The town board of Garland was presented a rezoning request to change a residential area to highway business to allow for additional town development which was unanimously approved.
Michael B. Hardison | Sampson Independent
GARLAND — The town’s Board of Commissioners approved a rezoning request earlier this week that changes a residential property into highway business to allow for further growth, including the location of a Dollar General in the town.
The property fronts North Bladen Avenue and E 2nd Street and is located on 35 E 2nd St., which was rezoned from Residential-85 to Highway Business. The application for rezoning was submitted by Rhetson Companies Inc. with the approval of the property owner Stephen Tatum.
The proposed rezoning was presented during the public hearing Tuesday night and presented by the Mid Carolina Regional Council staffer who detailed the outline of the request for board approval.
“This rezoning request I’ll be presenting is for case RZ-24-02, and the rezoning is for the parcel No. 16009144002,” Abby Manning, Mid Carolina, said. “This property is approximately 0.4 acres in size, is vacant currently and is formally commercial. The surrounding properties are vacant, commercial, formally commercial and residential. The surrounding zoning is Highway Business, R-85 and General Business.
“The Town of Garland Land Use Plan is to distinguish this rezoning, if it is approved, that it will be rezoned to Highway Business from R-85,” she continued. “The Highway Commercial and employment designation in the land use plan is for where this property is located. This defamation is ideally supposed to feature commercial, office and light manufacturing uses.
“These areas are supposed to provide necessary retail, lodging and employment and access to public facilities as this property does have access to public water and sewer.”
Mayor Austin Brown opened up the floor for public comments following Manning’s presentation. Jessica Bowers, attorney and representative for Rhetson, clarified a few more points of the rezoning request.
“As Abby shared with you, this is consistent with the comprehensive plan, I believe it was the 2022 plan,” Bowers said. “Essentially this property, it’s three parcels, two of those parcels are already zoned Highway Business and we’re asking for that third parcel for the recombination to be rezoned Highway Business as well. Just to orient you, this is close to Carter Funeral Home, the Garland Senior Citizens Center, Piggly Wiggly’s in the area, the Subway, Garland Grill and Southern Banks. So it’s situated right in that corridor where this would really complement, we think respectfully, to rezone to have this particular development in the area.”
There were also four points of interest that Bowers asked the board to take into consideration when opting to approve the rezoning request.
”I just ask that you considered, in addition to what Abby said, that this rezoning would be consistent with the adopted comprehensive plan for Garland, and pursuant to ordinance 152.193, subsection D, sub-points one through five. I would asked that you adopt those additional items for rezoning. Those being, number one, the size, the physical condition and other attributes of the property proposed to be rezoned, again, it would be complementary to those contiguous parcels that are already designed highway business.
Bowers continued, “Number two, the benefits and the detriments to other landowners, neighbors and surrounding community. Number three, the relationship between the current actual and permissible development on the track. Number four, why the action is in the public interest and do think it will be helpful to have this particular parcel rezoned so the remainder of the property can be developed for this particular use.
“For those reasons, we just respectfully request that you grant this application to rezone this particular parcel.”
Brown opened the floor for additional public comments, and he made known beforehand that the rezoning request went before the town’s planning board which had sent over their recommendation for approval. Along with their approval, he noted all property owners within 15 feet of the location had been contacted, and to date, they’d received no responses.
There were no public comments following Brown’s remarks and the vote to approve the rezoning request was unanimous.
Reach Michael B. Hardison at 910-249-4231. Follow us on Twitter at @SamsponInd, like us on Facebook, and check out our Instagram at @thesampsonindependent.