County staff proposes 'legacy use' rule allowing historic uses to be reestablished under narrow criteria

County planning staff brought a proposed zoning text amendment to the Cherokee County Board of Commissioners that would create a "legacy use" pathway to reestablish historically significant pre‑zoning uses.

Planner Thomas Trawick said staff has drafted a definition and a set of review criteria and intends to bring the item to a public hearing Jan. 21, 2025. "We're defining a legacy use as a use associated with the lives or works of persons of general significance in the history of Cherokee County," Trawick said, listing factors including cultural, social or economic significance and compatibility of exterior materials and scale with a historic building.

The draft would allow administrative reestablishment of a use if it ceased for six months or less; discontinuances between six months and two years could be considered by the board on a case‑by‑case basis. Trawick also described a primary threshold the draft initially treated as a consideration: whether a structure that previously contained the use has "been in existence since at least 01/01/1969, when zoning was established in Cherokee County." He said the draft limits the reuse mechanism to uses compatible with current ONI or NC zoning districts and suggests a 25% cap on enlargement of a historic building to preserve recognizable scale.

Commissioners pressed staff to make the presence of an actual building a clear trigger. The chair said the board's "compundance of wishes" leaned toward making the survival of a pre‑1969 structure a requirement rather than merely a factor to weigh. Trawick agreed to revise the wording and separate required "use conditions" from discretionary "review criteria" before the public hearing.

Next steps: staff will update the draft language to reflect the board’s direction and present the revised text at the Jan. 21 public hearing. No formal vote was taken at the work session.