Travelers Rest planning commission recommends denial of annexation for proposed 150-room hotel on Paris Mountain

The Travelers Rest Planning Commission on Tuesday recommended that city council deny a request to annex and rezone roughly 38.7 acres on Paris Mountain for a 150-room hotel and related amenities.

Planning Director Jay Martin opened the public hearing, describing case TR2503 RZ and the materials the applicant submitted, including a traffic impact study, natural resources inventory and a statement of intent. The parcels at 2221 Altimont Road and Old Bunkham Road are currently in Greenville County and zoned ESDPM (environmentally sensitive Paris Mountain) and RM20; the developer asked to rezone them to the city'9s FRD (Flexible Review District) to allow a luxury hotel with ballroom, restaurant, spa, trail connections and a proposed public preserve donation.

Kroo Patel, the managing partner of Paris Mountain Association LLC and chief executive of Divine Group, presented renderings, a letter of intent from Marriott and a design approach he said would limit massing, cap building height below the county maximum and protect up to 50 percent open space on the site. Patel said the hotel operation would support an initial 10-year maintenance commitment for the donated park, that stormwater would be handled with underground detention under parking, and that a pump station and force main would connect the project to nearby sewer infrastructure at the developer'9s expense.

Dozens of residents, local environmental groups and technical experts urged the commission to reject the annexation and rezoning. Speakers (including residents, water-resource engineers, architects and attorneys representing conservation organizations) raised consistent concerns about four issues: traffic and parking for events, stormwater and long-term impacts to headwaters in the Reedy River watershed, emergency access and wildfire risk on steep, narrow mountain roads, and missing or incomplete studies for the project'9s northern parcel.

Calvin Armarding, a Travelers Rest resident, said the developer'9s materials had once included a 750-person ballroom limit but that the occupancy cap had been removed from public documents. He told commissioners that without a committed occupancy limit they could not reliably assess parking or event traffic; the developer'9s preliminary designs show about 266 parking spaces and the applicant said on the record that valet, shuttles and staged overflow plans were under review.

Technical speakers echoed those practical concerns. David Anderson, a local architect, questioned the project'9s sewer and cost assumptions and said the application was loosely defined for a site with steep slopes and forested wetlands. Ben Lord, a water resources engineer and Friends of the Reedy River board member, and Rebecca Wade of Upstate Forever pressed for full jurisdictional-waters and endangered-species reports for both parcels rather than only the southern portion. Multiple speakers said environmental reports posted online omitted analysis for the northern parcel identified as ESDPM by Greenville County.

Environmental attorneys from the Southern Environmental Law Center and the South Carolina Environmental Law Project said the annexation and rezoning would be inconsistent with Travelers Rest'9s comprehensive plan and risk irreversible harm to the mountain'9s headwaters and habitat. Several speakers warned the commission that approving spot annexation could invite litigation from Greenville County or neighboring landowners.

The applicant and staff responded point-by-point in a Q&A period. Patel confirmed the ballroom'9s planned capacity of 750 (the hotel ballroom will be divisible into smaller rooms by partition walls), said the final traffic study submitted to city staff was revised to include accessory uses, and described underground stormwater detention and a proposed pump station tying into a manhole near Trailblazer Park. Jay Martin said Greenville County Land Development will re-review and require updates to the jurisdictional-waters and protected-species studies during permitting.

Commissioners debated the application'9s broader consequences before voting. Several members said their central worry was the precedent annexation and rezoning could set for Paris Mountain and neighboring properties, and whether the FRD approach would open the way for higher-intensity development elsewhere. The motion before the commission was to forward a recommendation to city council to deny the annexation and rezoning; the commission approved that recommendation by show of hands and voice. The planning commission'9s recommendation is advisory; city council will take the final vote.

What happens next

The commission'9s recommendation will be transmitted to Travelers Rest city council for consideration. Staff and multiple speakers emphasized that several studies will need updating for any future permitting step, including jurisdictional-waters delineations, protected-species surveys, and final engineering for sewer and stormwater systems. Several public speakers urged city council and staff to require ironclad, written commitments in any development agreement and to withhold approvals until outstanding technical questions are resolved.

The planning commission record and the application package (TR2503 RZ) include the developer'9s statement of intent, the traffic study, the natural resources inventory, water- and sewer-availability letters, and a preliminary site plan; several community organizations asked the commission and staff to require delivery of additional documentation for the northern parcel before any further approvals.

The city council is the final decision-maker and is expected to review the commission'9s recommendation at a future meeting; scheduling and council procedure were not set on the record at the hearing.