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Article and photo by: DAMIAN DOMINGUEZ ddominguez@indexjournal.com

Greenwood took steps Monday toward two new housing developments: more houses in Brentwood Hills and a proposed apartment complex near the Kitson Mill Village.

City council had second reading on an ordinance to annex about 33.6 acres at 1930 Old Laurens Road from the county and rezone it to a planned development district with certain restrictions. The layout would keep the developer to a maximum of 58 units with a 10,000-square-foot minimum lot size.

Todd Bailey, the developer seeking the annexation and rezoning, said new homes built next to the existing Brentwood Hills houses will be brick on three sides to provide a buffer in the building aesthetics.

Harrison Forrester, a Brentwood Hills resident and homeowners association member, said he was in support of the development. He said Bailey had made certain concessions to the HOA, and that some residents had concerns about the development.

Rachel Schiera said she was concerned about the development’s impact on Rice Elementary School and potential traffic congestion if the neighborhood has only one road leading out to Old Laurens Road. Marion Simpson, another resident, asked city council to require that construction crews use a different entrance to the land set for development.

Council member Johnathan Bass said council had explored every option to make a new road into the land, but there was no way to bypass using the existing public roads leading into the development. The ordinance passed second reading 5-2, with council members Patricia Partlow and Betty Boles in dissent.

City Manager Julie Wilkie said the next step will be for Bailey to submit his site plan for the development to the city for review and assessment before he’s approved to build.

Council also had a public hearing on second reading of an ordinance to sell about 6.7 acres of land at 700 Kitson St. to Blackstock Development, which intends to develop the land as a multi-family apartment complex with a similar design to the nearby Kitson Mill Village.

The property is a brownfield, Wilkie said, and use of the land is complicated because of potentially hazardous contamination from its use for more than a century as a mill site. Uptown Greenwood Development Coordinator Lara Hudson said she was excited for this potential development, as it could be a catalyst for bringing parts of Kitson into Uptown.

Second reading on the negotiated sale passed unanimously, with a set price of $350,000.

In other business:

City council voted unanimously to approve first reading on a reduction of a reimbursement the city makes in partnership with Greenwood CPW on lots for development going onto the public sewer system. Wilkie said in the past, CPW reimbursed $800 and the city gave $500 for a total of $1,300 for lots being added to the sewer system. CPW recently reduced their reimbursement to $400, and the city voted to reduce theirs to $250.

The city passed second reading of an ordinance to allow accessory dwelling units on parcels of at least one-half acre. The dwelling unit has to be no more than 1,000 square feet, attached to a primary structure or separate from it with only one accessory unit per lot. About 2,000 lots in the city meet the acreage criteria, though members of council said many of those would be disqualified from having an accessory dwelling unit for other reasons. Council members Niki Hutto and Bass voted against the ordinance, with Hutto saying she wanted a higher minimum lot size.

Council voted to approve first reading of an ordinance that would rezone the former Bowers-Rodgers Children’s Home building to allow Salvation Oaks Recovery Home to use it as a women’s recovery center. Its current zoning allows Oaks to house some women there, but the new zoning would allow for up to 16 residents.

Article can also be found here.

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