Full meeting transcript - March 31, 2026

» You good? Let's be called to order. Sorry. Sorry, Danny. A little bit strong. Let's be called to order on this Tuesday, March 31st, 2026, special call meeting for Kershaw County Council. Welcome everyone out tonight who is attending. Thankful to have you here. We've got an invocation and pledge of allegiance that we've led by Councilman Sammy Tucker. Let us all stand, please. Bow your heads and open your hearts. Lord, Father, God Almighty, once more we're here asking you as humbly as we know how for your grace and your mercy. Asking that you touch our hearts and our minds. Help us to deliberate the business which has come before us from the Smart Growth Committee. Allow us to be able to discuss it and understand it and ask the appropriate questions, Lord Father.

» And let it be good for all of the citizens, the builders, the developers, and the citizens. Now, Lord Father, bless our nation. Many troubling things that's going on in it. Touch it. Heal it. Put your hand on it, Lord Father. And keep our men and women safe. That's protecting for our freedoms and liberties. We ask these things in your son Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, Councilman Tucker. Just want to see, do we have Councilman Tomlinson on the line? Can you hear me? Hey, Mr. Chairman. Yes, sir, I'm here. And for staff, do we have anyone else on the line? If you could, make sure you resend the number to Mr.

» Brazel, just in case he had any plans on calling in. Ms. Hanna, thank you. All right, that moves us to item number four on our special agenda tonight, adoption of the agenda. Do we have a motion? Make a motion we adopt the agenda as submitted. Is there a second? Second. We've got a second. Mr. Tucker, any discussion? No, sir. Anyone else on the agenda? All those in favor of the agenda, present and voting, raise your hand. It's unanimous for those who are present and voting. And Mr. Tomlinson, how do you vote on the agenda? Mr. Chairman, I vote yes on the agenda. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Tomlinson. And we'll just note for the record that Mr. Brazel is out of the country, I believe, on work travel. That brings us to item number five A, discussion item placed on by Councilman Shoemake.

» Is there a motion? I'll make a motion for discussion. There'll be no vote as a result of this discussion. The votes will come in the ordinances. And I understand this is generally a report from the Smart Growth Committee and the work you've done. Correct. Is there a second? We have a second? Yes, there's a second. Okay. All in favor of having this discussion, raise your hand. It's unanimous for those who are present and voting. In favor, Mr. Tomlinson, how do you vote remotely? Mr. Chairman, I vote yes. For everyone voting, Ms. Hennett, it's unanimous. Yes, sir, Mr. Shoemake. Yes, so if we could bring up those slides.

» So basically, what I wanted to do is just give a very brief discussion on what the Smart Growth Committee has been doing and the ordinances that have been put together that we'll be voting on tonight. First off, I want to thank the committee for all their hard work. Councilman Tomlinson, who's obviously on the call with us as a member, Planning Commissioner Robert Horton, Planning Commissioner Jackie Montgomery, former Councilman Stephen Smoke, and Kershaw County Chief Operations Officer Billy Smith. In addition to Jonathan Proctor, Planning Commission Chairman, who's actually in the audience tonight, those seven members have been working fairly diligently. We've met 10 times formally since August 12th when we were established.

» That represents 15, 16 hours of work, and that doesn't include the work we've spent outside the committee meetings, reading ordinances, working on, you know, working with our various constituents, you know, getting public input and bringing some of that public input back into the Smart Growth Planning Committee. We had a brief from Jeff Burgess, the Economic Development Director. And the goal, our goal short term was quite succinctly to fill the gap from when the moratorium expires until we get a full ZRD rewrite, which could take some time. On that front, we'll talk about this more later, but we're still working to finalize the contract with the consultant and get that where it needs to be so we can start that work in earnest. So this fills the gap while we rewrite these ordinances.

» Hopefully, these are good enough to stand the test of time and through the rewrite, they'll stay. And if not, we'll have time to adjust them. So nothing we're recommending tonight, it will not be revisited in the next 24 months. So with that in mind, I just wanted to walk briefly through the ordinances that you have on the agenda tonight. There are nine ordinances, but generally fall into three buckets. The first bucket, which is the more intensive one and the rest are pretty quick, is the permit allocation system. So the permit allocation system is a system that does what it says it does. It allocates permits into the county. Can you get it on the screen? You don't have it on yours? No. I don't have it either.

» Is this screen? You don't have it either? The screen's not up? Oh, I thought it was. No, it literally just says permit. Okay, I saw this. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry, sorry. I'm sorry. I thought you asked for it. Yeah, no, no. Okay, so I was just going to say what it is is a system that allocates permits. Now, there's one jurisdiction doing this in South Carolina now, and that's Mount Pleasant. They've done it fairly successfully. However, we would be the first county to do this, and I see that as a positive. So the big question is, why do we do this? Well, if you haven't seen this chart on Facebook yet, this shows how many people move to various states per 10,000. And what's great about these numbers is it normalizes everything.

» So a place like California with many more residents, it's the same per capita data. So we see that South Carolina is number one with a bullet. We have the fastest-growing per capita state in the country. 79.7 people come here for every 10,000 people that were here before. If we drill that down a little bit, we see that if we look at per 1,000, same stat, just looked at differently mathematically, 12 people come here for every 1,000 people that live here. Compare that to 9.8 out sort of on the West Coast, and then nobody comes close. I mean, we are growing at a pace that outpaces, for example, Georgia by nearly six times, and almost double North Carolina. In fact, North Carolina, in some stats here, North Carolina is losing people. So we see massive, massive growth.

» So let's talk about Kershaw County specifically. Here's what we're seeing. We had 6.1% growth from the decade prior to 2020. 2010 to 2020, 6.1%. We are seeing growth rates that are astronomically higher. We're looking at somewhere in the neighborhood of 11.8% that we've already seen based on U.S. census estimates. And we can see here a breakdown of how that population works. Now, you may look at this and say, well, the growth rate is slowing a little bit. That is somewhat true, but I would point out that, A, that growth rate is still very, very high. South Carolina is the fastest-growing state in the United States, and it's only grew at 1.5%. So we're still eclipsing the growth rate of South Carolina. And we don't know how accurate this data is because this is census data. It's backdated.

» This is the data as of last July. The World Population Review, which does an estimate of the more updated data, has us at 74,804 people. So that growth would be much more comparable to the 2.25% we saw the prior year. You also see the permits increasing from 24 to 25. So we see 497 permits versus 490 the year before. We are the seventh-fastest-growing county in South Carolina. The only counties ahead of us are either close to the beach or on the coast, or they border a neighboring state, which makes us the fastest inland county for growth in South Carolina. And I would posit we're getting growth not only from out-of-state but from within the state. People that are moving from these more expensive coastal areas as they grow and they want more rural area, they come out here.

» So then we talk about this is the why. So then we go to the permit allocation system. What is it? And, again, all the ordinances are here in the packet and are available to the public. But here's the short of it. It caps the permits at a fixed number. Each housing type gets a percentage based on prior use and years prior, and we'll look at those numbers. But you have basically four buckets. Single-family homes within major subdivisions, single-family homes outside of subdivision, which includes mobile homes, because for planning purposes that's the same type of single-family use. Multifamily, these are your apartment's duplexes. We consider one permit for each unit. So a five, you know, a ten-unit apartment would be ten permits or ten units.

» Accessory units, this is the house for grandma in the backyard. This is a separate physical structure that's an accessory dwelling unit. We've had very few of those historically. This is first come, first serve within your bucket. So individual property owners aren't fighting the developers for permits, but they are in line with other individual property owners. The permits release every six months. So if you don't get a permit, you're at the top of the list for the next six-month period. Council will evaluate these numbers every six months, and the program has two years on it. It'll be a two-year program that would be extended. Renovations, like if your house gets destroyed or burns down, those are exempt, as are PDDs. Can I interrupt you? Yeah, yeah, of course.

» Councilman, so you said every six months, the evaluation from council. If we do this, is that just a, say we want to make a modest change, does that take three readings in a public hearing, or will that be a one vote? I think it would be one vote. What do you think, John? Well, as this ordinance is drafted, it is establishing the numbers within the ordinance. We could certainly look at adding a provision that explicitly says that it could be adjusted on one vote. I'd have to look at that, though, and make sure equal dignity rule wouldn't, in fact, require three votes. But certainly something I'll explore, if that's the desire of council. I'm sorry. No, no, go ahead. I think if it's more where we can act on it immediately, it would be better for us to make the adjustment. Correct.

» Right, and once we put this into place, though, since it wouldn't be a new rule, once we put it into place, the first, if it had required three, we'd be pending ordinance for the first one anyway, correct? Right, right, so worst case scenario, Sammy, if it needed three readings, our new numbers would go into effect on that first reading. Okay. And you have special call meetings, too. Well, you wouldn't have to. You would just make sure you knew when the six-month period was coming, and you would just have in the meeting just prior to that, you could set the numbers. That'd be the easiest way to do it, so you don't have special meetings. And to be fair, this brings up a great point, Councilman Tucker, is, again, no county's ever done this. Again, I see that as a positive.

» Some may count it as a negative, but I think this is us showing we're taking the lead on a problem that every county, well, almost every county in South Carolina is facing, and we're taking the lead on it. So there's going to be some adjustments, no doubt, which is why the six-month review is built in there. PDDs are exempt, and the reason for that is if you're bringing in a PDD, you have to negotiate directly with council to address your infrastructure. The whole reason we have this is we're getting a growth that overtaxes infrastructure. So if you want to come in and put $50,000 a rooftop in your development, then we may be able to have a discussion with you because you are not going to be part of that problem. So that's the basic setup of the system.

» So how many permits are the baseline? So that's the first question. So excluding our spike here, and the reason I think that's important is you notice that there's a year here where we had 725 building permits. That is a massive outlier for the year. And again, you're around COVID time, so I think there's some explanation for that. So with my numbers, I've excluded our spike here so that we're fair, because if you look past our spike here, the numbers are pretty similar. So if we exclude our spike here, we average approximately 500 permits a year. The census says we average 2.53 people per unit, but we've actually seen more than that. But conservatively, we're seeing 1,245 people for every 500 permits. That's a pretty good number.

» So 500 permits a year, which is what we're getting, equals a growth rate of at least 1.72% annually, or 8.6% over the next five years, 20 over the end of the decade. Now, noted, we've seen 500 permit years where our population increased even more. So I think what we're seeing is newer homes are putting more people in them. But I think to be completely fair and completely, I guess, sort of completely defensible, if we use the census numbers, I think it's the most defensible way to go. I think you've lowballed this. You've done a good job. Totally. I think I've lowballed it. Right, and so here's kind of the point as I go into my recommendation for the numbers, and then we'll vote on this later, but this is just my recommendation later on the numbers.

» The only way to slow growth is to slow growth. I get, and I've had discussions with some of you individually that, you know, we don't like the idea that, you know, individual plots of land that are being built on outside of a subdivision may reach a permit cap. I hear you. That's a real possibility. But if we're going to slow growth, we have to slow growth. And to that point, let's take a look at the type of growth we're seeing. So what this chart shows you is the buckets that the permit allocation system would address. And we see here, using last year as an example, 497 permits, 118 were inside of major subdivisions that were single-family homes, 318 outside of subdivisions, including mobiles, 53 multifamilies.

» That could have been, it wasn't, but that could have been a 50-unit apartment and a triplex, right? Those are 53 living units across these multifamily. Virtually 100% of the multifamily uses occur inside of major subdivisions. Not all, but virtually 100%. So you can sort of take those two numbers together to look at big subdivisions. And then ADUs, we see a very, very small number. Eight was a big year last year, but typically we're hovering in three, two, or one. So what this chart tells us, though, is that we see the vast majority of our growth each year is in outside of subdivisions. I think what's also interesting is 2025, half of 2025, we had the moratorium. Yet in 2025, we saw permits increase by seven. We actually saw an increase in permits during the moratorium.

» That tells me that the moratorium perhaps wasn't the best mechanism. Well, we know it's not a mechanism to control growth. It's a pause while we address growth. But I'm not sure it even accomplished that. If we're going to do a moratorium, it's going to have to be an across-the-board moratorium. This is a model that avoids a moratorium. So my personal recommendations – now, again, everything I just told you was addressed by the Smart Growth Committee. It was voted on. The concept was. The Smart Growth Committee did not pick a number. They left that to council because it's a policy decision. So the next slide is Councilman Derek Shumake's personal recommendation. It does not come from the Smart Growth Committee.

» My thought is we are already well over our – we've already doubled our growth from last decade. If we did a 30 percent reduction, we would still see an annual growth rate of 1.2 percent. So reducing our permits and capping them, reducing our permits by 30 percent, would still give us an annual growth rate of 1.2 percent, which, to your point, Jimmy, is the smaller – I mean, that's a conservative number. It would probably be higher. A growth rate of 6 over the next five years and 18.6 percent over the decade. So even if we cap it at 30 percent, we're still likely to grow almost 19 percent this decade. If we cap it at 40 percent, we're going to see about 18 percent growth over the decade. You can see the individual numbers.

» If we did a 30 percent cap, 208 homes would be permitted under the single-family, 40 multifamily. Now, the accessory dwelling unit ADUs are two. I think we could very easily legally justify upping that number on its own and increasing the total number of permits, given they've become a more popular use. It's really hard when you're talking about a number between 0.8 and 1 percent to properly allocate a number. So that one could be up to discussion. We may also see multifamilies drop with some of our new ordinances, and we could roll those back in, hence the point of a six-month review.

» But I think what you're going to see is roughly 60 percent of the permits will go to the single-family homes outside of subdivisions, including mobile homes, and the rest will go to the major subdivisions or these ADUs. That's the approximate math. As the math changes, we can adjust these numbers. So that is an overview of the permit allocation system. And the last thing I want to say before I leave this is the elephant in the room, which we've already addressed. Under this, if you are the 209th person in Kershaw County to apply for a building permit, you have 10 acres of land and you want to build a home on it. You've lived here all your life in a smaller house. You have 10 acres of land you want to build, and you're the 209th person. You're going to be told no.

» You're going to be told wait until the next permit opening, and then you're first in line. Now, that may sound harsh, but here's the reason I personally don't think that's harsh. One is we can't legally treat these people different than major subdivisions, especially when we see they are responsible for 60 percent of our growth. There's no legal justification for us treating those people differently. Two, you have a fairly short wait to get on the next list. Three, I hear what everyone's saying with that, but understand, if I live in Kershaw County and I have 10 acres and build a home, when I move into that 10 acres, my home's now vacant. Someone's going to move into that. If that happens to be a Kershaw resident originally, then they're going to vacate a home.

» And what I mean by that, gentlemen, is it is a virtual statistical certainty that every dwelling unit created in Kershaw County creates an additional number of people living in Kershaw County. It may not be from that unit, but the cycle is everyone keeps moving until eventually there's an empty home and someone from outside of Kershaw County moves into it. So we are creating growth with every permit. This also gives planning and staff an ability to say, look, we know no matter what, we're not going to get more than 350 dwelling units in a year. And they can plan around that. And obviously, if we extend the program, you know, the first year we may adjust a little more. I suspect after the first year we'll be a little more consistent.

» And here's the thing, if growth naturally slows, then this becomes, this makes itself obsolete. If growth slows and nobody applies for more than 350 permits or in those categories, then the permit allocation system can probably just go away because we would have come under the number. So, but again, yes. I have a question, Mr. Chairman, if I may. What about if somebody would put a pump house on the property or like where I live, I've got, you know, six, seven, eight acres there. I mean, we would have put a storage building on the property. Are we talking about that too? Not unless the storage building had plumbing and a bedroom and was considered a home. If it did, it would likely be an ADU, an accessory dwelling unit, which would be in that other category.

» A pump house may have plumbing and electricity, but would that count as taking up one of those permits? But I don't want to get into, because I'm not in the planning department, I think that it probably would if it was. I think we need to clarify that. Zach's out there. I mean, if you're okay with that. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's fine. I think it's going to. I like what you've done. I think you guys have done a great job. I think it's probably, yeah, I think a pool house is probably going to be considered an accessory dwelling unit if someone can live and sleep there. Mr. Templer, you mind? Hello, everyone. Zach Hoover, Director of Planning and Zoning. So, the answer is kind of, it depends.

» If the primary use of that pool house is to have a bedroom and be living quarters, then we'll classify it as an accessory dwelling unit. But if you have a room and a bathroom and a kitchen in it, you're hosting parties, doing that sort of stuff, that would not be an accessory dwelling unit. It would just be an accessory. Stand-up shower and a toilet. Okay. Yep. So, that's what people normally like to put in their pool rooms. Yep. That's easy. Yep. So, if you have someone actually staying in the night there, sleeping in it, then we'll consider it. Nobody would be doing that. But, well, I'm speaking for myself. But, I guess I was just wondering to make sure that they would be able to, because that's not a dwelling. It could be a dwelling now.

» It's like you use it against us, you know, as a loophole. But, I think you guys do a pretty good job of inspecting and checking things and making sure they are what they're supposed to be. Thank you. Yeah. No. And one thing that's important to stress as we talk about this big picture before I leave this one, the rest will be much quicker. But, before I leave this one, one thing to stress is, you know, the reason that we are doing this is, you know, public services are being stressed and overwhelmed. I mean, we all see that, right? We've heard in the last budget cycle from EMS how their call volume is shooting up. We hear it from the sheriff every year about how their call volume is shooting up.

» We see in our sewer system that we're engaging in a major expansion that may only get us caught up to where we need to be instead of actually adding true capacity. So, we see it on our dirt roads that we maintain, and we see it, of course, in our DOT roads. We see some projects 10 years behind in Elgin. Now, we can't control DOT, but what we're seeing is the growth is killing us. You know, a county, and I've said this so many times, you know, and the chairman has said it at multiple events. I've heard him say this, a county grows or dies, right? Nobody's going to stay exactly the same. Like, those out there that want us to stay the same, that's never going to happen. We don't want to die. So, that means we have to grow.

» But there's a difference between growing and growing to the point that our services are so taxed that we can't keep up with them. That's why I'm going to propose tonight a 30% reduction. Now, again, we'll get this again. The 30% will just go to Planning Commission, and we'll have it again for two more readings. The 30% is, I don't want to call it a placeholder because I think that's the right number, but obviously, you know, we can debate that. But I just think we can debate that as we get more information. This is obviously the first time many of you are hearing about this, so we have approximately 40 days until our final vote. So, there'll be plenty of time to dig into this.

» I also want to recognize Planning Commission Chairman Proctor, if you want to come up to the podium, sir, and just to ask him if there's anything I have missed that he would like to add before we leave this particular section, and then if anyone has any questions. Jonathan Proctor, Planning and Zoning Chair. I think you've covered it pretty well. I got a lot of the same questions that you got from some of the public when I was talking about what we were implementing, and I think you've answered all those questions that I've got. Mainly the person that wants to put a house on their home or their land, I should say, that they purchased and won't know how this is going to affect them. But as you said, it's going to be different for the end of subdivisions, the out of subdivisions.

» So, I mean, I think we've addressed that concern. I can't think of anything that you haven't added. I think Mr. Tucker has a question. It's actually for you. And I have a statement as well. But I want to tell Mr. Proctor, thank you and the Smart Growth Committee, man, for the tremendous work that y'all have done. I've seen you up there because you've been meeting after our finance committee meetings, and it's been very, very daunting and tasking. But you guys have buckled up and just made it happen. So thanks. Pleasure to serve. So I just want to piggyback on what you were talking about as far as the stress on the system. Quality of life means something.

» And we've got to make sure that as we grow smartly, as we grow, because I'm like Councilman Shumate, we're going to grow or we're going to die. I don't like the alternative, so I hope we grow. But we need to grow in a responsible way where services won't be so stressed, where quality of life will not be compromised. These things are very important to people until you don't have them anymore. So we need to treasure this and make sure that happens. My question for you, Councilman Shumate, is can I get a permit caps at 20% done by you sometime between now and the next reading? Talking about numerically? Yes. Yeah, yeah. So you see the difference? Yeah, absolutely. For sure. I can compare? Absolutely. I'll send that out to everybody. I can absolutely. Yeah. The math is easy.

» I can do that for any percentage. Yeah. Thank you. Go ahead. Yes, sir. The numbers you have here, we keep talking about every six months, the permits rolling over. But these numbers say, take for example, the other single family, including mobile homes, 208 permits. Is that for a year period? Yes. So every six months, there wouldn't be but 104 permits issued in a six-month period. That's correct. I did the annual numbers because it's easier to conceptualize annually. But you're exactly right. We would evaluate it every six months. And so, to your point, Councilman Cato, it'd be 104. But at the end of that six-month period, if we felt like that was too low or too restrictive, we could increase that second six-month tranche to whatever we wanted to.

» So it gives us the opportunity to, in theory, we could decrease it. I don't see us going that direction. But we could increase it from, like, so the first tranche would be 104. And then if we got to that six-month window, we could say, okay, let's bring that 104 to 150. Just understand, every increase we make in that category, we have to make in the other one. So that means for every percent allowance we give to single families outside of subdivisions, we're giving the same allowance to the big developers. But yes? I agree with Councilman Tucker. I'd like to see it at a 20% reduction. Sure. Maybe start low, then go high if we need to. And we can absolutely do that, and I can put those numbers together.

» Again, I'm going to amend it at 30, but I fully acknowledge that that is not, and I want to make that clear. I'm doing that so we can have a number at planning, because planning may come back with a recommendation that's closer to that as well. And like I say, I've always been a big believer in one step forward is not going backwards. So if we do it at 20%, if that's the will of this body, I'm not going to fight for a particular number as long as we can see some reduction. I may later, but like all of you, we've got to see how this plays out before we realize if we need to adjust it. Well, I want to make sure that we're not putting chokehold on growth versus controlling and doing smart growth. That's what I want to make sure that we're doing as the policy makers.

» Before we move on from this point, I just want to check with Mr. Tomlinson. Do you have any comments remotely? No, I have no comments remotely. Being in the smart growth ad hoc meetings, Mr. Shoemake did a great job really spelling out everything, and we had some really good conversations. And this topic alone was one that had a lot of debate, and it was for a good reason, because in order to have change, change is always scary, but this is a way that we can really effectively manage how many homes are being built in Kershaw County. And the six-month test period and to go back for council is a good thing to have in there, and there's going to be some changes that come up, but I'm wholly in support of permit allocation. That's all, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Tomlinson.

» And also, before we move on from this point, I just had a question about process. It reminds me, perhaps, of college or any other thing where you're trying to get a class or something online or in person. We're going to create a rush, January 1 or June 1, or however we split the dates up. Would the smart growth committee get into any of that on best process to receive applications for permits, or is it just going to be deferred to staff on the best way to handle it? So at this point, obviously, we don't know that it's going to pass, so we haven't asked staff to kind of give us a full revamp. But assuming that it looks like it's headed for passage, Mr. Hoover's already started the process of figuring out what that would look like.

» So I don't have an answer for you, but I suspect by third reading, he will be able to brief you on what staff plans to do. Is that fair, Mr. Hoover? Yeah. By third reading, he'll be able to brief. Before we vote on third reading, he'll be able to brief us on that. But he's working that now to see what that process would be, but I don't have that answer. If we can, for staff and legal, because there's a whole slew of unpredictables that come up and unintended consequences when you venture into something like this, though it seems like it has significant merit. Let's try to get the alternatives prior to second reading if we can, so we can start to really weigh, get public feedback, and then be ready to vote on something if we need any motions by third reading. Correct.

» And this ordinance does, under application requirements and procedures, contemplate the fact that the building official and planning director will devise procedures and requirements and forms. You know, subject to council's vote tonight, I think staff would probably have pretty clear direction about whether to start that. And again, I think we've just received some direction to start looking at that. So, yeah, we'll work on that prior to the meeting on the 14th or 28th, whenever second reading is. Thank you, Mr. Bose. Mr. Schemake, you have the floor. Well, I think Mr. Jones, did you? Oh, you got a question? Yeah, just a couple quick things right quickly. Thank you. And Mr. Chairman, I agree with what you said just as well.

» I feel a little guilty or bad that I'm bringing this up because you guys have worked so hard. And I'll tell you, ad hoc committees, I've never liked them, never thought they were a good thing. This one has done a great job. I think, as I was saying, there's too many people, you know, it's an ad hoc committee, but boy, y'all sure turned it around and made a success out of it. And I appreciate that for the people of Kershaw County. Here's where I'm at. I can go along with the 30. I like the 20 better. But I can go along with the 30 because you've put a lot of thought into that.

» I would like it specifically maybe in one to five points somewhere put in there when we say a poo house or a garage or a storage building that instead of leaving it to their discretion and there's no language about it, I would like to have some kind of... I mean, I think we can do that. We often in our ordinances list examples. You know, so I think we could, when we talk about... And this might require mending a different version of the statute where we define... Because it would be an ADU, right, Mr. DuBose? That type of... The accessory dwelling unit? Yeah, to Mr. Hoover's point, I really think it depends on whether it is a dwelling unit, definitionally like a pool house. But many uses, of course, wouldn't fit under this because it wouldn't be a dwelling unit.

» If you had a garage that had an apartment in it, again, that could be considered a dwelling unit, but a garage with just plumbing and... Well, that would be just if it was detached. If it was an attached garage, it's just another room in the house. Correct. Yes, I was not referencing like a... But you got somebody like... It's got a lot of property like you do. And of course, we sit on seven or eight acres of sale. There's other places you can put a storage building. And I'm not putting anything on my property, not even a pool house, but I was just thinking about that because I want to make sure that planning is only has clear direction from us. I think it's unfair for us to not clarify that if there's any way we can. And I understand this.

» I'm going to support this regardless because you've done a great job, but I would really appreciate and respect if we could work on some kind of explanation written out. I think that's very doable. I don't see that as a particularly heavy lift. I'm happy to kind of take the lead on putting something together and we can look at it on a second reading. Mr. Thomas, and I heard you buzzing, not to take away from the chairman's role, but I just don't want to start until you have something. Yeah. And just to Mr. Jones' point, I'm glad you brought that up. And I do think that was mentioned a little bit during the smart growth.

» I don't think we touched on a whole lot, but would it be possible if we looked at if the dwelling, so if you're going to build something that will be considered a dwelling that would pull a permit, if it was going to be in the allocation system, could we base it upon number of days? So if you're going to be an Airbnb or something along those lines and you only have 60 days out of the year that you're having somebody living there, that's really not putting a strain on resources in Kershaw County. Could we do something based upon three months, if it's occupied more than three months? So if I can jump in on that, I think... And if the dwelling... Sorry, Brent. Our 30 days. No, no, no, go ahead.

» I was just going to say, I think the issue with that, I mean, I would just kind of push back on that a little bit. I think the issue with that is, one, you know, who's going to govern or who's going to monitor whether this Airbnb is used for 60? Because if it's used for 60, but then used for another 60. And then I think we'd also have to go deeper into the code and change our definition of what a dwelling unit is. A dwelling unit is a place you can live. I mean, I'm being a bit generic here, but it's a place you live and sleep that is a place of dwelling. And so a place you live and sleep that you rent out is still going to be a dwelling unit. Because here's the other thing, Brent. That Airbnb is not by deed. Deeds aren't restricted to Airbnb.

» So at any moment, that person could sell that Airbnb and turn it right into a dwelling. And I think the manageability problem is pretty difficult. That's my two cents on that. I think what we can do, to Mr. Jones's point, though, is we can say, hey, you know, we can give examples of things that aren't dwelling units, you know, garage, that kind of that. I think we could definitely do that. That's my two cents. Anything else, Mr. Thomas? Thank you, Mr. Shoemaker. I appreciate it. I think Mr. Jones... I'm all good. Thank you, Mr. Thomas. And I think to Mr. Jones's point, under this scheme, there would be no cap on truly accessory units, like Mr. Bowes was saying.

» And so if it's the pool house or it's the detached non-dwelling garage or if it's a playhouse or a shed or something that maybe even requires a workshop or a footing or pole barn, there would not be a cap on those under this because it's not related to any type of residential use. And that's probably maybe the best place to put it, Mr. Bowes, is in the section on exemptions. Just mentioned that this does not apply to those, and that's probably the cleanest way to work that language in. Mr. Jones, do you have anything else? Because I'm done with this section. No, I just don't think that a toilet and a shower should be dictating a living. Yeah. I mean, let's give the folks, hey, if we find out that somebody's violating the ordinance, they've shut down a lot of people. I agree. Thank you.

» Yeah, absolutely. Any questions from my fellow council members? That's the big topic, right? So that's the big bucket. The rest are pretty straightforward. There's two other buckets. We recommend nine ordinances to you guys tonight. That was the first one. The rest are much easier to talk through. The second fall in the bucket of major subdivision standards, and there's four ordinances there. And you can see on your screen a very short summary of what each one of them are. So basically, we set up residential design standards. They mostly relate to the exterior facade, varying designs, and foundation requirements. They're fairly straightforward. They're not particularly onerous, but they're a good start.

» We may want to ratchet them up as time goes on, but they're just a good start for design standards. We barred some language from the City of Columbia that's been doing this to some effect for the last couple months. We did not make them as extreme as the City of Camden. I said City of Columbia. City of Camden. We were talking about an annexation issue, and it got me all confused. It was the City of Camden. And theirs was pretty honest, but they're also a city. Like, for example, they banned all slab houses. It's a little tougher to do in an entire county. So these design standards are fairly straightforward. I would note that these passed 7-0 on the Smart Growth Committee, which also included realtors. So, I mean, this is something that is pretty easy, and Mr.

» Proctor actually recommended it. Open space requirements. I'm really proud of this one. Smart Growth Committee was also completely unanimous in favor of this one. So it's pretty straightforward, but it's revolutionary because not a lot of people are doing it. Open space means developable land. So we have an open space standard, which is laid out in the statute. Your open space can't be wetlands that you couldn't build on anyway. It can't be useless land that's worthless to you. It is land that could affect – it basically eliminates wetlands and runoff land from open space. So you can't, you know, buy worthless wetlands next door and say, well, there's my 20% wetland – or my 20% open space. Open space means real open space.

» And depending on the mega division, so if you have something over a certain number of acreage, you have to have a certain number of open spaces. It's the same – it's the same acreage we tell you have to have X much open space, but it has to be spread out over two locations for a major subdivision. I would note, by the way, all of these would apply to major subdivisions, not one-off homes. Sidewalk requirements are going to be required in all subdivisions. Also a unanimous request from the committee. The other one, off-street parking, was one I hadn't thought much about, but this actually came from our school district and EMS folks. No parking on both sides of the street. That would have to be in the HOA covenants if there is an HOA.

» And we're going to require when you develop a neighborhood to have off-street parking. You see some maps in your packet, but basically you would have a little – at the end of cul-de-sacs – a little area for parking. And what this is going to do is reduce the number of cars on the street. As Mr. Smith from the school district noted, school buses in some of these new neighborhoods have a heck of a time getting in there and picking up kids. And, you know, same for – ambulances are less onerous than a fire truck, but fire trucks too. So, you know, the difference between a fire truck, an ambulance, and a school bus is at least a fire truck can knock your car out of the way and not get sued for it. You know, a school bus has to find another way around.

» So this was something that the school district really mentioned, and I appreciate Mr. Smith for bringing this up. So it does two things. You cannot allow parking on both sides of the street. You have to prohibit it on one side. There was actually discussion to prohibit it on both sides. So we actually – we backed off on that a little bit. And then off-street parking options are required. So those are our ordinances that touch on major subdivisions. Any questions or comments on those? In our current ordinance now, do we have any subdivisions – and the reason I'm saying this is because the city of Camden is struggling with this right now – is there at least two entrants and exits? Or any subdivision with greater than 40 lots, two entrances are required.

» Yeah, because what we're having now for Black River Road, which is the city's problem, it's not ours, is that they expanded in the back, and they're supposed to go and turn into where it's, what, South Haven, and come out that entrance. But instead, they all run out of Southern Oaks Drive because it's easier to cut across in the subdivision and come out right in front of Hanks and then make your right or your left turn. I wish they would have put the – they had a back exit that came off of Presby's Road there, but the developer or the builder didn't do that, chose not to.

» And that's a bad idea because a lot of that traffic goes to Pine Tree for their kids, and that's the quickest way to go to Pine Tree is to hit – instead of come out on Black River and hit Presby's Road, you could ease out right on Presby's Road and go to the school. So just my two cents. Thank you. All right. Any other questions on this? Can I give you a thought? Sure. A friend of mine, George Speedy, he has built a lot of buildings, and he – when he had Lake Speedy, his pool house was structured like my son-in-law's pool house. My son-in-law's on the City of Columbia planning and zoning. And his pool house as well, it has no room, but it has a place to go to the bathroom, has a bar with a TV.

» And I said, why is that? And George said, I don't want somebody to live in here or sleep in here overnight making a house out of it. But I know that they are much more restricted than we are. And I think George was way ahead of his time when he built that. He did a great job. But I just thought I'd throw that out at y'all. Okay. Yeah. Any other thoughts? All right. So our last bucket is process and approval. And so the process and approval bucket is sort of some things we're doing to tighten up, you know, the actual permitting process. And those are also four in this bucket. This one, naming private roads, is one we've got from emergency services. Pretty straightforward.

» If your drive is private and over 2,000 feet or you're accessing more than three lots, you've got to give it a name within the county conventions. And that's so the DMS can find you. That's when you call 911, they're not trying to find, you know, Jimmy Jones Drive that's not on any map. Right? This is about saving lives. So that's fairly non-controversial. Performance guarantees. This one was one that we'd had a lot of discussion from staff about and what it changes the finance and also passed unanimously. It changes the financial guarantee, which currently in our statute is 15% for one year. So if the roads, you know, crash, that sort of thing. Now, it moves it up from 15% for one year to 25% for year one, 15% for year two, and a one-year extension if there are issues in year two.

» So basically, it just gives us the ability to reach back to a developer who's doing bluntly shoddy work. And I'll tell you what's interesting is a member of the development community actually spoke to our meeting and was resoundingly in support of this. His point was good developers don't make crappy products. And if, you know, so he was actually totally on board. The other one is approval expansion. Basically, particularly with some of the stuff we're doing, this gives staff an additional five business days for approvals along the way, particularly for subdivisions. And it just gives staff a little bit more time so we're not rushing staff through it. We have some statutory benchmarks we have to hit, so we'll still hit those. It just gives staff an additional five business days.

» And community impact. This is another one I'm really proud of that got mostly unanimous support, 6-1. But this expressly gives the planning commission the ability to consider impact assessments, which includes school impact assessments in approving developments. So if a development comes along and the school district provides an impact assessment that with data, with appropriate data, explains this development would mean that their elementary school would be maxed out. That would be a ground for the planning commission to deny that subdivision. So it makes that express allowance instead of just kind of making it almost an advisory thing. Now, it doesn't mandate it. This is not concurrency, which is being debated now at the statehouse, or I think it's dead this year.

» But it's being debated as a conceptual matter at the state level. This is not concurrency because it doesn't give the school district the ability to say no. It just gives them a chance to have their voice heard by the planning commission and allows the planning commission to vote based on that voice. Mr. Shumak, on that point, did they already have the staff internal at the school district to evaluate that data and process it? Would it require a hire for them or any additional evaluation? So this is a great question. I'm really glad we had a member of the school board on our Smart Growth Committee. They fill them out every time. They just, there's not really teeth in our ordinance to let staff vote on that basis. So they do them all the time.

» In fact, there was, I won't name the subdivision, but there was a subdivision recently in Elgin that they did an impact assessment on and said that if this subdivision is built, it will max out Blaney Elementary School. And that subdivision was ultimately approved in part because of this. Now, look, will we face legal challenges if we deny on that basis? Probably. But if we start, you know, legislating or passing ordinance on the basis of fear of lawsuits, then, you know, we'll just, we may as well just not show up. So, so yeah, but they do have it. Mr. Smith does those now, and they're voluntary, by the way. The school district can just say no, in which case they have no data. And some of our agencies are, have the ability to send them in and don't.

» But the school district is really good about sending theirs in. And Mr. Smith has been doing it already. He sends that to the planning commission? It goes to, well, I threw staff to the planning commission. Right. Yeah. So, gentlemen, that is the end of my discussion. And unless anyone has any questions, that's the end of this agenda item. Yes, sir. I do have, so you've gone through, Mr. Chairman, if I may. Yes, sir. You've gone through each and every one of these pretty detail.

» Is there, since it's first reading, is there any grouping that you want to do, or do you want to do everything individually? So, so when we get to the motions, my plan is when we get to the actual ordinances, I'm going to move on the permit allocation system independently, because I've got to make those amendments for the numbers. And then I'm going, you know, obviously it'll be up to you, gentlemen, but my plan would then be to move to pass all the other ones as a group, since we've discussed them. And that would just require one vote, so we don't have to do nine separate votes. It would just be two. And again, of course, if anyone objects, then the vote won't carry, and we'll go through all nine. I love talking about this stuff. I can tell.

» So far, you've missed it, saying this was a 15-minute meeting. You've missed that. Oh, yeah. I thought I said 30. That was the Lord. You still missed that. I thought I said 45. Any further discussion, questions from council members who are present? Mr. Tomlinson, before we conclude this agenda item, any further discussion or questions? No, sir. No further discussion. All right. We're done with 5A, as no vote is required. That moves us on to ordinances. First one up is item number 6A. Do we have a motion? Mr. Chairman, I would make a motion, and let me ask this as a point of order from legal. If I have an amendment, can I make the initial motion with the amendment? Yes. Okay. So what I would do, Mr.

» Chairman, is I would make a motion that we pass item 6A on first reading with the following amendments that we expressly include in the ordinance that it is a two-year program beginning from the date of third reading, and that we put in a percentage cap of 30% with the requisite math to work out as a placeholder for Planning Commission. So my motion is to pass it on first reading with those amendments. And to clarify, that's a 30% reduction? 30% reduction, right. The chart you saw on the screen. Okay. That's the motion. Is there a second? Second. We've got a second. Mr. Tomlinson? I yield. Okay. We've got a second already? I yield. Mr. Shoemake, you have the floor. I think I've beaten this horse to death. Okay. Well, I'll kick it a little if I'm just going to give you one more chance.

» Because you made the motion. Ditto. All right. For the council members who are present, any other discussion or comments? I'll just say thank you, Derek, for the work that you and your committee has put into this. There's a lot of thought and a lot of work went in. And if I sit here and be honest and tell you that I'm in love with everything, I'd be lying. There's some things that I think we need to maybe tweak and look at. But all in all, I'm good for the first reading. But I do think there's some things I think we can have some further discussion on. Sure. Thank you, Mr. Kato. Mr. Tomlinson, you are going to have the second. Any comments or any discussion? No, sir. No comments.

» OK, good thing is, gentlemen, we have a good runway to be able to edit, tweak, get feedback from the public and see if we need to amend this any further. I do like the idea, like Mr. Kato, I'm not in love with everything, but I also don't love the idea of considering tax increases to fund infrastructure improvements or taking out significant amounts of debts through bonds and otherwise to pay for this growth that's coming that often you have to front load and pay for. And it typically does not pay for itself unless it's in the form of economic development and businesses. And so I'll be able to support it for first reading with the caveat that we need to get some of the data we talked about a little bit earlier so we can make informed decisions.

» Any other comments or discussion? Seeing none, call it for a vote. All in favor who are present, raise your hand. It's unanimous for those voting in person. Mr. Thomason, how do you vote on 6A? Mr. Chairman, I vote yes on 6A. That's a yes on 6A remotely. So it's unanimous, Ms. Hannah, for those who are voting. And it passes first reading. Next up is item number 6B, but I heard discussion of taking these as a slate. Is there a motion? Yes, Mr. Chairman, I would move that we pass items 6B through I, which are first reading of the other eight ordinances recommended by Smart Growth Committee, and that we pass those on first reading. For clarification, these were the ordinances that were just discussed at length in my presentation. Okay, we have a motion. Is there a second? I'll second. Mr.

» Cato has the second. Do you want to kick the horse again at all, Mr. Cato? No kicking. The horse will lie dormant. Under the rules, Mr. Cato, you get the next chance to kick the horse. I'm done. You're done. I'll just note for the public's benefit before we move to a voter check if Mr. Thomason has any comments, that typically first readings can be done in title only. The information has already been put out in the packet, so the public has a greater period of time to sort through and honestly reach out to council members or communicate otherwise and evaluate these growth control suggestions and ordinances in Kershaw County. But again, this is a slate B through I on item number 6 for first reading. Mr. Thomason, any comments or discussion remotely? No, sir. No comments or discussion.

» And for the vote, I vote yes. Well, go ahead and take your vote as a yes remotely, Ms. Hanna, for the record. And for those who are present and voting, raise your hand if you're in favor. And it's unanimous for those who are present and voting, Ms. Hanna. And so the slate, 6B through I, passes first reading. And I'll just check before we move to adjournment. Mr. Templer, primarily this is a, these meetings are for council to communicate with the administrator, but we had a very straightforward agenda tonight. Anything that we've missed or anything else you need to bring up for the good of the body? No, sir. But just given the chance, I would just say this has been a very impressive body of work. An impressive body of work, this committee.

» I've seen a lot of committees in action and the results, but very impressive. Thank you. Mr. Dubose, anything for the good of the body? No. All right. Thank you to those who served on this committee. I'm sure that we'll be talking with you and reaching out much more over the next 40-plus days. And Mr. Jones, I just, I had the thought, you did like the fire ad hoc committee, didn't you? No. You didn't like that one? I didn't like that one. I thought we'd get him to like two committees. But it's just this one. Mr. Chairman, one point of clarification, if I may. Go ahead. I just want to know, because I've mentioned this to the committee, I don't want them to hear and feel something different.

» So based on what this council has passed, the vision would be that when it's time to plug back in with the consultants, the Smart Work Growth Committee would come back to that. So this committee would still exist to go through the rewrite because of those. Like that's the plan and that's what we passed. So I don't want for those committee members listening to think that this is it. Like we have discussed, they've all agreed to serve through the rewrite process. Yeah, and I don't think that I put any end date on that committee. You did not. I checked. Yeah, I was going from memory on that one. But I think it's at the willingness of the committee to serve for as long as needed. And, you know, this is a process that we have to go through by statute or otherwise. Yes, sir.

» One thing that I've picked up on, and correct me if I'm wrong, but it's almost like this committee is a step ahead of the problem. It could be a model for other areas. Because you're not really copying any. I mean, you came up with this on your own. Well, well, let me be very clear. There was a lot of people that came up with this. No, no, no. But you're right. None of them were outside of Kershaw County, though. I meant you, the committee. Exactly. Yeah, and I'll tell you, it's been, you know, Mr. DuBose and I started talking about a permit allocation system, gosh, a year and a half ago, probably, just as a conceptual idea. I've talked about it with the members of the committee, some of these other ideas, like Mr. Proctor brought up the real open space idea and the design standards. Mr.

» Smith brought up the idea of the parking issue. I think, actually, Jackie Montgomery, Ms. Montgomery brought up the idea of the sidewalk. So, really, I mean, it was the right committee for this, and I think will remain the right committee. But, yeah, we have a chance with this packet of ordinances, I think, to take the biggest step to manage growth in a smart way, more so than any county of the 46 counties in South Carolina. And please understand, when I say you, I mean, I do respect that committee. I'm talking about the committee as a whole, and especially the chairman for coming up with that committee as well. Good job. Because now we've got some direction. Well put together. Mr. Chairman, if I may. Yes, sir. I would also say to this body on this dais, and Mr.

» Thomason on the phone, the Smart Growth Committee will, along with staff, be going through some numbers with this consultant. And don't be surprised if the Finance Committee bring you back a little bit of increase for costs. I'm just putting that out. We're too far gone to start over, and they're trying to drill those numbers down. And Mr. Templer will let us know when they get to that point, but I'm just giving you a heads up. All right. Anything else, gentlemen? All right. That concludes the agenda. We're on to adjournment. We don't have any briefings tonight. Is there a motion to adjourn? Motion to adjourn, Mr. Chairman. Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? Seeing none, let me take Mr. Thomason's vote first on adjournment. I vote yes. That's a yes, Ms. Hanna.

» Everyone present in voting, raise your hand if you're in favor of adjourning. And we are adjourned. It passes, Ms. Hanna. 53. 53.