FLORENCE — Many Windsor Forest and Grove Park residents say a proposed additional emergency access road makes them worried for their safety.
Kim Roberts, president of the Windsor Forest Neighborhood Association, said residents are concerned about people on foot and bicycle who could bypass any gates placed along the proposed road.
After the Florence County Planning Commission on Tuesday unanimously approved a sketch plan to add 14 lots to the subdivision, Chairman Peter Knoller said the road would be for emergency responders only. That received a series of “No” responses from several audience members.
“We are concerned about the ability to properly control that road. ... Safety is very important to us,” Roberts said after the commission’s meeting.
The additional road would be a 30-foot-wide emergency access easement designed to support a 75,000-pound firetruck. It would run across a private cornfield from Parson’s Gate, in the subdivision, to West Darlington Street.
Windsor Forest currently has two entrances along Hoffmeyer Road and adjoins the Grove Park subdivision, which has three entrances along the same road, Roberts said.
Developer Bubby Floyd said he would be required to build the road if he expands the subdivision.
“I don’t want to build the road; I don’t want to get anybody mad,” he said after the meeting.
Floyd also said gates would stand on either end of the road and that only he, firefighters, law enforcement officials and the farmer of the land would have keys.
The meeting chambers were nearly full with Windsor Forest and Grove Park residents, who didn’t get to speak during the meeting.
The planning commission doesn’t typically hold public hearings on the approval of sketch plans for subdivisions.
“We’ve spoken to several people, we’ve spoken to (Florence County Planning Director) Mr. (Bill) Hoge, and that’s the way it is,” Knoller told the crowd.
The commission also recommended adding sidewalks in Windsor Forest, which are not required and don’t exist anywhere else in the subdivision.
The commission also voted unanimously to deny a rezoning request by Bill Lockhart, who as commission vice chairman recused himself from the vote and left the meeting room.
Lockhart had requested to rezone about 32 acres off Whippoorwill Road to a residential zoning with a smaller lot size so that he could build new homes in the Carolina Trace subdivision, he said after the meeting.
Joe Mills, who lives in the subdivision, told the commission he’s concerned that the new zoning could allow Lockhart to add doublewide trailers into a community of stick-built homes.
Lockhart said that wasn’t his intention. The land’s zoning requires a minimum lot size of three-fourths of an acre, which isn’t economically feasible for building a house, he said.
Lockhart’s request will first appear before Florence County Council on Oct. 16.
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