BridgeMill residents add spice to county council meeting ahead of McClancy decision
More than 70 residents of the BridgeMill community showed up at a Lancaster County Council Meeting Monday to oppose re-zoning property owned by McClancy Seasoning, which is looking to expand its operation.
Due to an apparent oversight, McClancy has been operating in an area zoned for residential use for nearly 20 years. The company is requesting a change to industrial zoning so it can expand its facility off Spice Road as part of a $3 million project McClancy said will create 42 new jobs.
Council approved the request on split votes after two previous readings. After third reading Monday, council members voted unanimously to table the measure.
Residents aren’t opposed to the expansion, they said, just the rezoning. Property zoned industrial so close their subdivision will lower residential property values and open the door to unwanted development, they said.
The postponement of a decision is “a win,” said Jerry Holt, a BridgeMill resident and Indian Land representative on the planning commission.
“I consider that to be a win for us because we would have certainly lost if they had taken an up/down vote on the issue,” he said.
“The deferral means that we have a chance to work out a solution that can allow McClancy to expand his operation – without it being re-zoned as an iIndustrial tract.”
McClancy Seasoning owns and operates two facilities off S.C. 521 in Indian Land. One is right up against BridgeMill, a community that has grown to more than 600 homes in the past decade. The McClancy plant opened in 1980 and at the time, mostly rural and industrial Lancaster County lacked a zoning ordinance. When zoning was introduced in 1998, the McClancy property was erroneously zoned residential.
Even after a 2005 effort to realign zoning in the county as part of a long-range plan to control development, the McClancy plant remained residential.
The company has a second facility down the road and on the opposite side of S.C. 521, next to the City of Light campus that has been zoned I-1 Industrial since 1998. That site has 14 acres of unused space that could be used to expand production.
McClancy President Reid Wilkerson has been trying to get his facility’s zoning changed to industrial for the better part of this year. Wilkerson said the zoning status was an error by the county in the first place and should have been corrected.
County Planning Director Penelope Karagounis said the process of establishing zoning was much less sophisticated – or accurate – than it is now.
“In 1998, the county did not have a full staff to do the necessary field studies of what parcels were being used for example commercial, industrial, or residential,” she said. “So they relied on each County Council member representing their own district to set the zoning for the properties. “
Residents of BridgeMill and other surrounding communities along S.C. 521 and Possum Hollow Road who spoke at the last three county council meetings said McClancy has always been a good neighbor, but they worry about what else could be developed if the property is re-zoned to industrial zoning and McClancy sells the 27-acres it owns which is not currently in use. Industrial zoning could allow a range of used, from recycling to chemical processing.
In addition to health concerns, residents fear the impact those types of uses could have on their property values.
Terry Montgomery, division president of BridgeMill developer John Wieland Homes, told Council Monday the rezoning would cost $10 million in home sales, property value loss and tax revenue to the county. He said a local Realtor told him two recent clients were reluctant to purchase homes in BridgeMill because of the McClancy zoning issue.
Resident Nicole Beseau Brikett helped organize neighbors to attend the meeting and mounted a social media campaign against the re-zoning request.
“Council was astonished at the citizen outpouring tonight and we are really hopeful as a community that we can reach an amicable resolution with McClancy,” she said.
Following the meeting, Wilkerson agreed to attend a Bridgemill Home Owners Association meeting to discuss his plans with the residents and take questions from the community. Montgomery has set up a call with Wilkerson to discuss a possible remedy that protects the interests of residents and the businesses alike.
Council did not set a date for the third and final reading before adjourning, but officials said a hearing could be held sometime in the next few weeks.
This story was originally published September 17, 2015 at 5:59 PM with the headline "BridgeMill residents add spice to county council meeting ahead of McClancy decision."