them to clear that turn lane. It's a very dangerous intersection now. As you can see, it has no turning lane. There's just a stops on there. That's a potential signalized opportunity that would mitigate the impacts of this project. Real quickly. The other two intersections that we use are Kataba and UG and Williams and Blossom. Let's talk about Williams and Blossom. I count five lanes, but two bicycle lanes there. And you all know what that's like coming across the Blossom Street Bridge. Traffic moves very, very fast. In order to get across a left turn lane to go to Casey, I have to wait for an opening in those two fast-moving eastbound lanes. And then I have to hope that nobody has pulled into the turn lane that's in the center. And needless to say, there are two, as Leighton knows, there are two bike lanes there too that one of which straddles the traffic lanes. It's a very dangerous intersection. So my point really is this. If there's any hope of meeting this special exception requirement to have no substantial adverse impact on traffic, vehicular, and pedestrian safety, these intersections have to be changed and signalized to manage a 500 car garage at this location. There is no showing whatsoever of any commitment to mitigate these measures. And in fact, the only showing they make under that criteria is an acknowledgement that the garage will enter on Wheat Street. That's not evidence at all. I submit to you, the only evidence you have is the traffic study from 2012, which already tells you that that Wheat Street intersection has an unacceptable level of service. One that is already dangerous, one that will only be made substantially more dangerous by a 500 car garage less than a block away. So happy to answer any questions, but I very much appreciate you helping. Thank you for your testimony, Mr. Gall. Let me ask you real quick before you go. This is not a technical question, but something that I heard. I want to make sure procedurally we're correct. So you mentioned you just learned of the project a couple of days ago. I learned about it when there was the draft agenda came out, Ms. Dinkins, and I think that's, you know, a week and a half ago. And then the talk to, I think attract Leighton down and got a copy of the application. But the bottom line is you only publish your agendas less than a week before. I'm always trying to make sure, of course, so it was posted properly, correct? I think it was. I just want to make sure that that would be grounds for some sort of a possible deferral for another month. Yeah. And, Mr. Chairman, I would just say that I don't know whether the bows and deems it within your authority, but, you know, in boards of commissions that we've been on before planning commissions, we'll be asked developers or applicants to defer a matter to meet with a community and try to work through these things. I don't really have the authority to do that, but, you know, we would request that opportunity. We are not objecting to this project. We think density and high quality development, even more private student dorms are okay. We support them. We just know that we have to have the infrastructure and services to make them a livable positive contribution to our neighborhoods. Thank you for your testimony. As always, appreciate your opinions very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. All the stuff that you've done for us. Okay. Who's next? Mr. Daniel, I think you came in after, I think you need to be sworn. You came in after we'd already sworn. Yeah. All right. Please raise your right hand. Do you affirm or a testimony you'll give today is the truth and nothing but the truth? Yes, sir. Thank you. Just a couple of brief comments. I live in the Wales Garden and the Wheeler Hill neighborhood. When the university was doing the South Campus Project, they involved the Wheeler Hill, the Wales Garden, and the Hollywood Rose Hill neighborhoods, and one of the first things out of the box that they did was a traffic study to alleviate any concerns those three neighborhoods had about where were the 1,800 students going to go that were initially proposed. Really, it was 3,600. So again, I sort of agree with Mr. The last speaker that we really need to know that before we approve special exceptions. You also need to, I mean, my office for 10 years was at the corner of Tryon and Haywood Street in the old Olympia Mills. My typical ways of going out were if I was going a lot of times, I'd just go down William Street and turn right. As been noted, that's a very busy intersection to get in and out of. The Wheat Street intersection is the same way because you typically got people at either of those lights at Blossom going east or going turning at Blossom Street. So that's something that really needs to be studied on the front end. I'd also bring to your attention that the River's Edge at Carolina Stadium housing complex is on Catawba, and that's 486 beds in that complex. There are 1,900 beds in the Olympia Mills complex. Granted, they've got four different ways they can go, but when I was at the corner of Tryon and Haywood, you know, there was a lot of traffic and there's a lot been built since then. So I really agree with Mr. Gile that they really need to do a little bit more preliminary study before they ask for these special exceptions. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Dinkins, can I ask Mr. Dan a question? Yes, I'll just tell my couple, Mr. Dan. Hi. Jim, you know a lot about what's going on, I think, in terms of the housing and student enrollments and that. What I have been told, I understand that actually enrollments are dropping. Is that? No, they're still shooting for six or seven thousand a year. The university still thinks that the cliff drop off in two to three years is not going to affect them. I mean, who knows? They seem to think that the schools that are going to be affected are small private schools, but there is the potential that a student enrollment will start dropping in two to three years as the latest boom backs out. So how it's going to affect us, I don't know. My little calculations are if you look at the total beds available in student housing, it's over 15,000. Granted, the area out in the Bluff Road area is really suffering. Most of the ones that are walkable or either full or almost at full capacity, the ones across the river seem to be doing well. So there's still a need for it. You've got the university opening a new one about the same time this would probably open with 960 beds there. And I included those in. If you add the university's newer projects, the ones on Lincoln Street and in the campus village, we're over 20,000 student beds in our community without including a lot of other stuff. Thank you very much. Okay. Who'd like to go next? Mine kind of logged itself around. At one point it was taking a picture of me, which was not very strange. Yes, you absolutely will. Absolutely. Yeah. I guess everybody's got to pay a little more attention, huh? We'll get it working. We'll get it working. On your phone. So are y'all, are y'all good? Okay, we're good. We can share. All right, let's get, let's get back to it. Okay, so that will conclude the public input part. Is that correct? We don't have any more input from the public, not the applicant, correct? Okay, so now, correct, we would like to ask the applicant to come back up and you have five minutes for a bottle. One thing I'll note is we're very different than the project across the street because I, yesterday I acted like a student and I drove from the university to this site. You can make a left-hand turn at the light on Blossom and Hugie. That's not that hard. And then it's all right-hand turns. And a student's going to make a right-hand turn on the Blossom to go back to campus. He or she may go to Lexington County at some point, but generally they're going to head towards five points. One of the things that, one of the things we can do is we can control that by requiring only right-hand turns out of the parking garage. So if there's only a right-hand turn out of the parking garage, then there'll never be a left-hand turn onto Hugie. And that's one of the things that we've looked at. And I know Mr. Gile asked for maybe a deferral. We would suggest a better route would be to approve it conditioned on the city approving our traffic impact analysis. And I tell you that because we are trying to figure out the viability of this project. In one month, that analysis won't be complete. So I'm not sure we'll know a whole lot more if we defer this a month. If we defer it two or three or four months, then we're probably out of the project. But we, if you make it conditioned on our TIA being acceptable to the city, we're okay with that because we're not going to move forward unless it's an acceptable traffic impact analysis. Be acceptable to us to have that conditioned upon our TIA. Since that is part of the process and it does need to be approved by both SCDOT and the city, or we can't move forward with the project anyway because that is an approval that is required. Yeah, I guess before, before you both leave, that is understandable. I mean, anytime we have a delay in a project, that is not good for the project. That's just, that's the fact. Everyone understands that. From some of the testament that we've heard today, I guess I would push back on that a little bit and say that I would think based on my experience, this may be a case where a one month deferral may be beneficial for your overall goals. I'm concerned that if we don't, you may not have the vote. So I don't know how the vote is going to come down today. The option is vote down or deferral will take the deferral. I don't know that. I don't know that. I just, I got a feeling after doing this for a long time that that may be in your best interest. Could I? No, not yet. So just before we move into board discussion, just want to throw that out there again. I don't know what Catherine's going to vote. We're all going to vote, but I got a feeling a month would help. If it's the will of the board to defer a month, we'll accept that. I think that would be a good idea. My one suggestion was is that I believe that Mr. Gile suggested that he might feel more comfortable in one month than you might get his support, which would be powerful to us. It would be very powerful for us. So that's the one advantage that you might get from the deferral. I recognize your timing issue. Otherwise, that's the will of the board will accept that. Okay. All right. Well, then, thank you. In that case, I'd like to make a motion with the applicants make a motion on behalf of the applicant that we defer this matter one month. Second. Second. Motion second. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. All right. Any opposed? Aye. Okay. All right. We'll motion passes. All right. Thank you all. I look forward to you two getting together and seeing what we can come up with. All right. I'd like to ask for a motion to adjourn. Move to adjourn. No, we can't adjourn. We can't adjourn. Sorry. I withdraw my motion. We have other business, but we can wait until it's elections, board elections. So if you want to wait until the Okay. I thought you were waiting until next month. Okay. Good. All right. We did think at one time that we weren't going to have enough board members here to vote. I think we've got six out of seven. So I think we're good. Gotcha. You want to proceed or let? Yeah. Y'all can watch us if you want. I'm out. Yeah. It's a public meeting. Y'all can watch us vote if you want. So and just to say thank you, Jean. Of course, this is your last meeting. So thank you for your service on the board. You've done a great job. So appreciate that. We really appreciate it on your time. It's been a great learning experience and George working with everyone. I was telling someone earlier this is my 12th year in a row being on the city board. So I'm ready for a little break. So Bob and I served together for years on the planning commission and then I rolled straight into this. But really it's been a great valuable, rewarding learning experience. I've thoroughly enjoyed it. But with that being said, y'all can have it. All right. So we'll give you a break on that deferral. We'll play him as exit music now. I'm not sure what it is. All right. So some of you emailed nominations to me ahead of time. If you want to do it, but I know Ms. Fenner, you wanted to discuss, I think here in person about if anyone wants to make a nomination, I just wanted to know. I wanted to talk to people in person and see where people were on things. So that was the only reason why I was doing that. I don't have any particular candidate in mind or anything. So I understand, Marcellus, you're not going to finish the next year. You're done in September? I believe October. October. October. Yeah. Okay. So you wouldn't be here the whole year. Looks like it. Maybe not. Okay. So you have nominations, hope? I do. And we can either do ballots. I've got some ballots or you can just do vote by voice. It doesn't however you want to do it. Let's see. Let me find. Okay. So for chair. How many nominations do we have? Well, for chair, we've got two nominations. So we've got John Gregory for chair and also Celia McIntosh for chair or the two nominations. Do you want to be nominated? What about vice chair? So for vice chair, John Gignard for vice chair and Catherine Finner for vice chair. Down for whatever y'all want to do. Do we just want to vote on who the nominations are? Why don't you hand out paper? Sometimes it's hard to say. Opinions, yeah. Why don't you hand out paper? I don't have a problem with it. It's difficult when you're in front of every Yeah, exactly. Exactly. We could do ranked. We could do ranked choice voting. I remember what they did to me. You could just hand us pieces of paper and we could write down who we wanted. You could just hand us pieces of paper and we can write down who I could write in. Does John vote remotely? Since he's not here, does he not get a vote? Yeah. He can't vote for himself. I guess. What's that? He can't even vote for himself. Wait, don't we just put... I mean, no, since he's absent, he can't. You know, unfortunately, trying to have everyone here is tough. Yeah, I don't have a plan. You good? I got this one. You good? No, this is only two sheets of paper. Oh, everybody gets it. I don't want you to pay for it. Oh, okay. On my bad. I didn't know that. Why don't you just give us pieces of paper to just write it in? We can... Yeah, thank you. Oh, that was yours? Yeah, that's me. I thought somebody else handed me that. I'm sorry. You're all good. All good. It's been a long day. I got one. I took one here. No, I'm not voting. I'm voting? I know. Okay. I need somebody's pen. N-A. N-A. All right. I've got a piece of paper. All right. I got one. I got a piece of paper. Yeah, I got it. I got it. I got it. Still gonna love you. However, shake it off. Yeah, we'll do it. We'll do it. There you go. Thank you. So much to count on. Thank you. You got it. What is that? It's cool. My son? Yeah, son of a... He actually, uh, job shadowed me. I think we may have an additional land on the floor all night now. He tapped out at about three o'clock. He was like, that was awesome. I enjoyed it. It was just great being with him all day. What a sweet team. I'm seeing what I do. I was like, see, this is why I call people a day. Because I got to keep going. Right, exactly. You can't check out. I can't check out. You can't check out. He's the land on the carpet. It was the land. Yep, that's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. Yep. Something's wrong. Okay. So we have a tie for Vice-Chair. All right. Okay. That's funny. Oh, we got a tie. It's one, two, three, four, five. Six of us. Oh, six of us. That's how we got it. What's that? Miss County. When they edit. When they edit. When they edit, yeah. Yeah, we can either hold off. Well, yeah, we might as well. We could do chair now and... I will stand down in favor of Mr. King. Whatever you want. Well, actually nobody's checked with Ginyard, so we might as well wait till next month. Six years. Yeah. Six years. Yeah. So we want to wait till next month. Six years. We'll wait till next month. Vice-Chair. That's okay. Because I'm thinking about going here to the clinic. I'd love to talk to you about it. Plankers should be a lot of fun. Get together one day. I love seeing you. I love seeing you. All right. Okay. So we do have a new chair. Okay. John Gregory. Congratulations. Congratulations. That's all. Look forward to working with y'all. Very good. Good, good. See you in the next one. All right.