How a clutch of rezonings are reshaping Rock Hill’s landscape

In the space of about an hour, Rock Hill’s future changed dramatically this week.

More than 180 acres split across nine separate parts of the city that began the day Monday zoned for multi-family uses – apartments, townhomes, condominiums – were rezoned by the Rock Hill City Council to properties that can hold only single-family neighborhoods.

Council members voted on a raft of rezonings at Monday’s meeting, following recommendations from the Planning Commission and city staff. These follow on the heels of 19 rezoning actions at the last four council meetings dating back to June, all moving away from multi-family classifications to single family. In all, the moves affect 90 parcels that once would have housed multi-family units spread over 537 acres.

The changes are part of a sweeping revision to the city’s apartment standards, following the adoption in June of tighter restrictions on where apartments can go up in Rock Hill. Prior to that, the city implemented a year-long moratorium on new apartment construction in the city. That moratorium still technically runs through the end of October.

Leah Youngblood, a senior planner for the city, told the Herald the recent rezonings are part of a larger plan to limit new apartments to areas that offer a more “urban” mix of residential and commercial units. In the process, planners hope to integrate apartment-dwellers into the surrounding community and keep the city from becoming a bedroom community.

“We don’t want people going up to Charlotte and back and have no relationship with the community,” Youngblood said. “We want them to be able to get to their employers, to the grocery store, to restaurants.”

Specific areas the city would like to steer apartments to are the downtown business district – where Rock Hill recently completed the sales of two lots creating more than 100 new apartments – as well as Knowledge Park and Riverwalk, she said.

In recommending the council rezone most of the properties up for review Monday, planning staff cited reasons outlined in the apartment study: the units won’t be within walking distance of commercial areas or greenspace, or they would border on single-family neighborhoods. Either way, the rules will limit where apartments can be built based on the other zonings around them.

Of the 90 units reviewed by the council, 86 were changed to less intensive housing options than they were originally zoned for. The rest were converted to office or industrial use.

In two cases Monday, city staff cited capacity concerns at nearby schools in taking away a multi-family status. A six-acre site at 715 Iredell St. was reclassified because it would be zoned for Northside Elementary School, while 20 separate addresses covering more than 10 acres on Osceola Avenue and Ellen Avenue were rezoned because a multi-family use would add students to Richmond Drive Elementary.

In some other cases, the city rezoned over the objections of the property owners, as with 2.5 acres on Finley Road and Finley View Road which had been platted for townhomes.

“The owner was concerned about a loss of value to the property, and we will meet with him next week to see if we can address those concerns,” planner Eric Hawkins told the council before its vote to approve a single-family rezoning.

Hawkins noted the owner had not appeared to speak when the rezoning was earlier brought to the Planning Commission, despite being aware of the proposed change. Youngblood said the city has been in a dialogue with owners in the affected areas since they were identified in March, and in some cases staff revised their recommendations after hearing the owners’ plans. In other cases, “We stood our ground and said, ‘We don’t think that’s an appropriate use.’”

In one case, the council went further in limiting development than planners recommended. In voting on the property at Osceola and Ellen avenues, council members rejected the Planning Commission’s recommendation for “single-family attached” – a status that would have allowed for duplexes – and instead voted for a more restrictive single-family designation, despite the presence of similar housing developments in the area.

The council did allow for attached uses on the Iredell property in line with Planning Commission recommendations, despite staff recommendations of a purely detached use.

Rock Hill’s apartment study found 10,000 multifamily units already exist in the city, and another 1,200 were under construction or had received city approval when the moratorium went into effect. In all, rental property accounts for 40 percent of the city’s housing stock.

Some of the planned apartment developments in the works will also offer “tax credit” housing, Youngblood said, where developers receive tax credits for offering below-market-rate rental options, among other criteria.

In the last case Monday, a 42-acre site at 703 Cowan Farm Road was allowed to keep a portion of its site for multi-family use, while splitting off others for single-family and commercial developments.

“This is one of the first cases that came out of our multi-family study,” said Planning Director Bill Meyer. “Because of its size, the owner may be able to create the conditions (for multi-family use) due to the GC (general commercial) designation nearby.”

This story was originally published October 2, 2015 at 6:08 PM with the headline "How a clutch of rezonings are reshaping Rock Hill’s landscape."