County transportation recommendations get mixed reviews
By JIM FAILE
DARLINGTON – Transportation planners in Florence County developing a plan for roads that will cover part of Darlington County have accepted some of the recommendations of the Darlington County Planning Commission but rejected some others for road improvements in Darlington County.
Darlington County Planning Director Doug Reimold told the planning commission Tuesday that the Florence Area Transportation Study (FLATS) group accepted the commission’s recommendations to drop plans for a series of so-called collector roads in eastern Darlington County. Collector roads are defined by FLATS as roads designed to move traffic from local roads to secondary roads.
But FLATS planners rejected the commission’s recommendations to make improvements that included improving and widening Hoffmeyer Road from the Darlington-Florence county line to S.C. Highway 340 and to widen Ebenezer Road from Pisgah Road to U.S. Highway 52, Reimold said.
Officials with the FLATS project asked the commission for its recommendations earlier this year.
In addition to its own recommendations, the commission endorsed FLATS proposals to manage access and aesthetics along McIver Road, South Charleston Road and U.S. 52 between Darlington and Florence as well as to a FLATS proposal to build a half cloverleaf interchange at McIver Road and I-95 in Darlington County.
The proposals approved by FLATS will be included in a 25-year transportation vision plan for the area. Eastern Darlington County is on the fringe of the Florence metropolitan area covered by the FLATS study.
Even though FLATS planners rejected some of the planning commission’s recommendations, all of the recommendations are included in the transportation element of Darlington County’s Comprehensive Land Use Plan, Reimold said.
In other business, the commission granted conditional final approval for a planned private subdivision on High Hill Road in the High Hill community south of Darlington.
The Edgewood Subdivision, which is being developed by William James Holley, will consist of seven residential lots.
Because of atypical soil conditions on the property, the lots are designed in an atypical manner, said Doug Reimold, planning director for Darlington County.
The subdivision will include one unpaved road. Holley told the commission his goal is to pave the road eventually using money from the sale of lots. He said fees charged by a homeowners association that is being organized for the subdivision will be used to maintain the road.
Commissioner Grady Culbertson pointed to problems that continue to exist with unpaved roads in another subdivision, Chilling Creek, where residents say heavy rains leave the roads difficult to travel and in some cases impassable. “I wish you would be aware that this is a stinging problem,” Clubertson said.
Holley assured Culbertson that he does understand the importance of good roads. “My personal reputation is tied to this,” he said. “I am not an absentee property owner.” Holley lives next to the subdivision site.
In another matter, the county has received a proposal from the Pee Dee Regional Council of Governments to draft a proposed zoning ordinance for the county’s I-20/S.C. Highway 340 Industrial Park. The county had requested PDCOG’s technical assistance in preparing a draft ordinance.
The proposal outlines the services COG would provide in drawing up an ordinance for Darlington County Council’s consideration. Reimold said COG indicated the process would take about six months to complete at an estimated cost of about $3,000.
Darlington County currently has no zoning in the unincorporated areas of the county. The county’s land use component of its Comprehensive Land Use Plan includes a goal of getting a zoning district established for the I-20/340 Industrial Park, Reimold said.