Sumter County council advances two rezoning requests and approves third reading on a third

Sumter County Council voted on Feb. 10 to advance two rezoning requests to public hearings and approved third reading on a separate rezoning.

Planning staffer Helen Rubin told the council that RZ 25-24, a roughly 14.05-acre parcel on Bridges Road owned by Shonda Sumter and Mark Hurley, seeks rezoning from Agricultural Conservation to General Residential. Rubin said parts of the site lie in a special flood-hazard area and contain potential wetlands, and noted there is no public sewer available. She said septic-system requirements under DES mean higher-density lot sizes (6,000-square-foot lots) may not be feasible and that staff would prefer rezoning to R-9 or R-15 rather than GR. Rubin also said the Planning Commission recommended denial of the request primarily because applicants were not present at the commission hearing.

A council member moved to give RZ 25-24 first reading to allow public comment at the hearing; the motion passed.

Separately, Rubin presented RZ 25-26, an application covering about 48.46 acres made up of 10 parcels seeking to move from Conservation Preservation to Agricultural Conservation. She said eight of the ten parcels are on private roads, many predate the 1999 ordinance, and the minimum lot size in CP is five acres while AC permits one-acre minimums, which would allow limited conveyances to family members. Rubin said the Planning Commission recommended approval and that the request sits inside the military protection planning area near Manchester State Forest and the Point Set Electronic Combat Range, so noise-notification considerations will continue to apply. Council approved first reading to move RZ 25-26 to a public hearing.

The council also took third reading and approved RZ 25-22 at 250 Progress Street after staff reported the applicant had met with a concerned neighbor and the Planning Commission continued to recommend approval.

What happens next

First readings for RZ 25-24 and RZ 25-26 mean the council will hold public hearings on those items before taking final action. For items where staff flagged septic limitations or floodplain constraints, council members pressed for clarity on what lot sizes and septic feasibility residents could expect at later hearings.

Quotes

“Part of this property is in a special flood hazard area,” Helen Rubin said, noting the site flooded in 2015 and “it stayed wet for quite a while during that event.”

The meeting record shows the council approved the procedural first readings and the single third-reading approval without a recorded roll-call tally in the transcript; formal tallies, if recorded later, will appear in the official minutes.