Fire station, deer control talks in Tega Cay

City Council could decide in March on a new fire station in the Stonecrest area.

Council will discuss funding options at a special meeting March 3. Randolph Builders and ADW Architects, companies with a variety of fire station projects in Charlotte and elsewhere regionally, will present the final plan. Both companies have Tega Cay residents as principals.

If the funding conversation proceeds as planned, Council could see a final proposal March 21. Opening would come next year.

“You’re probably looking at a May to June time frame for getting going on construction,” said Charlie Funderburk, city manager. “Then you’re looking at probably a 10- to 11-month construction schedule.”

The city’s current station sits in the older part of Tega Cay, on the main peninsula. Outskirt parts of the city can mean response times at a dozen minutes or more, something that could be halved or better with a new station and road improvements.

The second station would sit across from Stonecrest Villas.

At the Feb. 16 meeting when Council heard an update on the new station, members also tabled talk on the proposed Windhaven subdivision, heard from the owners of a planned mini golf business and moved forward on a variety of zonings to city and Fort Mill School District-owned properties.

Those zonings were to newer public use designations that didn’t exist when the parks, police station, schools and other sites involved initially were joined.

“It’s housekeeping,” Councilman David O’Neal said.

Council didn’t take action following a deer survey presentation from the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources. Jeff Witt, wildlife biologist with the state agency, worked with city employees to survey the city deer population after some complaints by residents. Options following the survey are to do nothing, or bring in sharpshooters to remove some of the deer.

Witt said the survey was limited in that in happened only one night, and it took place exclusively along the golf course to avoid spotlighting near or into residents’ homes. He and city employees covered 8.5 miles in two-and-a-half hours. They observed 47 deer.

That comes to an estimated 67 deer per square mile.

“That number is high for a wild land situation,” Witt said. “In a residential area, it’s not as bad as it may seem.”

Witt said his agency doesn’t have a recommendation for next steps. Communities take varying approaches based on perceived danger to traffic and other concerns.

“It’s just a matter of what the residents feel like they can live with,” Witt said.

Some residents have complained about deer coming near their homes or causing property damage, to the point of the city and state agency coming together. But residents at the Feb. 16 meeting had different takes. Jackie Travieso said a workshop with residents should precede any decision to remove deer.

“I want to understand why and how this topic became a concern,” she said.

Another resident said wildlife makes Tega Cay unique, and people who don’t want wildlife should move to a larger city. Amy Bennison said the deer shouldn’t be harmed based on the city growing.

“Tega Cay has contributed to the lack of forest habitat in the last year-and-a-half,” she said. “The cause of the problem is not the deer or coyotes. They are simply the result.”

The city didn’t take a vote on future action. Councilwoman Jennifer Stalford said she wouldn’t vote to remove deer if and when discussion resumes.

“We don’t have a problem here,” she said. “We have a social issue. People don’t want them eating their shrubs. I’m not voting to kill anything over shrubs.”

This story was originally published February 19, 2016 at 6:50 PM with the headline "Fire station, deer control talks in Tega Cay."