The City of Conway plans to swap properties with a local developer for conservation and flood storage land and is in the process of trying to rezone the land before the change in ownership.
Conway Planning Commission voted 3-2 Monday to recommend rezoning the 3-acre wetland property, located off Lochwood Lane near the Elmhurst subdivision, from residential to highway commercial. The request will now go to city council, the body that's tasked with聽making the final decision.
But nearby neighbors are concerned about what could eventually go on that property.
鈥淚t will be turned into other things,鈥 said Joey Tanner, a resident of Elmhurst and the Horry County Fire Rescue chief. 鈥淲e know that.鈥
As part of the deal, Conway would receive about 16 acres along Mill Pond Road. City officials maintain this acquisition would help prevent the land, which is in a flood-prone area, from being developed.
鈥淭hese parcels do not need to be filled and built upon,鈥 Conway City Administrator聽Adam Emrick said. 鈥淐rabtree Swamp is behind these parcels and has flooded into them on prior occasions.鈥
Neighbors questioned why the city is rezoning the property instead of the developer, Jimmy Gerald of Gerald Builders of Conway.
Emrick said it was part of the negotiations.
鈥淲e own the property and we understand the vision that the current owner has for that property and I think us giving it to him with the zoning district that he wanted was sort of part of that whole negotiated thing,鈥 he said. 鈥淏ut we still have to go through the public process. We agreed to be the ones to usher it through the process and to save him a step and make it clear what the intentions of the city were.鈥
The backstory
The property was previously deeded to the city in 2004 by Gerald, the developer who built the Elmhurst neighborhood, which backs up to the three-acre parcel. The oddly shaped tract is surrounded by land Gerald Builders owns, including property along Mill Pond that is already zoned highway commercial.
The city intended to build a park on the property, but that never happened.
"The parcel was part of a long expired development agreement," Emrick said. "At that time, the Recreation Complex, in its current form, did not exist. The parcel was not an ideal location for a park, both in its proximity to other parks, its isolation from the public at large, and the parcel itself, topographically, was not ideal. Since no one who was with the City when the Development Agreement was brokered decades ago is here any longer, we have to assume those are the reasons. They certainly are today."
If the deal goes through, Gerald Builders will own the three acres again and, in turn, give several parcels of land on Mill Pond to the city.
City planners said Gerald wants to combine the 3-acre parcel with another piece of property he owns along Mill Pond Road that is highway commercial. The City of Conway does not allow split zoning. Therefore, the property would have to be rezoned.
Neighbors who live in the Elmhurst subdivision off Mill Pond 鈥 a neighborhood that was developed by Gerald Builders around 2000 鈥 are concerned about the rezoning and the potential of a highway commercial building being built in their backyards.
Gerald said he plans to use that wetland parcel as a buffer between the neighborhood and the rest of his property and has no intentions to develop that part of the property.
When asked by if he has plans to develop the front portion of his highway commercial property on Mill Pond, which touches the 3-acre parcel, he said: “I’m not at liberty to discuss that.”
鈥淭he city asked us to let them have it so it wouldn鈥檛 ever be developed,鈥 he said of the property the city would acquire in the deal. 鈥淵ou鈥檝e got good people there with the city that鈥檚 trying to do the right thing, so we agreed to work with them and give them all that other property, and it鈥檚 going to work out good for the people.鈥
Neighbors concerned
At Monday鈥檚 meeting, city staff assured neighbors that it would be difficult to build on those wetlands, and if anything were to be built there, it would require a long process with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Unless a 鈥渧ery extreme process goes through,鈥 the property would remain wetlands, said Allison Hardin, the city鈥檚 director of planning.
鈥淚n the realm of technicalities, technically, it could happen if that property was removed from the inventory of wetlands,鈥 she said. 鈥淎gain, a very difficult process鈥t鈥檚 unlikely that the Army Corps would approve such a thing unless there was some serious work done.
鈥淚f this land is unsuitable for putting a building on, then we cannot give them a permit to build on it,鈥 Hardin said, adding wetlands in the Army Corps of Engineer鈥檚 inventory are unsuitable for development.
Several residents said when they moved there, they were told nothing would be built on that land.
Tim Stephens, who lives on Elkford Drive, was one of those neighbors who said he was told nobody could build behind his property, which backs up to the parcel the city is wishing to rezone.
鈥淭his is the only reason I moved here, because of what鈥檚 behind that,鈥 Stephens said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 very wet back there. It鈥檚 like a river there. I enjoy that place and I hope it stays like it is.鈥
Tanner, the county fire chief and Elmhurst resident, said residents were not given the opportunity to have input on the swap before the city made the decision.
鈥淪o from what I鈥檝e heard, the city鈥檚 already decided what they鈥檙e going to do so they鈥檙e going to do it no matter what we say,鈥 he said.
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