Rock Hill council rezones 92.51 acres to OI to enable proposed 105‑acre regional park

Rock Hill City Council voted to recommend rezoning roughly 92.51 acres from single‑family residential districts (SF‑4, SF‑5, SF‑8) and Master Plan Commercial (MPC) to Office and Institutional (OI), a change staff and the planning commission said is more appropriate for a park of the scale being proposed.

The rezoning would allow the city to combine the rezoned parcels with three additional parcels (the city owns one and would lease or acquire the other two) to create a roughly 105‑acre regional park. The sketch plan shown to council includes football and baseball fields, tennis, pickleball and basketball courts, walking trails, playgrounds, batting cages, concession and vendor areas, a community building, parking, and other areas reserved for future development.

Shauna, a city staff member who presented the item, said the rezoning area contains five parcels totaling about 92.51 acres: a roughly 43‑acre parcel at 650 Freedom Road (a Public Works laydown yard), two unaddressed wooded parcels (about 7 and 8 acres), a 21‑acre parcel developed with Arcade Park and two youth ballfields at 200 Florence…