Commissioners Approve Oconee Mercantile, Stone Store Rezones

In well-organized and coordinated presentations to the Oconee County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday evening, citizens in neighborhoods abutting the proposed Oconee Mercantile project on U.S. 441 said how they had relied on past county zoning decisions to protect their homes.

The proposed multi-use commercial development and accompanying relocation of The Stone Store not only would adversely affect their residential neighborhoods, they said, but they also would be contrary to what the county had promised with its past zoning decisions.

Specifically, Bill Hale, president of the Chaddwyck Home Owners Association, said the existing zoning guaranteed him and his neighbors a 100 foot buffer between his back yard and any future development, not the 75 being proposed.

Pamela Hall, representing Chaddwyck subdivisions and surrounding neighborhoods, said that she and her neighbors had been promised in a zoning decision back in 2009 that they would be protected from commercial development such as The Stone Store.

In 3 to 2 votes, the Board voted to change the current zoning to allow the mixed use Oconee Mercantile project to go forward and to move The Stone Store from its current location further north on U.S 441 and onto Chaddwyck Drive.

In a separate decision, the Board agreed to give The Stone Store a special use to allow it to store material outdoors on pallets, something it could not do in the business zone without that authorization.

The votes on the two rezones had Commissioners Chuck Horton and Amrey Harden siding with the residential neighbors and Commissioners Mark Saxon and Mark Thomas siding with the developer. Commission Chair John Daniell broke the ties in favor of the developer.

On the special use, granted after the rezone was approved, Harden voted with Thomas and Saxon in favor of the variance and Horton voted in the negative. The chair votes only in the case of a tie.

For more on this story, with a video of the Board of Commissioners meeting, pleases go to Oconee County Observations.