Rock Hill neighbors in rural area object to industrial park plans for prime property
In less than a month, Rock Hill City Council will have to decide between a new 1.3 million-square-foot industrial park and neighbors who don’t want it.
A dozen residents in or just outside the city lined up this month to protest the project at 1734 Hopewell Road. They said it doesn’t fit in the rural, residential spot on the edge of city limits. The city planning commission agreed, unanimously recommending against a requested zoning change to allow the industrial park.
But the final decision falls to City Council. The developer asked to have the rezoning request on the council agenda March 11.
Industrial park pitched on Hopewell Road
Mixson Properties out of the Atlanta area asked to rezone 178 acres south of Hopewell Road and west of Shady Oak Lane. The Legacy Park East industrial park sits just west. Larger residential lots line the southeastern side of the triangular property.
The developer submitted a concept plan showing what could come if the rezoning happens.
Seven buildings would link up to the Legacy Park site. A stream buffer would separate them from homes on the opposite side. Part of the property includes a small cemetery, according to the concept plan.
Roads and intersections could be designed to move large truck traffic across through Legacy Park and reserve entrances along Hopewell for cars. Jeff Mixson with Mixson Properties told the planning commission the project would take five to 10 years to complete.
Traffic from the industrial development likely would be less than if the property develops with the 350 or so homes allowed now, Mixson said.
Rock Hill residents want homes, not industrial site
Victoria Mulch lives catty-corner to the proposed industrial site. Mulch told the planning commission she checked with city and county land use plans before buying property a few years back, and saw an area designated for residential growth.
“This land will be developed,” Mulch said. “It’s a pristine parcel. But it should be developed in accordance with the stated intentions of the city and county.”
Long-range plan designations are tricky, said city planner Dennis Fields. They aren’t always parcel-specific.
Both county and city plans show a general transition in that area as it moves from existing industrial park to neighborhood space. The large parcel could go either way, Fields said.
Lorri Mangan said her family has 21 acres near the site, and there are new homes going in on Hopewell on 5-acre or larger lots. “This doesn’t go with what’s going on in our world,” Mangan said.
Another resident said cars race through now with more speeding likely from new development, while another brought a petition signed by neighbors against the development. Several neighbors offered concern about future city annexation approaching them, or about a collector road study that shows a need for future routes through the property.
Gordon Summey has property right where two arrows diverge on that collector road plan. Development of the Hopewell Road site for industrial use would increase and quicken the need for a road that would almost certainly impact him, Summey said.
“There’s nowhere else to go,” he said. “Right now mine’s in the cross hairs of it.”
City Council to decide on Rock Hill industrial site
Almost where Shady Oak meets Neely Store Road, Robert Hickey began renting a home two years ago.
From his front porch, Hickey has to try to see a home in any direction. There’s a hunt club and a farm. One property alone is about 115 acres.
Shady Oak is a dirt road dotted with decades-old homes, some structures that look like they haven’t been used for some time, a couple of concrete slabs awaiting construction, mobile homes and iron gates.
Hickey loves the privacy, while also being a short drive from Rock Hill with its restaurants, French bakery and anything else he might like.
“This is sort of the charm of this, is it’s still very rural,” Hickey said.
Neighbors on Thursday said a new industrial park would change that rural feel.
They’re concerned about traffic but also development polluting the water table, as they’re on well and septic service. One resident balked at the idea cars would use one road out of the industrial park and trucks another.
The case for new development on Hopewell Road involves growth. In recent years Rock Hill has grown considerably, largely on the back of business or industrial park development.
Waterford Business Park, TechPark, Airport Industrial Park and several similar sites have brought in large companies and new jobs. Just beside the Hopewell Road property sits Legacy East which welcomed the $46 million, 240-job Arrival electric vehicle microfactory and the $18.5 million, 100-job DIRTT Environmental Solutions construction company, among others.
Residents near the Hopewell Road project say they hope City Council will consider the people there now and give them preference over a developer from somewhere else.
“I’ll be at that meeting,” Hickey said.
This story was originally published February 15, 2024 at 5:50 AM.
