EDAC continues scrutinizing buffer draft | Local News | Our Gazette

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EDAC continues scrutinizing buffer draft

Published Thursday, February 16, 2012 9:11 AM

By Stefan Rogenmoser
The Gazette

Photo by: Stefan Rogenmsoer/Gazette

Mark Phillips, Rick Buckner and Ron Henderson preside over the quarterly Economic Development Advisory Committee meeting.

Goose Creek’s Economic Development Advisory Committee is still not satisfied with a draft of a proposed Land Use Buffer Ordinance.

EDAC’s main concern is that draft is a one size fits all model, EDAC Chairman Rick Buckner said during EDAC’s regularly scheduled quarterly meeting Feb. 2 at Goose Creek City Hall.

EDAC members present — Buckner, Dean Infinger, Mark Phillips, Ron Henderson and Ron Anderson — agreed that the ordinance is fine for new businesses but they are opposed to applying buffers to existing businesses because they feel buffers will be a severe detriment to businesses and to property value.

If a business owner sold the property or had an issue it would be of less value, Buckner said.

Goose Creek Assistant City Administrator Jeff Molinari, who moderates EDAC meetings as a city representative, said locations that can’t comply with the ordinance should be considered exempt.

Anderson said that one section of the proposed ordinance says that businesses need to comply within five years, and another states that they do not. “Which paragraph trumps the other?” Buckner asked. “It affects resale and appraisal value right off the bat . . . and bank loans.”

EDAC members also disagree with a 50 percent provision requiring existing businesses that would be exempt from the buffer to be in compliance with it after making improvements or renovations totaling more than 50 percent of the replacement cost of principle structures.

“Say you wanted to tear down and rebuild . . . you couldn’t,” Buckner said. “That would really hurt the city.”

“Who does that make it better for?” Henderson said.

Molinari said the draft started off simply as a way to assist new business enterprises and to protect neighborhoods with a minimum buffer of 15 feet from the street to the business. “Over the past 18 months it’s morphed into something more,” he said.

Phillips, also a city councilman, asked if the buffer draft originated from complaints.

Molinari said it was not complaint driven and was primarily an initiative of the Planning Commission.

“How much public input have they gotten?” Phillips asked.

Molinari said to the best of his knowledge the only public input has been from Buckner.

There are a substantial number of existing businesses that will not be able to comply with the ordinance and will need to be exempted, Molinari said. “Why make me comply if you’re not going to make anyone else comply?” Anderson asked.

Buckner proposed that there be one buffer ordinance draft for new businesses and separate draft for existing businesses.

“The way it’s worded now it addresses some issues but not all,” Buckner said.

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