The Florence County Planning Commission voted Tuesday to only enforce a code that regulates unsafe, abandon or dilapidated structures if law enforcement requests it.
The Unsafe Structure Abatement Code of Florence County requires the alteration, repair, removal or demolishment of structures that don’t provide a minimum level of safety to the public.
This month, Florence County Planning Commission staff members added to the code and brought the matter before the body for consideration.
The code can be enforced only after a member of law enforcement has submitted a written compliant about a piece of property that is thought to be a hazard to the public or a haven for crime.
The only exception to the code would be structures that are registered as historical buildings, he said.
The commissioners voted in favor of the stipulation.
Many think if it were not limited to law enforcement, the code would be too open and anyone could complain about anything, Florence County Planning Director William B. Hoge said.
Residents could complain about dilapidated barns or old sharecropping homes on rural farms and the landowner would be required to spend money to fix or demolish a structure that really isn’t bothering anyone, Hoge said.
Florence commissioners also voted to allow a Columbia developer to relocate a drainage ditch that runs through the center of the property where he intends to build.
The private ditch, located at West Palmetto and Ebenezer Roads, is more than seven feet deep and needs to be relocated in order to better develop the property where a Lowe’s Food Store will be built, Columbia developer Stan Harp told the planning commission.
The ditch would have to be made steeper to save space and the easement width would have to be reduce for maintenance purposes, Hoge said.
Florence County Planning Commission member Jody Lane said he wondered how safe the ditch would be if Harp’s company altered it.
“Children play in that ditch now, I think it’s a safety factor, Lane said.
Children can get in and out of the ditch, but if the ditch is made steeper or tiled, then someone could be trapped or injured, Lane said.
“If you say you are going to tile it, I’m going to vote for it,” Lane told Harp.
Tiles could make it more difficult for someone to get out of the ditch, he said.
Harp said he probably wouldn’t put tiles in the ditch, mainly because it would make the project more expensive.
The commission approved the request to alter the ditch, on the condition that the developer notify the body of his safety plan at the appropriate time.
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