by Don Moniak
Dear Design Review Board and counsel:
Following is more commentary detailing violations of SC Community Development laws in regard to Project Pascalis. As I have written before, the DRB has an obligation to address evidence of wrongdoing as part of its review. Failure to do so makes Board members complicit in any crimes.
This is not a typical DRB hearing. The applicant is not a developer or private property owner. The City of Aiken bought these properties and is funding much of the development. The AMDC intends to sell the properties at a loss. You simply cannot ignore these facts while claiming to be working for the public.
Project Pascalis Reminder of the Day
By Don Moniak
CC: Aiken Design Review Board.
Warneke Cleaners and Newberry Hall are not Precursors to Blight
As previously reported, the City of Aiken approved a single downtown redevelopment plan (1) that complies with SC redevelopment law in September, 2020, six months before Project Pascalis was announced.
The plan designated nine properties as part of a larger “conservation area,” which is defined in SC Community Development Law as “any improved area that is not yet a blighted area,” and meets a mere three out of fourteen criteria to be deemed “detrimental to the public safety, health, morals, or welfare and may become a blighted area.” So while it was a strange term for lawmakers to utilize, “conservation area” functions as “precursor to blighted area” within the confines of this law.
The fourteen criteria that can lead to “conservation area” designation are: “dilapidation; obsolescence; deterioration; illegal use of structures; presence of structures below minimum code standards; abandonment; excessive vacancies; overcrowding of structures and community facilities; lack of ventilation, light, or sanitary facilities; inadequate utilities; excessive land coverage; depreciation of physical maintenance; or lack of community planning, is detrimental to the public safety, health, morals, or welfare and may become a blighted area.” (2)
The 2020 Redevelopment Plan cited five of the fourteen: “dilapidation, obsolescence, deterioration, presence of structures below minimum code standards, depreciation of physical maintenance.” Subsequently, the properties in the plan were designated for the following future uses: renovation of the hotel and mixed commercial. There was no mention of five story residential and “demolition” is absent in the plan.
Warneke Cleaners and Newberry Hall are also absent in the plan, and are not a part of the “conservation area.” How can these two long time, profitable businesses be described in any way as dilapidated, obsolete, or deteriorating? How many people attending Newberry Hall functions have described it as obsolete or dilapidated? Demolishing Newberry Hall and Warneke Cleaners is not essential to prevent blight because they do not even meet the definition of the precursor to blight.
If a private developer that owned these properties was seeking to demolish these buildings, the case would be made that they have a right to do what they want with their land as long as they comply with the city’s planning and zoning laws.
But a private developer does not own these properties, and this is not a free market project:
—The City of Aiken’s Municipal Development Commission (AMDC) is the owner, the AMDC is chartered under the terms of Chapter 10 of South Carolina’s Community Development Law, and it is obligated to follow that law; and
—RPM Development Partners, LLC is a contractor at this point, and its future as a property owner and developer is entirely dependent on tens of millions of dollars of public funds in financial assistance, and millions of dollars in subsidies in the form of discounted property sales.
(1) https://aikenmdc.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/2020-08-10-redevelopment-plan-one.pdf