Planning Commission votes against Sam's Club

With a huge crowd prepared to pounce against the proposed Sam's Club on Whiskey Road, architect Jamillah Muhammed tries to explain design changes made to meet the City of Aiken's guidelines.

Dozens of southside residents sent a message Tuesday to the world's largest retailer, and the City of Aiken's Planning Commission concurred: Not in our neighborhood.

The planning board voted unanimously to recommend that City Council reject a concept plan for a new Sam's Club discount warehouse near the intersection of Whiskey and Powderhouse roads. The "no" vote came after a 90-minute barrage of anti-Sam's Club arguments from residents of Elmwood Park, College Acres, Stratford Hall and other neighborhoods around the proposed store location.

The concept plan will now go to City Council for first reading at its August meeting.

In moving to reject the Sam's Club plan, Commission member Bill Reynolds noted that developing commercial properties in front of residential communities along Whiskey Road is consistent with the City's Comprehensive Land-Use Plan. However, he believed the location was wrong.

"We are supposed to follow the Comprehensive Plan, even though it's a guideline, unless there's a compelling reason not to do so," Reynolds said. "I think in this case, there is a compelling reason not to follow the Comprehensive Plan, and that is that this particular application represents probably the most intense commercial use of the property in question."

Reynolds also said that the City doesn't "fully understand the traffic issue, particularly with trucks." Plus, there was one additional, perhaps more powerful influence on the Commission's rejection:

"It's apparent that the neighbors in the area are dead-set against it. So therefore, I think it is not in the public interest or the community interest to go forward with this project," he said.

That logic doesn't wash with officials at Wal-Mart Stores Inc., who argue that the Sam's Club is to be built on land previously annexed by the City in August 2003 with Planned Commercial zoning.

"This parcel has already been approved and zoned by the City as a major commercial shopping center with outparcels, and the traffic study that was done has been approved at the same time already by the City. We're not looking to rezone. We were just looking for a site plan approval tonight," said Tara Stewart, spokesperson for Wal-Mart Stores Inc. "We're happy to go back to the drawing board with our architects and work it out so that we can come to Aiken and serve our customers. We know there are a lot of folks real excited that we're coming."

Among the issues that opponents of the Sam's Club argued was the 134,723-square-foot store would increase traffic along Whiskey Road.

However, in its proposal to the Planning Commission, the property's developer, Nordahl & Company Inc., noted that a traffic study was prepared in 2003 with the annexation proposal for a mixed-use development at the site. That development included the development of a shopping center upfront, with the Kensington subdivision to the rear of the land.

Plans for a Whiskey Station shopping center were approved by the City Council in June 2005, but the center was never developed.

"Roger Dyar, the City's on-call traffic engineer, has determined that the proposed use would generate less traffic than the uses on which the updated study was based," the Planning proposal stated.

Among those who spoke against the Sam's Club was Carole Carver, a resident of Elmwood Park, who said she collected 221 signatures on a petition opposing the warehouse club's desire to build on the edge of her neighborhood.

"I am a Sam's member and I'm not opposed to them coming here. It's just that there's so many other places in Aiken that are more appropriate," she said. "There's a lot of property in Aiken that would not be by six neighborhoods. Why is this the best place to put it in Aiken? It's not."

Reynolds asked Carver if she had spoken against the zoning approved by the City in 2003 or the concept plan approved last June.

"This is the third development to come into this property, and we have fought every single one of them," Carver said. "I have asked this repeatedly: Why can't this whole area not be residential?"

The consistent argument against the Sam's Club was peppered with personal stories from people worried about the impact the warehouse store would have on traffic, property values and the quality of life in their neighborhoods.

Bryan Grant and his wife are raising their three sons - ages 5, 6 and 8 - on Coker Drive in the College Acres subdivision. He believes the neighborhood will become a "thoroughfare for people coming and going to Sam's Club."

"My children will be the fourth generation to live in my house. I'm much more concerned with their safety in my neighborhood than I am with my property values," Grant said. "If Sam's Club is approved to be put on that plot of land, can you imagine the faith that's going to be lost in the Planning Commission and the City leaders?"

Margaret Stephens lives on Heathwood Drive with her Muscovy ducks and five geese she calls her "watchdog geese" because they alert her to unwanted visitors on her property. She was worried that traffic from the Sam's Club would threaten her feathered friends.

"I want to keep my critters where they're at," she said. "There are other places out there, far away from this area. I want people and my geese, not a bunch of businesses around my area."

County Council member Scott Singer, who arrived as the discussion approached the one-hour mark, urged the Planning Commission to delay action on the Sam's Club concept plan because of pending discussion and potential action on connector roads around the Whiskey Road corridor.

"If this Sam's Club is built without us first doing the proper improvements and infrastructure with roads in that area, we are going to exacerbate a really, really serious problem," Singer said. "Is this a permissable use for this property? The answer is yes. Do they appear to meet all the City's development standards? The answer is yes. But also you've got to take a step back and ask: Is now the right time and does this make a lot of common sense? I would say that it makes good sense but not at this point in time."

In other action, the Planning Commission:

• voted to recommend annexation of 661.55 acres south of Woodside Plantation and north of Anderson Pond Road for the fourth phase of Woodside, the new Hollow Creek at the Reserve, a planned residential community that will include 1,045 homes and the new Fuzzy Zoeller-Clyde Johnston golf course already under construction;
• voted to recommend annexation of a 1.15-acre lot at the northwest corner of Silver Bluff and Town Creek Roads with Limited Professional zoning so that an orthodontist office can be built and receive City services; and
• opposed rezoning a 15.68-acre lot on East Pine Log Road east of Douglas Drive from Residential RS-15 to RS-8 to allow development of single-family houses.