Park plan gets mixed response

A proposed system of signs and kiosks to direct downtown visitors to points of interest received a warm reception from Aiken City Council. First draft of a plan to build a park at the corner of Richland Avenue and York Street was less well-received.

The sign system was conceived by Alison Barber and Gifton Gammon, two graphics design students at USC Aiken, and was presented at Monday night's Council meeting by their professor, Michael Fowler.

The proposed signs employ a color scheme of dark royal blue, light blue and antique gray, as well as a new oval emblem based on a common design found in City-owned ironwork around Aiken.

"It's meant to evoke the crossing parkways around the City," Fowler said of the emblem.

The plan suggests five kiosks at high-traffic locations downtown, featuring a map of area streets pinpointing individual shops, and free-standing and building-mounted signs at locations such as the Farmers Market, the Aiken County Museum and the Aiken Center for the Arts.

Janet Morris, executive director of the Aiken Downtown Development Association, said the City could apply for matching grants from the South Carolina Heritage Corridor to pay for construction of the kiosks and signs.

City Council decided to study the designs and consider them at its next meeting.

Later, the Council sent the designers of the proposed park at Richland and York back to the drawing board.

Michael Anaclerio of the Aiken Corporation contracted with a landscape architect to create an overhead sketch of the lot, which the City recently purchased for $270,000. The plan includes a central gazebo with a fountain inside, walkways and a parking lot on the east side for about 15 cars.

However, Wilkins Byrd and others expressed worry that the elaborate arrangement of the trees and the gazebo might block the Richland Avenue view and "the true importance" of the planned African-American Cultural Center adjacent to the park.

"Very few buildings have a side elevation that is as dramatic as the front elevation. This is one of them," Byrd said.

Dacre Stoker, executive director of the Aiken County Open Land Trust, also argued that the park design incorporated too many hard surfaces and that rain falling on the park would flow into the City's stormwater drains and finally to Hitchcock Woods. He recommended that the proposed parking lot use bark or some other surface that would allow rainwater to be absorbed.

Stoker also encouraged the City to plant native vegetation so that non-native vegetation would not flow into Hitchcock Woods.

Hearing these concerns, City Council asked Anaclerio for additional renderings that would show how the park's trees might look from Richland Avenue. The City also will take additional input on the design at a later public meeting to be announced.

On another hot-button issue, City Council was to have considered second reading of a request to rezone property at Colleton Avenue and Williamsburg Street from Light Industrial to Residential RS-8 to allow construction of up to seven homes on the 1.59-acre lot. However, the developer asked for the issue to be postponed until a later meeting.

Several residents of the neighborhood had spoken against the development at an earlier meeting and at Planning Commission, complaining that the proposed zoning was too dense.

"It's not a dead issue, by any means," said Douglas Jones, who had asked for RS-6 zoning to build eight homes on the land, a number that was reduced by City Council on first reading. "We have not given up the fight yet."

In other action, the City Council:
. got its first look at the concept plan for the Shoppes at Richland and the new Wal-Mart Supercenter at the intersection of University Parkway and Richland Avenue and approved first reading of the plan and annexation of 23.6 acres of the 48-acre tract where the "retail village" is to be built;
. reappointed Charles Simons as the City's municipal judge and appointed Tracy Carroll as the new assistant municipal judge to oversee the City's new livability court, which is expected to begin later in the spring;
. approved a $900,000 loan to the residents of Gem Lakes subdivision to purchase the neighborhood's sewer system from United Utilities Inc., to be repaid over 15 years by surcharges on customers' sewer bills;
. approved the sale of a Fairfield Street lot to Ketan Patel for $12,000 with the condition that a new house will be built within a year;
. voted to abandon a sewer line easement in the Portofino subdivision behind Aiken Mall;