WEST COLUMBIA, S.C. — It's been a little over a month since residents first raised concerns about a possible housing development in West Columbia. Monday night, it was up for discussion at a crowded West Columbia planning commission meeting.
Developers and engineers at this meeting said they're proposing 55 homes, with three to four parking spaces per lot, listed at around $225 to 300,000 per home.
"One word, safety," one resident said. "Couldn't you also just zone it to be a park? Does that just kind of throw it away?," another resident said.
Dozens of neighbors in West Columbia, one after the other stood up at the podium Monday night to share their concerns about a new potential development off of Comanchee Trail.
"I don't think anyone here is opposed to development. It's reasonable development," another resident said.
About a month ago, that plan was for a 90-unit town home complex. But tonight, it was brought back to the planning commission as a 55 single family home proposal, with a request to rezone as a PUD for an added commercial use that the seller of the land is asking for.
A PUD is short for a planned unit development which is a community of homes or condos designed to be flexible and efficient.
"They wanted to retain 7,500 square foot space for the possibility of putting a future cell phone tower on this property. So in staying in compliance with their request in relationship to our land contract with them, the only way we could do this was to do it though a PUD," said Chad Rast, vice president of O'Cain Construction Company.
Beyond residents concerns about traffic, green space, and storm water flow, some residents said they don't understand the reasoning when there are at least three other housing developments nearby.
"When they just ask 'em why are you trying to bring this in they had no rationale for it. They haven't proposed any kind of density study or marketing assessment," Diane Conner, resident said.
"I believe we were heard. I truly hopefully, there will be some good outcomes," Malinda Rutledge Carlisle, another resident said.
Planning commission chair Gary Prince asked several residents to consider the alternative.
"He's got the ability to build 55 homes no matter what. Would you rather him just come build homes or would you rather him build homes and have some restrictions that we control?," Prince said.
And mayor Tem Miles said this option gives the city more say over what happens to it.
"I very much like the idea of doing it as a PUD if we're going to do it because we can get those upgrades to what the development is going to be and give the community some assurances that it will be a good addition to it as opposed to ya'll just going down and building it under the current entitlements," Miles said.
The commission ultimately decided to recommend this development to council. That means there are still two required council readings before a final decision is made on Comanchee Trail.