"1st Reading of Zoning Amendment" for Lowe's Shopping Center Set for Mon. Dec. 1

The Agenda for the Monday, December 1 City Council Meeting has been posted on the city website. This includes a "Policy/Action" item to Consider 1st Reading of a zoning amendment for a 20+/-acre commercial planned development at the intersection of Issaqueena Trail and US Highway 123 to be called Clemson Home Center by Paramount Development Corporation for Davenport Capital, LLC (owner).

There will be a Public Hearing at 6:30.

Agenda
Clemson City Council Meeting
Monday, December 1, 2008
PUBLIC HEARING at 6:30 p.m.
Regular Meeting at 7:30 p.m.
Council Chambers, Clemson City Hall

1. Call to order
2. Invocation – Butch Trent
3. Pledge of Allegiance
4. Public Session
5. Approval of Minutes: November 17, 2008
6. Reports/Discussion Agenda:
a. Item Request – Appointments to various City Boards and Commissions – Planning & Codes Administration.
b. Item Request – Receive an update on the Anderson Regional Joint Water System Board of Directors vote to select future water transmission improvements to deliver 45 million gallons per day of capacity to the delivery locations of the respective member agencies – Mr. Rick Cotton, City Administrator.
c. Receive a status report on the East Clemson sewer line extension project and schedule for accepting (from Madera Utilities, Inc.) an Operating Certificate Transfer that has been approved by the South Carolina Public Service Commission – Mr. Benjie McGill, Director of Utilities.
d. Staff and Council reports.
7. Policy/Action Agenda:
a. Item Request – Consider 1st Reading of a zoning amendment for a 20+/-acre commercial planned development at the intersection of Issaqueena Trail and US Highway 123 to be called Clemson Home Center by Paramount Development Corporation for Davenport Capital, LLC (owner). PIN: 4064-14-24-6243 – Planning & Codes Administration.
Planned Development Information Staff Report
Page 2 Agenda, Regular Council Meeting, December 1, 2008
b. Item Request – Consider 1st Reading of an Amendment to the City Ordinance that regulates smoking in public places, with a change in the penalty provision of said ordinance – Mr. Rick Cotton, City Administrator.
Adjourn.

Our thanks to Jack Davis for keeping alert to announcements of these meetings and keeping everyone up to date by email.

No News Yet on City Council Meeting

Keep posted and Happy Thanksgiving!

Highway 93, a real highway

It is difficult to believe that Issaqueena Trail is the only possible site for a new shopping center in the City of Clemson. If it is, and this city cannot grow further with big box retail, then perhaps it should focus on doing something that it could do well, like being a small, charming, university town, that does not look like everyplace else.

Unfortunately, there does not seem to be a clear vision for Clemson as a livable small town, any more than there seems to be a clear vision for commercial growth.

Look at Highway 93. Poor planning on Hwy 93 is a primary problem for Issaqueena Trail and the rest of the city. Drive along this highway and you see a "nightmare" of uses and densities--one-story houses, residential developments, civic centers and uses, little offices, and almost everything that does not need to be located on a highway. Because the City's Comprehensive Plan is being ignored, this type of helter-skelter "planning" is now sprawling to Issaqueena Trail.

With that preamble, I'd like to pass along a suggestion by Derrick Jordan (an adjacent property owner), who has recommended an alternative site off of Highway 93. This undeveloped 35-acre parcel is now zoned RM-1, two-household residential, although it is surrounded by significantly higher densities, backs up to the railroad, and can be accessed from Hwy 93. Therefore despite the present zoning, it does not make much sense to have RM-1 zoning on a highway like 93, anymore than it makes sense to put a regional shopping center on Issaqueena, a two-lane road. On the map above, the parcel (4054-11-66-2418) is across the railroad right-of-way (the white line) from the yellow rectangle in the upper left corner of the map. (Note that the author has not studied this alternative in any depth.)

If anyone has other suggestions, please send them along. I know that many people would like to be convinced, parcel by parcel, that turning Issaqueena Trail into the next highway is the only way forward.

City Council Member Margaret Thompson: 'Issaqueena Trail is already a nightmare'

A letter from Council Member Margaret Thompson in reply to Frances Gorsuch.

Nov. 18, 2008

Ms. Gorsuch,

Yes, Clemson is a great place to live and will still be that way if Lowe's is built on Issaqueena Trail. I know you don't want to hear that but I will vote for Lowe's to come. I want to be honest with you and I don't do things for or against to solicit votes. It is just not in the makeup of my personality. Letting Wal Mart go got some on council attention. Whether they are willing to admit it or not, I don't think the same mistake will be made again. Council spent 88 thousand dollars of the tax payers money to bring in more economic development and Lowe's was on all of our list. We want Lowe's. Now I am just one vote but it will surprise me if this isn't passed.

Issaqueena Trail as it stands now, is a nightmare with or without the Lowe's. Patrick Square will have a definite impact whether Lowe's comes or not. Trucks will be in and out of there and considering where you live, it will be closer to you than Lowe's/ If Lowe's is passed, I don't know what other retail stores will come but there will be others.

Thank you for taking the time to write and I will always respond even when we disagree.

Margaret J Thompson

As others who have read this letter have already observed-- if Issaqueena Trail is a "nightmare," why make matters worse? If City Council already recognizes that Issaqueena Trail is now poorly designed, planned, or managed, why did they approve Patrick Square? Is this an admission of poor planning? And if the new shopping center is approved through another poor planning decision, making Issaqueena Trail truly a nightmare, does this mean that bad decision will be piled onto bad decision from here on out? Where will it end?

I think this tends to prove the notion that the proposed shopping center is the tipping point in Issaqueena Trail becoming a new north-south commercial strip.

'A choice of principles and people over profits and prestige'

Letter from Dr. William J. Reid III to Mayor Abernathy and City Council

November 19, 2008

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am writing to implore you to act as the servants you were elected to be by voting to refuse to allow a Lowe's store to be built on Issaqueena Trail. Clemson University and the town itself, as our Bob Edwards stated every chance he could, is a truly “unique” place; and it is such because countless men and women like him have chosen principles and people over profits and prestige. Therefore, I am begging those of you who have not already made up your mind to either defy or defer to the will of people, and to take the only practical and principled action in order to maintain Clemson’s uniqueness.

For you and I both know that a Lowe's on Issaqueena Trail will do nothing to lower my taxes or enhance my services or increase my property values. What it will undoubtedly do is increase our taxes and increase our crime and increase our noise and increase our traffic and congestion; and most importantly, it will continue the “progress” of turning our quaint little hamlet we call home into just one more upstate city whose only pride is its past.

Finally, to those of you who have fought these abominations from the very beginning, I and my family wish to extend our many thanks; and to those of you who have chosen the dollar over duty, I’ll refrain from saying more; and finally, to those of you who are still sitting on that narrow fence between selfless service and self-service, I wish to paraphrase my typing instructor by imploring: Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their community. I am,

Most sincerely yours,
Dr. William J. Reid III

The Devil's Advocate: The Three Point Counter-Argument

Open-minded thinking requires considering the other side of the argument. The case for the proposed shopping center seems to have three parts:

1. There are no other sites for a big box store in the City of Clemson. This has also been stated as there are no other cost-prohibitive sites in the City.
   
2. A big box store will create generate tax revenue.
3. A big box store will create jobs.

All of these arguments require more than a few minutes of thought and a few sentences in response. However, I do not think that simply stating these arguments makes them right, or indicates that they have been rigorously analyzed and can be proven to be true.

Moreover, I do not think that any of these arguments makes Issaqueena Trail the right place for the proposed development, if for no other reason than a less intensive development would also generate tax revenue and create jobs. In fact, it may be the case that a less intensive development would create the same tax revenue after big box expenses and costs--such as retail sales lost elsewhere, decline in property values and taxes of homes across from the shopping center, new infrastructural costs like traffic engineering improvements, and so on--are figured into the calculation. Skepticism seems warranted.

Lastly, as far as jobs are concerned, won't the new development just shift the money around? Are people going to spend more, or just spend in a different place? Won't jobs simply be lost at the other Lowe's? And what about the jobs lost in and around Clemson? The local businesses like the small hardware stores and Southeast Garden Center will certainly be impacted and perhaps put out of business. So some jobs and livelihoods will almost certainly be lost to a "category killer" like a Lowe's.

The next time I hear someone assert that this project will create net jobs and tax revenue, and will improve our city "in the big picture," I would like to see their degree in economics, or a study by an independent economist that actually looks at the big picture. Until then, talk is cheap.

Letter to the Mayor and City Council

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Dear Honorable Mayor Abernathy and City Council Members:

I believe that it is common sense that the proposed Lowe’s Shopping Center should be located on, and not simply near, a highway. We all know how cities develop around such shopping centers—all of us have seen the highway commercial development around Lowe’s in Anderson, Seneca, Easley, Greenville, and elsewhere. Let’s use the highways that we have and keep the residential roads that we have residential.

It is not only common sense. It is indicated in the City of Clemson Comprehensive Plan, which as part of the city planning process described by South Carolina Code of Laws Section 6-29-540 and City Ordinance CC-2004-13, clearly states that such shopping centers should be located “on major arterials and transit routes” (Comprehensive Plan 5.1.1). However, I do not believe that this and other aspects of the Comprehensive Plan, including guidelines for big box stores (Comprehensive Plan 5.1.5), and State Law concerning “Planned Developments” (SC Code 6-29-740), were adequately considered in the City Planning Commission review process.

In conclusion, I believe that the review process to date has been short-sighted—it has failed to consider the consequences and the larger planning principles that are recognized by comprehensive planning and by an extensive body of planning literature. In fact, there is more than fifty years of literature on urban/suburban sprawl (back, for example, to FORTUNE magazine, 1957-58). Unfortunately, these decades of study indicate that the Lowe’s Shopping Center is a classic case study of the way that sprawl develops. In other words, both history and common sense suggest that the current proposal to up-zone the Issaqueena Trail site is not a move in the right direction.

I hope that you will recognize this in your deliberations. I hope that you will have the confidence to recognize that demographic predictions indicate that Clemson will continue to grow steadily over the next decades, and that national retailers will inevitably follow this development, as Lowe’s is already doing. As the beginning of decades of continued growth, this is the time to plan for the future. Short-term thinking will only lead to chaotic, ad hoc development, increased infrastructural costs, traffic congestion, and reduced quality of life. By contrast, a thoughtfully planned city will be a beautiful and charming place that will draw new residents and retailers in numbers that will be unmatched by less well planned and well led communities.

City Council Meeting Tomorrow: Monday, Nov. 17, 6:00pm

Tomorrow Clemson City Council will have a public session tomorrow to hear the developer's proposal and public comments. The Agenda can be found on the city website at:
http://www.egovlink.com/clemson/events/calendarevents.asp?date=11-17-2008

CLEMSON CITY COUNCIL PUBLIC HEARING (PH-08-06)
PROPOSED ZONING ORDINANCE MAP AND TEXT AMENDMENTS
FOR THE CLEMSON HOME CENTER (LOWE’S) PLANNED DEVELOPMENT
Monday • November 17, 2008 • 6:00 p.m. • Council Chambers

AGENDA
1. Call to order
2. Presentation of the proposed Clemson Home Center amendment by the Planning and Codes Administration Staff
3. Presentation by the applicant
4. Public comments
5. Questions and comments
6. Adjourn

NOTE: If you wish to comment on the proposed amendments, you may voice your opinion at the public hearing. You may also file your comments in writing, giving your name and address. To be considered, written comments must be received by the Planning and Codes Administration Department by 5:00 p.m. Wednesday, November 19, 2008.
Please mail/fax your letter to:
City of Clemson – Planning and Codes Administration Dept.
Re. Clemson Home Center (Lowe’s)
365 College Avenue
Clemson, SC 29631-1433
Questions? (864) 653-2050 ● Fax (864) 653-2057 ● http://www.cityofclemson.org

R-08-03 and PH-08-06: Rezoning request for the proposed 20-acre Clemson Home Center (Lowe’s) commercial planned development rezoning request. Applicant: Paramount Development Corp. Owner: Davenport Capital, LLC. PINs: 4064-14-24-6243, p/o 4064-14-34-8733.
• Final Planned Development Ordinance (Incorporating changes made at the Planning Commission meeting on November 10, 2008)
• Exhibit A Legal Description
• Exhibit B Survey
• Exhibit C Site Plan
• Exhibit D Grading and Stormwater Plan
• Exhibit E Storm Pond Cross Section
• Exhibit F Utility Plan
• Exhibit G Landscaping Plan
• Exhibit G2 Retention Pond Landscape Plan
• Exhibit G3 Area II Berm Detail
• Exhibit H Development Monument Signage
• Exhibit I Lowe’s Building Elevation
• Exhibit J Traffic Impact Analysis
• Exhibit J Traffic Impact Analysis (appendices)
• Exhibit K Site Photometric Map
• Staff report for November 10, 2008 Planning Commission meeting
• Planning Commission Meeting Minutes – November 10, 2008 (Draft)
• Staff report for October 13, 2008 Planning Commission meeting
• Planning Commission Meeting Minutes – October 13, 2008

SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIALS
Street views
Tree survey list
Tree survey maps
Western portion
Southeastern portion
Southern portion
Initial Tree assessment
Site Cross sections – 3 and 10
Site Cross sections – 8 and 9
Detention area plan view detail

WRITTEN COMMENTS RECEIVED
• Comments received from Allison for the November 10, 2008 meeting
• Comments received from Caldwell for the November 10, 2008 meeting
• Comments received from Davis at the November 10, 2008 meeting
• Applicant’s responses to comments/questions raised at the October 13 meeting
• Applicant’s responses to the Caldwell letter for the October 13, 2008 meeting
• Comments received from Caldwell for the October 13, 2008 meeting
• Public Comment received on 11-06-08

Clemson City Council is:
Mr. Larry W. Abernathy Mayor
Mrs. Nancy M. Bennett
Mr. J.C. Cook III
Mr. Michael T. Fowler
Mrs. Elouise James
Ms. Margaret J. Thompson
Mr. Buford E. "Butch" Trent

Common Sense: Locate Big Box Stores on Highways

This is Issaqueena Trail, a residential road and the Eastern Gateway to the City of Clemson. It is not a highway and it is the wrong place for a Lowe's shopping center.








(Image credit: Google Earth)

Common Sense Case Study #3: Lowe's in Anderson

This is the Lowe's Home Center in Anderson. It is located on a highway.

This is what Issaqueena Trail could look like in 10 to 15 years.






(Image credit: Google Earth)

Common Sense Case Study #2: Lowe's in Easley

This is the Lowe's Home Center in Easley. It is located on a highway.

This is what Issaqueena Trail may look like in about 10 years.








(Image credit: Google Earth)

Common Sense Case Study #1: Lowe's in Seneca

This is the Lowe's Home Center in Seneca. It is located on a highway.

This is what Issaqueena Trail might look like in 5 to 10 years.





(Image credit: Google Earth)

Sign the Petition before Next Week's City Council Meeting!

Now is the time to add your name to a petition to indicate your dissatisfaction with the proposed shopping center. The petition, which will be presented to City Council, now has over 125 signatures.

To add your name, please email Jack Davis. Just click on this link davis2133(at)bellsouth.net and include "petition" in the subject line.

Every name makes a difference, so please consider making your views known to our City Council-members through the petition or in person at the upcoming meetings.

City Planning Commission "Approves" Lowe's Shopping Center

At tonight's meeting, the City Planning Commission approved rezoning the Issaqueena Trail site to permit the Lowe's Shopping Center. The rezoning replaces the 2002 Ordinance, which was the compromise outcome of the Walmart controversy, with a new "Planned Development" Zoning Ordinance that allows a big box store the size of a Lowe's with a garden center.

Voting FOR the rezoning and the proposed shopping center were:

Del Kimbler, Chair of the Planning Commission
Julie Craig
John Peters

Voting AGAINST were:

Bob Smith
Elaine Richardson

Planning Commissioners David Allison and Spencer Bryan were absent and did not vote.

Professor/Commissioner David Allison could not attend the meeting and was not permitted to vote in absentia. He has fundamentally opposed the development, arguing that the site should be used for neighborhood commercial development, and not for the proposed regional shopping center that will draw traffic from halfway to Easley, Anderson, and Seneca. Allison submitted a written statement that we will try to reproduce here later.

Commissioner Bob Smith raised objections about the way the review of the developer's proposals were handled by the Commission. Quoting State Law (if I heard correctly), he addressed his critique to Chairman Del Kimbler, whom he indicated kept too tight a rein on discussion and procedure.

(Although Smith was not referring specifically to this point in his objections to the Planning Commission's review procedure (and while protocols may have been followed appropriately), it should be noted that the developer had far more time and latitude to present their position. The ratio was the difference between hours and minutes: whereas the developer presented their case for hours over the course of these meetings, the public comments could be counted in minutes. It was clear to anyone who attended these meetings that public discussion on planning and zoning related matters was not given the same generosity of time or hearing as the developer and their hired consultants. The result of this is that members of the public were intimidated and refrained from speaking.)

After indications of thoughtful concern about the development, particularly the gas station and convenience store, Julie Craig's support for the project was surprising.

John Peters supported the project in part because of the gas station proposed for the corner of Issaqueena and 123. Citing the closing of the two gas stations at 123 and College Avenue, he said that Clemson needs more than just two gas stations. Peters wasn't being facetious when he said that Clemson has just two gas stations, and, for a moment, this seemed like a reasonable position. But actually, according to my count, Clemson has 6 gas stations.

The final approval of the Lowe's Shopping Center now turns to City Council, which will meet next week to hear the matter. Keep posted for updates on that meeting.

City Planning Commission Meeting Tomorrow!

See the October 31 post below, and also see the Planning Commission website for an updated Agenda.

Finally, see recent coverage of the development debate by Ray Chandler in the Anderson Independent-Mail, as well as an editorial by Jack Davis and Peter Laurence in today's issue.

No Big Box on Issaqueena Yard Signs Available!

Yard signs are available for $10 (cost). The signs are being made today at The Print Shop, on Anderson Highway (www.theprintshoponline.com). If you would like to order one, please contact me at peterlaurence (at) bellsouth.net.