Land use
Council looks at ban on storage facilities along Highway 17
Tougher standards for storage facilities along Highway 17 on the Waccamaw Neck failed to gain approval from Georgetown County Council this week.
Instead, council members want to consider prohibiting the structures.
The county planning staff proposed new rules that would limit the size, shape and appearance of storage facilities in an area extending 500 feet on either side of the highway. That is the “overlay zone” where the county has design requirements for commercial buildings.
Complaints that a storage facility in Murrells Inlet violated those standards as well as the proliferation of storage operations led to the revision. It includes landscape buffers around the perimeter, a limit of 40 feet of building frontage facing the highway, a size limit of 4,800 square feet for each building and a requirement of a design feature such as a porch or canopy on 80 percent of the side facing the highway.
The Planning Commission recommended approval unanimously.
Council Member Stella Mercado asked about the potential for storage facilities going up outside the overlay zone.
There is property along Waverly Road and Petigru Drive at Pawleys Island where that could happen, said Holly Richardson, the county planning director. She added that the was concern that increasing the regulations in the overlay zone would encourage storage facilities on property closer to residential areas.
Efforts by Midgard to expand its storage facility on Tiller Drive to adjacent property drew opposition from area residents as well as businesses nearby.
Mercado asked about additional protections for residential areas.
Richardson said the buffer requirement could be increased for storage facilities adjacent to residential property.
“You did a great job chipping around the edges of the problem,” Council Member Bob Anderson said. But he said he wanted to prohibit storage facilities along the highway.
Mercado moved to defer the second of three required readings to the proposed restrictions so Richardson could find a way to prohibit storage facilities in the highway corridor. She said that could be coupled with a restriction to make sure they don’t impact residential areas.
The vote was unanimous.
Madison Cooper, vice president of government affairs for the Coastal Carolinas Association of Realtors, said the proposal could cause other problems.
“We would be concerned about pushing this more toward residential development,” she said. “It would create greater backlash in the community if it’s closer to residential.”
The council also voted to rezone 4.5 acres in Murrells Inlet from “residential half-acre” to “forest and agriculture,” which requires acre lots for building. Steven Sellers wants to have a couple of horses and goats on the property on Old River Road for his children.
The Planning Commission voted 5-1 against the zoning change after neighbors said they didn’t want livestock in the neighborhood.
Sellers told the commission he doesn’t want to develop the property and had turned down requests from developers who want to buy it.
Mercado asked about the change in density.
The property could now be subdivided for eight houses, Richardson said. That would be cut in half with the zoning change.
Council Member Clint Elliott moved to approve the change. Mercado provided the second. The vote was unanimous.
