City Council puts off new rules for Rock Hill’s used car lots

Some used car dealers may be required by the city to make some upgrades to their businesses, but not just yet.

The Rock Hill City Council on Monday deferred all action on proposed changes for both existing car lots and planned dealerships, after city staff recommended stricter requirements for dealers than had been approved by the city Planning Commission. Instead, the issue will go back to the Planning Commission to review any revised rules before the city puts them into force.

City planners have been formulating new rules to limit a growing number of used car lots in Rock Hill. Already there are 40 such dealerships in the city, and city planner Leah Youngblood said her office gets two or three requests a week for new ones.

Planners also have concerns about substandard lots operating now that are grandfathered in and never make any changes to the property necessary to trigger a standards upgrade.

But after a public meeting with car dealers in November and a public hearing before the Planning Commission in December, commissioners approved a slightly looser set of requirements for car lots at the property owners’ request; allowing for tighter parking spaces, opening more zoning classifications to new lots, and removing a special “trigger date” of July 1 for existing car lots to meet the new standards – something even some planning commissioners said would render the new standards unenforceable.

On Monday, Youngblood proposed revised standards than what the Planning Commission voted on. Instead of a complex formula on how many tighter spaces a lot can have, planners proposed a slightly smaller standard size – 8 feet by 18, instead of 9 by 19. The revised standards also would require a zoning exception for lots to open in the “general commercial” zoning along Anderson and Cherry roads, where many lots operate now, and remove them as a permitted use in other commercial areas.

Staff also renewed the July 1 deadline for improvements, which the Planning Commission rejected as unfair since other businesses would only face stricter standards if they take action to change or improve their building.

City Councilman Jim Reno said he was uncomfortable approving more stringent requirements drawn up by city planners if it hadn’t been reviewed by the members of the Planning Commission first.

“We’ve had two public hearings on this, and they voted on the changes,” Reno said. “If we’re going to make further changes, I’d like to have them weigh in.”

Councilwoman Kathy Pender moved to reject the Planning Commission’s more lenient standards for new lots, but no other member would second the motion. Initially, no other council member offered a motion on the proposal one way or the other, until city attorney Paul Dillingham told the council that the Planning Commission’s recommendation would go into force on its own without any action from the council.

Instead, the council voted 4-1 to send staff’s recommendations back to the Planning Commission, with only Pender voting against. Councilmen John Black and Kevin Sutton were absent.

After deferring the new lot standards, which the council had previously approved in October, the council also postponed first reading on the existing lot standards, which reference the proposed standards for the new lots they had just deferred.

“I want to keep it so these two marry up at the end,” Reno said.

The council won’t vote on the items again until after commissioners have a chance to review them at their February meeting. But in the meantime, prospective car dealers will still have to take the proposal into account. The standards originally approved by the council in October will still be enforced as a “pending ordinance” on any new applications to open lots in the city.

This story was originally published January 12, 2016 at 6:11 PM with the headline "City Council puts off new rules for Rock Hill’s used car lots."