Sparkle City Headlines: Spartanburg County To Finalize Design Standards

From the outside, Spartanburg County Council’s “design standards” ordinance looks like a painful set of contortions meant to avoid — or perhaps postpone — the clear need to directly address zoning in the county. Their latest effort, a revised set of standards which took some 15 hours of meetings to hammer out, was recently called a “good medium” by Councilman Dale Culbreth.

But is it? The initial document was muddy, inconsistent and wouldn’t actually have addressed the concern that prompted the creation of the design standards, the new Dollar General on Country Club Rd. which irritated and concerned local homeowners.

Thankfully, the Spartanburg Herald-Journal‘s Jason Spencer is on the case …

Their stated goal was to make sure new buildings “fit in” aesthetically when locating in residential areas and to protect homeowners’ property values.

There are three “triggers” that would cause the design standards to kick in, and 10 exceptions that would exclude new projects from being subject to them.

Any new commercial or industrial development within 500 feet of neighborhoods or historical properties would be subject to the regulations, for instance, as would any such development built on a piece of property within 250 feet of any three parcels of land containing residences.

The list of exceptions is longer and more technical, but generally excludes projects that are on or border large lots that provide an “adequate” buffer; any change in the use of an existing building that doesn’t substantially change the amount of traffic to the site, the light it generates, and other things that constitute intensity of a project; if the project in question is surround by commercial or industrial sites, or is part of an industrial park; and if the new project would revitalize a “distressed property.”

Sounds OK, right? But what about the issue of how signage is handled? That was one of the major issues in the Dollar General conflict, and one of the primary reasons for the “design standards” in the first place.

One key point the design standard ordinance will no longer address, if the revised version passes as expected: It involves next to no restrictions on signs. Originally, electronic billboards were banned and monument signs — those with wide bases that rest on the ground — were required in several instances instead of large signs atop pylons.

Culbreth said the sign issue was causing “gridlock,” and the committee set it aside in order to complete everything else.

The ordinance does recommend a complete overhaul of the county’s sign ordinance, and Horton said he is prepared to ask the people who served on the design standards ordinance if they would be willing to serve on another committee to hash out rules governing signs.

So, instead of one “design standards” document to address an issue, the County will now have two. It’s not implausible that another related issue will come up, and require yet another set of “standards” to be adhered to. Or perhaps this will happen a dozen times in the next few years, with wildly different, non-consistent standards being applied to each individual ordinance. The more standards there are and the more they differ from one another, the higher the odds of a lawsuit. The odds that this will end in an unworkable, costly, Byzantine mess are high.

Or, they could just bite the bullet and deal with where this is inevitably going: Zoning. If you’ve seen this process before, the reality that this will inevitably end up as a zoning debate in a few years should be obvious. These “design standards,” while perhaps well intentioned, aren’t going to address the overall issue. Zoning will, but I understand why County Council is reluctant to address it.

Again, props to Jason Spencer for covering this story with the attention it deserves.