July 28 to August 8: Early voting for primary
August 12: District 6 Primary.
August 21: Closing of entries for nomination by petition. 
November 4: Election Day.

Status of the Rewrite of the City of Aiken’s Zoning Ordinance

The next City Council will be responsible for helping to craft and ultimately approve a rewrite of the Zoning Ordinance, which has been retitled as the “Unified Development Ordinance” (UDO). The UDO will govern all future development for the foreseeable future; it will help determine what Aiken will look like in the coming decades.

In January 2024, the City of Aiken issued a Request for Qualifications for a consultant to facilitate a rewriting of the Zoning Ordinance. In July 2024, the Chicago-based firm of Houseal and Lavigne was chosen by a committee of four city employees–City Manager Stuart Bedenbaugh, Assistant City Manager Mary Tilton, Planning Department Director Marya Moultrie, and Planner Richard Cowick. City Council had no input on the selection process; it only validated the final choice.

Information on the bids was recently obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request.

Three firms submitted bids: Chicago-based Houseal and Lavigne, Charleston and Kansas City-based White Smith Cousino, and Charlotte-based Freese and Nichols.

The latter only submitted a four-page skeletal bid and received the lowest collective grade of 311 out of 400 points. Their monetary bid was $179,000.

According to the FOIA response, White Smith Cousino worked as consultants during preparation of the City’s 2017-2027 Comprehensive Plan. The firm’s bid and their website indicates widespread experience with communities across the Southeast.

Their 38-page submittal contained a detailed schedule and breakdown of tasks for completing the job; including a commitment of 160 hours of “stakeholder and public engagement.” They also made reference to the importance of historic preservation.

Houseal and Lavigne has more limited experience in the Southeast, and had no previous experience with Aiken. Their 26-page submittal contained no details of the tasks at hand; it was predominantly a review of the firm’s background. No reference was made to historic preservation issues.

The City awarded the job to Houseal and Lavigne for $208,000. Planning Director Moultrie and Planner Cowick both gave the firm’s proposal a perfect grade of 100.

Overall, White Smith Cousino scored a collective numeric grade of 339 out of 400; whereas Houseal and Lavigne scored a 379. (see review files in FOIA response).

The monetary bid by White Smith Cousino is unknown because City officials claim it cannot be found and thus was not part of the FOIA response.

A Rocky Start

To date, Houseal and Lavigne has experienced a rocky start, largely due to the minimal amount of public involvement prior to their first presentations on initial recommendations.

The firm and the Planning Department hosted a single, two-hour long, informational public drop-in session at the City Municipal Building on a cold rainy evening this past February. It only attracted 26 people. No similar session was held on the Southside of Aiken.

A survey was also posted online. As of June 2nd, after four months, only 125 people had completed the survey.

In early May, Houseal and Lavigne and the Planning Department began to present initial recommendations through the use of powerpoint presentations; whereas the final recommendation documents remained (and continue to remain) in undisclosed drafts.

The firm’s first stop was a Design Review Board (DRB) work session on May 8th; where Board members expressed concerns over a proposal to shift more power to the Planning Department and redraw historic overlay boundaries. Another issue raised was the development of recommendations without any initial consultation with the Board. (A video of the two-hour presentation and discussion is available here.)

According to the sanitized minutes of the sometimes chaotic meeting, Board members also expressed concern about the lack of preparation time and failure to provide an entire report before the meeting. Two months later, the final recommendation report on the historic districts remains unavailable on the Planning Department’s UDO webpage.

The next stop was a June 2nd joint work session with City Council and the Planning Commission; which was attended by approximately 30 citizens. (An audio of that meeting can be found here and the meeting minutes can be found here).

City Manager Stuart Bedenbaugh began the meeting by acknowledging that reception to the process had not been positive; stating that:

“We have received comments from all sectors, and they have been largely negative.”

The issue of the lack of meaningful citizen involvement was summarized by the first speaker, Aiken resident Linda Johnson:

She stated she thought the presentation had some good work and a lot of great ideas. However, she does have some issues with the process that has happened so far. The process so
far did not include interviewing the Design Review Board, the Board of Zoning Appeals or other appointees to other commissions, and stakeholders. She was baffled how they could come up with all the strengths and weaknesses without having talked to those people. (From meeting minutes, pages 6-7)

Johnson also asked for a show of hands from Council and Commission members who had taken the online UDO survey. Only one of the twelve officials, Councilwoman Kay Brohl, acknowledged taking the survey.