A County Comprensive Plan, A City Zoning Ordinance, Another Downtown Aiken Redevelopment Decision and Debate, and City Elections

by Don Moniak
January 10, 2025

Several major developments and events are on 2025’s local political docket. Notable among them are the preparation of a new 10-year Aiken County Comprehensive Plan, the rewrite of City of Aiken’s Zoning Ordinance, the selection of a buyer and developer of the remaining six Project Pascalis properties downtown Aiken, and municipal elections.

Aiken County’s 2025-2035 Comprehensive Plan

As described in The Resiliency Element, Aiken County is required by state law to develop a Comprehensive Plan that serves as a guiding document for future development of unincorporated portions of the county. 

The existing 2014-2024 Comprehensive Plan, which was only an amendment to the 2004-2014 plan, has passed its expiration date; but it will have to suffice until a new one is completed. In practice, the current plan did not go into effect until January 2016; it was passed in December 2015 following a one-year public comment period.

The Aiken County Planning Commission (ACPC) is more than half a year behind schedule on preparing the 2025-2035 plan that will, in its words, provide “a framework for how the County will change, through public and private investment, in the next two decades.  The comprehensive planning process provides residents, property owners, merchants, industry, builders and developers a reasonable forecast of the county’s future. The plan is long-range and seeks to address the County’s future needs for housing, economic development, recreation and cultural resources, and transportation facilities. The plan seeks to balance the desire for growth and development with protection and preservation of the County’s unique natural resources.”

Up until the first of this year, there had been no solicitation of citizen input, even though the issue first ended up on the ACPC’s May 2024 agenda—albeit without the required public notice. At County Council’s December 19, 2024 public meeting and the following ACPC meeting on December 21st, a schedule for four public involvement meetings*, as well as a two month public comment period, was announced.

Soon after the public meetings announcement, a Comprehensive Plan website was finally created. The site contains a link to an interactive map (Figure 1) for making specific comments and a general email address, planning@aikencountysc.gov, as an alternative. There is also a community survey with sixteen questions. The comment period runs through February 28, 2025.

So far, a Demographic and Economic Inventory Report and a Market Analysis Report are also available for review and comments.

*The public information sessions are scheduled as follows.

Public Information Session #1
January 14, 2025, 6:00 pm – 8:00pm
Roy Warner Park
6021 Roy Warner Park Ln, Wagener, SC 29164

Public Information Session #2
January 22, 2025, 6:00 pm – 8:00pm
Aiken Senior Life Services
1310 E Pine Log Rd, Aiken, SC 29803

Public Information Session #3
January 27, 2025, 6:00 pm – 8:00pm
Gregg Park Civic Center
1001 A Avenue, Graniteville, SC 29829

Public Information Session #4
January 28, 2025, 6:00 pm – 8:00pm
North Augusta Community Center
495 Brookside Ave, North Augusta, SC 29841

(At present, no information sessions are scheduled for the more rural areas that surround Silver Bluff and Ridge Spring-Monetta High Schools; while two of the meetings are within incorporated portions of the county. Nor are any daytime sessions or weekend sessions planned.)

City of Aiken Zoning Ordinance/Unified Development Ordinance

The current City of Aiken Zoning Ordinance dates back to 1999. Although numerous amendments such a “tree preservation ordinance” have been incorporated since that time, it is a dated Ordinance with substantial flaws. Unlike a Comprehensive Plan, this is a legally binding document–although one with numerous loopholes such as very wide discretion in the implementation of Planned Residential and Planned Commercial zones.

In January 2024, after two of seven Aiken City Council members endorsed prioritizing a rewrite of the City’s Zoning Ordinance, city staff moved ahead with the project. Seeking public input was not a part of that step forward.

On January 31, 2024, the city’s procurement department issued a Request for Qualifications for a consulting firm specializing in urban planning to undertake leadership of the Zoning Ordinance rewrite.

In June 2024, a review committee consisting of four staff members—the City Manager, Assistant City Manager, and two members of the Planning Department—selected the Chicago, Illinois-based urban planning consulting firm of Houseal-Lavigne to facilitate the process. City Council members were absent from the review and selection committee; one that also decided the process would lead to the creation of broader, more standardized Unified Development Ordinance (UDO).

On July 9, 2024, the proposed contract was presented to City Council during a work session. According the consulting firm’s presentation, the first period of “community engagement” was scheduled for late summer and early fall (Figure 2). Houseal-Lavigne’s $228,000 contract (Pages 161-179) was subsequently approved at the July 9th regular meeting.

According to the meeting minutes, prior to any rewrite “a lot of community engagement to get a sense of what (people) like about the ordinance and what (people) feel needs to be fixed moving forward” would occur. Later in the process, a communications plan would ensue that solicits comments on the draft plans.

Six months later, no opportunities for community engagement and citizen involvement have been announced. The existing Ordinance has yet to be subjected to scrutiny. Since the workshops promised during House-Lavigne’s presentation to Council have yet to materialize, it could be safe to assume the process, like the County’s Comprehensive Plan, could continue into 2026–especially if city residents choose to seriously engage in the process.

Downtown Development

The highly controversial downtown demolition and redevelopment endeavor known as Project Pascalis, which dominated city politics in 2022, was cancelled by the Aiken Municipal Development Commission (AMDC) on September 29, 2022. After months of inertia followed by indecision, in May 2023 the AMDC was dissolved and ownership of the half-block of commercial properties known as the Pascalis properties reverted to city ownership.

At City Council’s December 11, 2023, regular meeting, City Manager Stuart Bedenbaugh presented Council with a detailed procurement plan to find a “real estate firm experienced in marketing property for adaptive reuse and renovation” for the Pascalis properties “primarily fronting the southern side of the 200 block of Richland Avenue West.”

Initially, four of the six remaining Pascalis project properties—the McGhee Building, the Taj Aiken restaurant building, the Holley House motel property, and the Hotel Aiken–were in the package. After some discussion, the Warneke Cleaners property was added to the mix and Council agreed to the approach; one that also was met with no public resistance.

The original plan presented to Council and meeting attendees did contain the caveat that the Hotel Aiken and Holley House could be purchased separately. The presented material stated that:

” Other evaluation criteria being equal, preference shall be given to a buyer who will provide a high-quality historic renovation and adaptive reuse for all of the properties listed above collectively. However, a buyer who proposes solely on the 235 Richland Ave W (Hotel Aiken) and 112 Bee Lane SW properties (Holly House) shall not be excluded.”

However, that thoughtful provision was absent from the Request for Qualifications that was issued only one week later. It will be all or nothing for potential developers.

Two firms submitted proposals for the job of marketing the properties, and the Colliers company was selected for the task. By the time Colliers put together a prospectus for potential buyers and developers, the Beckman Building at 106 Laurens Street SW (home of Vampire Penguin and Ginger Bee) had also been added to the bundle of properties (Figure 3); meaning that the same package as Project Pascalis, minus Newberry Hall, was in play.

In November 2024, Colliers representative Tommy Tapp provided a status update to Council; he described how more than twenty interested parties had expressed interest, and eleven tours of the properties for highly interested potential buyers and developers had been completed.

According to the meeting minutes (pages 9-11), Tapp stated that about half of the twelve parties that were interested enough to request tours are hotel developers, and half are apartment/condo developers; with all of them interested in harvesting historic tax credits. He told Council that the prospect of tax credits “is what is driving the project and the numbers.”

Tapp added that “one of the common questions, even from phone calls, is about parking in Aiken. The number one question that everybody has—what about parking and how much parking is available…Everybody is interested in talking about parking garages. That is a common theme that has come up.”

A Request for Proposals was then issued by Collier’s, and offers were due on December 23, 2024. According to Tapp, he would “collect the offers and review them to see if there is anything significantly missing or anything confusing and ask for clarification.” Once that is done, he will turn those over to the City Manager and “the offers will be for the city’s eyes only.”

Tapp had also stated, at the 16:40 mark of the meeting, that this need for discretion was due to “another concern, is their bid going to be kept secret? They don’t want it shopped around in the press or made public because one of the the criteria is ingenuity and creativity and what they can do with the project.”

Even though excessive secrecy was a contributing cause to the demise of Project Pascalis, no City Council members raised any concern about the perceived need for secrecy regarding final bids for a multi-million package of prominent, city-owned properties.

Elections

Since Project Pascalis, a common refrain on social media pages, and elsewhere, has been “We need new leadership.” That sentiment has commonly been accompanied by support for a “smarter growth” strategy that preserves Aiken’s status as one of South Carolina’s most desirable small cities to reside.

This year, City of Aiken residents who seek more change in leadership will have the opportunity to such change a reality; as four of the seven Aiken City Council seats are on the 2025 ballot. Those seats are currently held by Council members Lessie Price (District 2), Ed Girardeau (District 4 ), Ed Woltz (District 6), and Andrea Gregory (District 5). The latter three were all first elected in 2017 and have now served two terms; while Lessie Price has served her Northside district since 1988. No Council member faced a viable challenger in 2021.

However, the potential emergence of any viable candidates who favor divergence from the current status quo remains murky. Although the Mayoral race of 2023 featured three strong candidates, and ultimately an upset of incumbent Mayor Rick Osbon by only 14 votes, Councilwoman Kay Brohl (District 3) faced no opposition during the primary or the general election; while Councilwoman Gail Diggs (District 1) faced a weak challenger whose vote total was only in the double digits.

At the same time, since voter turnout during municipal elections is chronically poor, council members generally receive vote totals in the hundreds, not thousands. For example, in the 2017 Republican primary, Andrea Gregory won with only 220 votes; while Ed Woltz defeated incumbent Councilman Philip Merry with only 240 votes. Turnout in both the primary and general elections was only eight percent. The lesson is that any well organized campaign can stage an upset of an incumbent or establishment candidate.

The Election Schedule that was announced this week (page 395) is as follows:

July 7: Opening of filing for nomination petitions and other filing of
candidates for nomination in municipal political party primaries or conventions.

July 14: Closing of filing of candidates for nomination by political parties.

August 12: Municipal party primaries.

August 26: Municipal party primary runoffs, if necessary.

August 21: Closing of entries for nomination by petition.

November 4: Election Day.