Panel reorganization raises concerns

Two members of a committee charged with negotiating development agreements for Bluffton are concerned that their restructured committee is not working the way it should.

New Bluffton Mayor Lisa Sulka restructured the five-member Development Agreement Negotiating Committee and appointed council member Fred Hamilton and Bluffton resident Dee Anderson towhat is now called the Negotiating Committee. Sulka also sits on that board.

Don Blair served on the Development Agreement Negotiating Committee, which handled some of Bluffton's largest annexations over the past decade. He said the original intent of the committee was to negotiate agreements between developers and the town.

Sulka has lessened the emphasis on development agreements and restructured the committee to look at a wide array of issues, including reviewing design plans and annexations, items that the planning commission had been charged with.

"It concerns me that now the committee is reviewing projects. That is the job of planning commission," Blair said last week. "The intent (of the committee) is not the same."

Hamilton and Anderson were appointed to the committee before a January meeting to discuss two projects proposed for opposite corners of the intersection of Buck Island Road and the Bluffton Parkway: developer Frank Fotia's Buck Island Square and developer Wilbert Roller's Old Carolina Shopping Center.

Hamilton and Anderson have been outspoken members of that neighborhood and have led the effort to establish a Neighborhood Plan for the area, which includes preventing commercial development in that community.

Committee members Blair and Josh Tiller, who also are members of the planning commission, said that makes them uneasy.

"The committee was stacked in favor of making sure those two projects didn't get approved," Blair said.

Tiller echoed Blair's sentiments.

"They already had some strong opinions," Tiller said of Hamilton, Anderson and Sulka. There was "already opposition (to commercial development) before we even started. ... It would be better if we had people not directly involved. It makes it hard to have dialogue."

In an e-mail response to those charges, Sulka defended her appointments. "The first council rep (Hamilton) was our mayor pro tem and longest-sitting councilman. The citizen (Anderson) was a person who had a commitment to that community," she wrote.

Hamilton said his opposition to the projects in question reflect the sentiments of the Buck Island and Simmonsville roads community. He said Sulka did not appoint him to the board "with the intention of trying to defeat (the proposals)."

Both Hamilton and Anderson objected to the projects at the January meeting, wherean architect presented changes to both plans. The architect said Roller's project will be scaled back and Fotia will instead build a mobile home park because the site already is zoned residential.

Blair said low-quality residential development could be worse for the neighborhood than a commercial project with stores that serve the community's needs. He suggested ways that commercial development could be done tastefully and with minimal impact.

Blair said he and Tiller attempted to compromise with the developers -- the original goal of the committee.

After discussion, Blair called for a vote on moving forward with Fotia's project. Blair and Tiller voted in favor of allowing small-scale commercial development on the site. Sulka, Hamilton and Anderson voted against commercial development.

In her e-mail, Sulka wrote that she "... stated at that meeting that no votes would be taken. Mr. Blair disregarded that request. That committee was only asked to give feedback to the applicant."

But Blair, who sent Sulka a letter stating his concerns, said the lack of negotiation makes the Negotiating Committee a group that simply reviews development.

Tiller, who has served on the committee for a year, said the meetings used to be "a lot more open to ideas and discussion."

Recommendations from the Negotiating Committee are forwarded to the Planning Commission, then to council -- where Sulka and Hamilton vote again -- for final approval.