AMDC is knowingly violating state law and official city planning process. Stop this Bait and Switch.
To: City of Aiken Design Review Board (rseymour@cityofaikensc.gov)
Re: Known violations of SC Community Development Law
As described previously, the City of Aiken’s Municipal Development Commission is proceeding with Project Pascalis in violation of SC Community Development Law. The AMDC and City officials are quite aware of the law governing their very existence and limitations on their powers.
Here are two examples of this knowledge:
In a June 12, 2019, City of Aiken memo from Economic Development Director Tim O’Briant to City Manager Stuart Bedenbaugh, regarding “questions posed during public comment” regarding the ordinance proposed to form the AMDC:
The first question he addressed was:
“Will the Proposed commission reduce public participation and/or reduce approval to a single public hearing?”
His answer was a clear no:
“The commission would actually add additional opportunity for public review and input. Any plan to be considered for a recommendation to City Council by the Commission would require advertisement of a public hearing 15 days prior to consideration. Once such development ..plan recommendation is passed by Commission, the project itself would move through the planning commission to determine compliance with the comprehensive plan and all zoning requirements, and the Design Review Board as required. Then, and only then, would City Council consider the project recommendations through the regular two reading, public hearing and approval process. ..”
Mr. O’Briant then cited City Ordinance 31-10-100 to support his position.
This was the correct answer.
A second example occurred at the first AMDC meeting in May 2020. According to the meeting minutes, Mr. O’Briant discussed a “very small redevelopment plan” prepared by Arnett Muldrow and Associates:
“essentially surrounding the Regions Bank Building which is now being retrofitted as the new City Hall. It includes the corner of Richland and Laurens. 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 the area”
This too was the correct perspective.
So here are two concrete examples of a city official displaying full awareness of the laws governing the AMDC and the municipal code governing the City of Aiken’s public process.
Yet, here we are two years later and those laws and ordinances have knowingly not been followed:
1. There was no public hearing proceeding the two readings of the Redevelopment plan; and
2. The approved redevelopment plan has not been amended to allow for demolition, to account for business relocations, to address the partial privatization of Newberry Street, and to include the properties housing Newberry Hall and Warneke Cleaners; and
3. The planning commission step was skipped despite the fact this project has nearly doubled in size since March 2022.
These violations in the law constitute a genuine, illegal bait and switch. If the DRB acts on this demolition request, it is complicit in this illegal bait and switch.
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.
