By Stan Welch
District Six County Councilman Ken Waters will host a town hall meeting Thursday evening at the Powdersville High School. The meeting was relocated from the Powdersville Library in anticipation of a large turnout.
The featured topic of the meeting is the issue of incorporation of Powdersville. The issue has surfaced and appears to be gaining some traction as a result of several proposed developments in the Powdersville area, totaling several hundred housing units. The proximity of some of those developments to the Powdersville School complex is a matter of considerable concern, according to the comments made by numerous residents at recent planning commission meetings.
The largest of the two proposed projects is known as Chimney Hill and would be constructed in three phases. The first phase would be ninety nine lots, followed by two other additional phases of seventy two and thirty five lots. The type of construction would be townhomes. According to county planning staff officials, four hundred eighteen parking spaces would be required.
The tract, which comprises twenty nine acres is located in the immediate vicinity of the three Powdersville schools, and will further exacerbate a bad traffic situation. Once completed, county staff estimates that an additional sixteen hundred forty eight trips a day will be added to the current traffic flow. Several of the residents who spoke before the commission emphasized that the traffic during the hours when students are arriving at and departing from the schools is far more intense than during the rest of the day.
The county planning staff recommended approval of the permitting of the project. The planning commission, however, tabled the matter pending further study. The second project, while considerably smaller in scope, didn’t even receive a second to bring it to the floor for a vote. The developers in both cases were essentially left with the option of modifying their projects and resubmitting them for approval.
But the lack of zoning or other controls in the area exposed the inability to challenge future developments that might pose similar problems. So the possibility of incorporation for one of the fastest growing areas in the Upstate appears to be on the table for the first time.
