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.
Letter from Don Moniak After the June 21 DRB “Worksession” sent June 21, 2022/10:06 p.m.
Dear DRB Members,
Most sources define “public meetings” as meetings involving public comments. For example, at lawinsider.com:
‘Public meeting means an informal meeting, hearing, workshop, or other public gathering of people to obtain comments from the public or other agencies on a proposed project permit prior to the local government’s decision.”
The New Mexico Foundation for Open Government does not mince words when it asks “is it a (public) meeting?
” A rose by any other name smells as sweet, and a meeting by any other name still gets the job done. It doesn’t matter whether it’s called a work session, retreat, training seminar or phone tree — under the Open Meetings Act, a meeting occurs whenever a quorum of a public body:(a) formulates public policy,
(b) discusses public business, or
(c) takes action.”
The EPA, which has as miserable a record on real public meetings as Project Pascalis, does describe the intent of them in an eloquent fashion:
“Public meetings bring diverse groups of stakeholders together for a specific purpose. Public meetings are held to engage a wide audience in information sharing and discussion. They can be used to increase awareness of an issue or proposal, and can be a starting point for, or an ongoing means of engaging, further public involvement. When done well, they help build a feeling of community.”
And under SC FOIA law, a “meeting” is simply defined as: “the convening of a quorum of the constituent membership of a public body…to discuss or act upon a matter over which the public body supervision, control, jurisdiction, or advisory power.”
Tonite the DRB claimed it held a public meeting, but it was not a public meeting by any acceptable definition of the term.
Here is the link to the AMDC document I referred to after Mr. O’Briant decided to go all North Augustan and summoned an armed, uniformed policeman, lostensibly to haul out by force some recalcitrant senior citizens.
In it, three DRB “special work sessions” are on the list, as are four regularly scheduled City Council workshops. That is seven of the twenty-five. And before you think the rest of the “meetings” cited by the AMDC pertained to Project Pascalis, seven of those occurred before the project was even a notion.
So obviously people are going to be upset when meetings that are described as public turn out to be closed to public comments, and without advance notice. The fact these commentary free sessions are allowed in some legal loophole does not excuse the fact that the law does not require them to be comment free.
Mr. Holley is well aware of the difference between may, must, shall, and should and provided advice that was contrary to the common good tonite. You all had a chance to “build community” and instead treated the long table in a crowded room as a fortress.
If one City of Aiken public body is going to cite these as public meetings, with all the implications of public input and involvement, then as a city public body you have an obligation to do one of two things:
1. Ask the AMDC to not count work sessions in which public comment is prohibited as “public meetings.”
Or
2. Open work sessions to public comments.
In either case, every DRB meeting involving this contentious proposal known as “Project Pascalis,”–a moniker that alone offends the sensibilities of many Aikenites–should identify these rules ahead of time, and DRB members and counsel should keep up with the politics of this situation instead of feigning that your operate in a vacuum.
A few secondary issues from this latest meeting:
a. Tonite, the DRB chair and counsel should have acknowledged the reason for these changes and address the basic qualifications of Board members. If members who recently resigned did so because they were never qualified by virtue of their residency status to begin with, how legitimate were past meetings where unqualified members cast votes?
b. As counsel, Mr. Holley should advise every Board member request a City email address or a separate email server like the AMDC has done with its members. In either case, all new and existing Board members should be made well aware that official email correspondence from a private account is still subject to SC FOIA requests and it is best to separate public from private. Didn’t Hillary teach us that without even trying?
c. Tonite’s workshop failed at a basic level. At least from 530 pm to 7 pm there was no discussion of the suitability of the Apartments/Garage on Richland/Newberry on the site of the historic Johnson Drug Store, Newberry Hall, and Warneke Cleaners. There was only discussion of the suitability of select design elements. This gives a clear impression that the decision is already made, that the DRB, even with three new members with minimal exposure to the project, already accepts the parameters of this part of the project with no reservations other than colors and materials.
While no vote was taken, it sure looked like a decision was already in place.
d. This meeting confirmed that the Newberry Street “encroachment,” a.k.a a “conveyance” in the Newberry St privatization ordinance, was not the developer’s idea, but one first secretly proposed by the AMDC in May 2021 and not brought before public scrutiny until a year later.
This is the politics of the situation to which I refer and Board members should be cognizant of. This entire process was shrouded in secrecy for most of 2021, and to this day transparency is a moving target. If you choose to take part in a charade, then you are complicit in the crimes of Project Pascalis.
Thank You
Don Moniak
Please forward to Ben Lott)
Anonymous Response from DRB Member (rivulet00_swathe@icloud.com). Tue, Jun 21, 2022, 11:06 PM
You are dead wrong … and probably know it!
A publicmeeting is any meeting open to the public and where the public is notified of its time, place and topic as required by law. A public hearing allows for comment by the public, but not all meetings are public hearings. The public is allowed to be in the room and observe at a work session or any public meeting, but not to participate unless invited to.
As DRB members, we have every right to hear from applicants and do our work without the interruption and disruption of “Recalcitrant senior citizens” as you describe yourself. Trust that we will hold public hearings when a vote is scheduled and hear all of your half-truths and twisted conspiracies then. We have to suffer through it by law. I can’t wait.
General assembly and congress meetings are public too, but I dare you to speak up in one of those and see what happens. You’ll be dragged out by your wrinkled, hairy old ears.
Response from Don Moniak to Anonymous DRB member, sent June 22, 10:10 a.m.
Btw meetings of Congress etc are public proceedings.
Have you finished your resignation letter yet? I would like to be the first to make it public.
While the exact origins of Project Pascalis are unknown, the first prominent actor was local developer Weldon Wyatt. Here is a brief update, with new information provided by Aiken County via a FOIA request, on how Wyatt burned the City of Aiken not once, but twice, which raises serious questions about the judgment behind Project Pascalis decision making.
The “First Home Run for the Community” Lands in Foul Territory
On February 5, 2019, Mayor Rick Osbon wrote to Aiken County Council Chair Gary Bunker to endorse the sale and development of the county’s old hospital and administrative building to Wyatt Development Company (which had actually dissolved in 2013). Osbon, who had met with Weldon Wyatt and his son, Tom, four days earlier described their vision as “compelling” and urged a collaboration between county and city:
I hope the City of Aiken and Aiken County can collaborate on this project; one that promises to create an exciting and engaging property at a critical gateway to Our Downtown.
Two months later the County and the latest Wyatt firm, WTC Investments, LLC, reached a purchase and sale agreement for $1.1 million with Aiken County. WTC then pursued a plan for the old hospital that included a 100 room hotel, conference center, 400 space parking deck/garage, and a 150-unit apartment building.
After the City of Aiken Planning Commission approved the concept in May, 2019, WTC Manager Tom Wyatt told the Aiken Standard: “We think this is a home run for the community, for the city.”
After much discussion, we will not be moving forward with contract on the old hospital. We still want to move forward on old county office building with no conditions as we discussed.
The decision took county officials, who were still negotiating in good faith with WTC, off-guard. As County Attorney Holley wrote to Aiken County Council:
We were surprised to learn late Sunday through a very brief email to me from WTC’s attorney that WTC had decided to end the Agreement.
While Massey did not divulge any rationale for the withdrawal, Holley speculated to Council that:
We believe the factors that contributed to WTC’s decision were its failure to obtain economic incentives from the City of Aiken for its original hotel/apartments project; how the revised plan to build apartments only impacted the project; the length of time needed to remove the SCETV tower; the possibility other competing apartment projects could surface in the meantime; its desire to engage in demolition of the Hospital Building and other site improvements before the SCETV tower is removed; and the likely poor reception of Council to its proposal for the County to repurchase the Hospital Parcel, purchase the Council of Aging site, and pay most of WTC’s costs if the SCETV Tower was not removed in the time frame of November 2020 to January 2021.
Fool Me Twice….
One year later Weldon Wyatt and Attorney/Investor Ray Massey were back in the hotel/conference center/apartments/garage business, this time in downtown Aiken.
Their second foray came just four to five months after the announcement of a $600 million Plutonium Settlement between the State of South Carolina and the U.S. Department of Energy, of which Aiken officials soon sought $30 million for Downtown and Northside redevelopment. For a man who had reportedly chased $12.5 of city funds for his old hospital misadventure, this must have been an alluring prospect.
On March 18, 2021, the Aiken Municipal Development Commission announced Project Pascalis, describing how its chair Keith Wood and Aiken Economic Executive Director Tim O’Briant were authorized by to execute an agreement with an unnamed, “experienced and well-capitalized” private developer that had been “identified and recruited” by the AMDC. We now know that developer was a combination of Wyatt firms, GAC, LLC and WTC Investments, LLC (although the first WTC dissolved in January 2021, a second one was registered in May 2021).
Not coincidentally, Attorney Ray Massey’s Aiken Alley Holdings also closed on a deal to purchase 200 and 210 The Alley for $2 million just three days before the Project Pascalis announcement.
Once again, two months after a grandiose Wyatt plan to change Aiken for the better was announced or approved, Wyatt withdrew without providing a motive. Unlike his exit during the old hospital fiasco, this departure was never announced or reported by the AMDC.
Why did the City of Aiken pursue a major redevelopment project with Weldon Wyatt just one year after he and his associates abruptly withdrew from another major project and left Aiken County high and dry? And why did the City of Aiken and the AMDC choose to keep secret the details of his latest plan?
Why did the Aiken Chamber of Commerce and the AMDC choose to bail out WTC Investments, which stood to lose $135,000 in nonrefundable earnest money, instead of pursuing public input while renegotiating with the Hotel Aiken and other property owners?
Aiken officials can answer these questions, but have chosen not to, even as the decision to continue to do business with Wyatt, and now Ray Massey,has already left Aiken taxpayers indebted to the tune of $10 million plus.
Is basing the project on a redevelopment plan approved the year before the first project proposal, and does not include most of the project’s footprint;
Failed to hold a public hearing for that first and only redevelopment plan;
Failed to issue a public advertisement for a Request for Proposals (RFP)
Background on Municipal Commissions and Redevelopment
By law, publicly financed economic redevelopment must adhere to Title 31 of the SC Code of Laws. In regard to Project Pascalis, the most pertinent of these statutes are within Chapter 10, which define the criteria for creating municipal commissions like the AMDC and the rules they must follow.
Under part 30 of this chapter, municipal commissions like the AMDC can be created by the governing body (City Council) if it finds:
(1) that a blighted area or conservation area exists in whole or in part in such municipality,
(2) that the redevelopment of such areas is necessary in the interest of the public health, safety, morals, or welfare of the residents of such municipality.
While the AMDC has broad powers to enact its charge, its “specific” powers defined in Part 90 are to:
“make (i) plans for carrying out a program of voluntary repair and rehabilitation of buildings and improvements and (ii) plans for the enforcement of laws, codes, and regulations relating to the use of land and the use and occupancy of buildings and improvements, and to the compulsory repair, rehabilitation, demolition, or removal of buildings and improvements. The commission is further authorized to develop, test, and report methods and techniques, and carry out demonstrations and other activities, for the prevention and elimination of slums and urban blight.”
The One and Only Redevelopment Plan One for Downtown Aiken
The AMDC was created by ordinance in August 2019 by Aiken City Council, but did not meet until May 2020. One of its first orders of business was to review and adopt a Redevelopment Plan already in progress for downtown Aiken, one compliant with Part 100 that defined nine requirements (1) for a finished plan. This plan was described at the first meeting by Aiken Economic Development Director Tim O’Briant:
We have engaged a firm out of Greenville, SC called Muldrow & Associates to do a very small redevelopment plan, essentially surrounding the Regions Bank Building which is now being retrofitted as the new City Hall. It includes the corner of Laurens and Richland. If this group has any thoughts about Hotel Aiken, it would be appropriate to have those discussions. Whether we come up with anything or not, we can’t really get into it if we don’t have a plan that encompasses that area. He noted that the former Regions Bank building is currently being redeveloped as the new City Hall. He said we would like to get input from the Commission on this as well.
From the very beginning, the AMDC was informed that any redevelopment plan must be specific; a plan must “encompass” the area proposed for redevelopment. The Muldrow plan does not address any redevelopment on Newberry Street (which is not a “blighted” area in any sense of the word) nor Park Avenue (also lacking any blight issues); it proposed no changes in street layouts, and it did not propose to relocate a single business.
In reference to properties east of the Hotel, such as the historic former Johnson Drug Store building, the Muldrow plan specifically states “existing buildings to remain.” All other “redevelopment” is merely streetscape improvements.
The AMDC adopted the Muldrow plan by a resolution a few months later, but never held its own public hearing as required by Part 100:
d) The commission shall hold a public hearing prior to its final adoption of a redevelopment plan. Notice of such hearing shall be given fifteen days prior thereto in a newspaper of general circulation in the municipality.
This clause functions to avoid burying major projects within larger city business proceedings. But the AMDC took the latter approach by forwarding the plan to Aiken City Council, which shortly thereafter approved it following two “public hearings” held during normal City Council business.
There has been no update or amendments to the plan as required by law, and when asked for the Project Pascalis Redevelopment Plan required by SC 31-10-100, the AMDC provides only a link to the Muldrow prepared plan, titled “Redevelopment Plan for Downtown Aiken,” or “Redevelopment Plan One.”
Even without any Plan Two, the AMDC proceeded to announce the existence of Project Pascalis less than eight months later. Although the AMDC kept the details secret, we now know the initial plan pursued by Weldon Wyatt’s GAC, LLC and facilitated by Wyatt and Attorney Ray Massey’s WTC Investments, LLC was to:
demolish everything on the south side of Richland Avenue between Laurens and Newberry Streets
demolish half of the west side of Newberry Street;
force eight businesses to relocate; and negotiate a deal with Newberry Hall to compensate the owners for lost business during construction and options to operate and purchase the new conference center building;
privatize part of Newberry St.
The WTC plan involved purchasing the seven properties from two owners, with $7.5 million going to Neel Shah’s various LLCs holding six of the properties; and $2.0 million going to Myrtle Anderson for Newberry Hall. Wyatt pursued a private-public partnership with the AMDC and City of Aiken, then abruptly withdrew from the negotiations and the purchase and sale agreements in May 2021 just two months after the first announcement of Project Pascalis. The AMDC chose to not disclose this change in plans.
The AMDC Secretly Pursues a New Developer
After Weldon Wyatt’s GAC, LLC withdrew from negotiations for a master agreement with the AMDC, the Chamber of Commerce stepped in and took “assignment” of the properties while the AMDC sought to procure funding to buy them outright. This process was kept secret until November 2021, and was never openly discussed or announced even then.
Instead of formulating a new redevelopment plan, the AMDC instead sent out solicitations for Request for Proposals to select developers. The entire solicitation remains classified as “confidential” and exempt from FOIA by the City of Aiken, although the AMDC has released a summary document.
However, under Part 110(c) of Title 31, the AMDC was obligated to advertise for bids:
c) The commission shall, by public notice, published once a week for two consecutive weeks in a newspaper having general circulation in the municipality, invite proposals and shall make available all pertinent information to any persons interested in undertaking a purchase of property or the redevelopment of an area or any part thereof.
As reported previously, the AMDC did not advertise for bids until two weeks after announcing the selection of RPM Development Partners, LLC as the Project Pascalis developer, pending the successful negotiation of a master agreement.
This was all kept secret through most of 2021, and the AMDC never sought to update its redevelopment plan as required by law. Even as late as November 4, 2021, City Manager Stuart Bedenbaugh denied there was any final plan to demolish the Hotel Aiken and chose not to divulge the original demolition plans, or the fact that the AMDC’s purchase and sale agreements only required inspection of two properties — Warneke Cleaners and Taj Aiken Restaurant.
Board Member Knowles expressed appreciation for the update and inquired as to whether the plans intended to keep Hotel Aiken intact. Mr. Bedenbaugh stated it was too early in the process to know what potential developers may intend for the Hotel Aiken property. — Design Review Board Special Workshop Meeting Minutes, November 4, 2021
To this day, Bedenbaugh refuses to release the full May 2021 solicitation letters and the body of the RFQ that would indicate the original intent of the AMDC.
The Design Review Board meets in another special workshop tomorrow. The Board should be reminded they have no obligation to act on a proposal that is in clear violation of SC redevelopment law, and every right to demand full transparency from City officials.
_______________
References
(1) The nine requirements for a finished redevelopment plan are defined in SC31-10-100(c):
c) The commission’s redevelopment plan shall include, without being limited to, the following: (1) the boundaries of the redevelopment area, with a map showing the existing uses of the real property therein; (2) a land use plan of the redevelopment area showing proposed uses following redevelopment; (3) standards of population densities, land coverage, and building intensities in the proposed redevelopment; (4) a preliminary site plan of the redevelopment area; (5) a statement of the proposed changes, if any, in zoning ordinances or maps; (6) a statement of any proposed changes in street layouts or street levels; (7) a statement of the estimated cost and method of financing redevelopment under the redevelopment plan; (8) a statement of such continuing controls as may be deemed necessary to effectuate the purposes of this chapter; (9) a statement of a feasible method proposed for the relocation of the families displaced.
Yesterday the AMDC issued a list of “25 public meetings and hearings held on Project Pascalis over the last 24 months.” This assertion is false at worst and disingenuous at best, but that did not stop Aiken Economic Development Director Tim O’Briant from repeating this distorted reality to reporters.
Here are just a few general ways in which this document is highly misleading:
First, Project Pascalis was not publicly announced until March 18, 2021. Eight of the meetings occurred before this date. One of these merely involved a potential letter to the existing Hotel Aiken owners. Three others were workshops that discussed downtown development in general.
Second, there were no conceptual designs for Project Pascalis available for public inspection prior to March 1, 2022. Sixteen of the meetings cited by the AMDC occurred prior to this time. Of the nine meetings that have occurred since the first drawings of Project Pascalis was revealed, two of them involved a narrow ordinance pertaining only to Newberry Street; and two were mere updates as part of larger meetings.
The fact is City of Aiken agencies have held only two public meetings, both on April 20, 2022, during which the entirety of the Project Pascalis proposal was presented and discussed. The Aiken Downtown Development Association held a public workshop on June 7th that did not include the entirety of the proposal.
Most important is what meetings have not been held. As of May 9, Aiken City Council had not met as a group with the AMDC and its development team to review and discuss Project Pascalis. For a public body that intends to spend $20-25 million dollars of federal funds from the Plutonium Settlement on this project, this is a disturbing abdication of responsibilities.
The City of Aiken has also not adopted a legally binding redevelopment plan nor held a public hearing to discuss one for Project Pascalis. The July 2020 “redevelopment plan” cited by the AMDCpreceded Project Pascalis and bears no resemblance to it. It does not involve demolition, an apartment complex and garage at Newberry and Richland, a conference center on Park Avenue, or the forced relocation of eight to ten businesses. By law, that redevelopment plan must be amended or replaced, with subsequent public hearings on the updated product.
In fact, according to the minutes from May 16, 202 AMDC meeting, Tim O’Briant commented, quite appropriately:
“If this group has any thoughts about Hotel Aiken, it would be appropriate to have those discussions. Whether we come up with anything or not, we can’t really get into it if we don’t have a plan that encompasses that area.”
In other words, if part of the downtown was not in the redevelopment plan, it was not a part of the redevelopment plan. Newberry Street and the Park Avenue properties were not a part of the 2020 plan. (The AECOM plan is not a legally binding redevelopment plan, it is a well-written strategic guidance plan.)
Mayor Osbon, City Council and the City Manager should request that this highly misleading document be removed from the AMDC website. It serves no purpose other than to further inflame public opinion. In this regard, the words of Robert Stack written in a letter to the editor a week ago are even more pertinent:
““…the Four Way Test is Rotary’s unique approach and process to address conflicts, solve problems and make decisions to achieve desired outcomes and mutually beneficial solutions. That being said, the currently proposed Pascalis project has, to date, achieved the opposite effect by not being fair to all, creating bad will, stressing long-standing friendship and not being beneficial to all.”
The City of Aiken has done better than this and can do better than this.
