Oral Agreement between Wicked Stick Management and the Southwood Board
-- George Edwards
11/30/06 update: added aerial photograph of the Southwood/Wicked Stick area with an overlay showing the
location and scale of the agreed Wicked Stick zoning district definitions.
If you want to skip to a titled section on this page, click its title in the links below:
Map Showing Showing Agreed Zoning District Locations
Verbal Description of Agreed Zoning District Locations
Aerial Photograph with Overlay Showing Agreed Zoning District Designations
Salient Characteristics of Zoning District Designations
Your petitions were read at a County Council I&R meeting with four councilmen present and its substance presented to
the full Planning Commission. In both cases, the number of petitions at the time and the fact that the petition drive was
still ongoing were announced.
Early on Gary Loftus suggested negotiations with Wicked Stick management and told me subsequently that there was
interest. Ernie Muratori forwarded e-mails that made known our interest in negotiation and found owner interest.
All this may have helped lead Lawrence Langdale to approach us with a very fair proposal. Thank you, Gary and
Ernie and those of you who I am told have collected petitions: Mary Bowe, Arline Muratori, Dick Griffin, Jerry Barker,
Katy Cook, Dot Foley and Don Cyr.
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On November 8 2006, Lawrence Langdale representing Wicked Stick management presented a map of Wicked Stick
and Southwood to Tom Palmer and Arline Muratori representing the Southwood Board of Directors on which he had
marked further Wicked Stick rezonings from those recommended by Horry County Planning staff that were agreeable to
Wicked Stick management. John Danford, an Horry County senior planner, and George Edwards, a Southwood resident,
also attended.
Between this meeting at which Mr. Langdale backed up his earlier suggestions with Wicked Stick management’s
concurrence including some concessions made to the Southwood board members and planning staff’s rezoning
recommendations:
No Southwood residential lot would abut an HC,
Highway Commercial, zoning district.
No Southwood residential lot would be within 300
ft. of a GR7 zoning district, a General Residential zoning district
designation that allows no more than 65 foot high multifamily buildings as opposed to the original GR zoning district
that allowed 120 ft. building heights.
The
above 300 ft. will now be zoned R4, single family residential 10,000 ft. minimum
area lots.
Homes
that originally abutted a Highway Commercial zoning district that allowed 120
ft. high buildings, now would be
separated by a 15 foot buffer to a PR1, Office Professional zoning district that limits building height to 36 feet.
I have scanned in the marked up Southwood/Wicked Stick map showing the rezonings agreed to at the November 8
meeting below. A verbal description follows. Salient characteristics of the various zoning districts mentioned
immediately follow this description.
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Verbal Description of Agreed Zoning District Locations
After a change made on the spot, the final agreement was to rezone a portion of the Wicked Stick golf course property south
of Coventry that planning staff had recommended rezoning from GR (general residential, 120 ft. max. building height) to
GR7 (65 ft. max. building height) further to R4 (35 ft. max. building height,10,000 sq. ft. single family residential lots)
and to rezone a portion of the Wicked Stick property north of Coventry that planning staff had recommended rezoning from
HC (highway commercial, 120 ft. max. building height) to PR1 (office professional, 36 ft. max building height) further to R4.
North of Coventry, every part of Wicked Stick east of a line roughly parallel to the back of the existing Heathmuir lots
extended to Hwy 544 is to be rezoned R4. The golf course property behind the other lots backing on the Beaver Run side
and behind the lots on Windwalk Crossing will remain PR1, office professional, as recommended by planning staff; a 15 ft.
buffer strip is required between R4 and PR1 districts. South of Coventry, 300 ft behind all Southwood residences or
the golf course property line* is to be rezoned R4; in addition, 85 feet from the side of the most western lot (lot #354)
southward 300 ft. will be rezoned R4.
*All the lots bordering Windwood Crossing will be zoned R4 from the residential lot property line to the far side of
the golf course property.
The following is a presentation of the agreed new zoning districts on Wicked Stick in color superimposed on an
aerial photograph of Southwood and some of the surrounding area. It gives a better perspective of the scale
of the agreed districts.
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Aerial Photograph with Overlay Showing the Agreed Zoning District Designations
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Salient Characteristics of Zoning District Designations
HC is Highway Commercial and allows buildings as high as 120 feet.
GR is General Residential -- allows residential of almost any type including multifamily buildings with heights up to 120 feet.
GR7 disallows multifamily buildings exceeding 65 feet.
PR1 is a new Office Professional zoning category with building heights limited to a 36 feet maximum height that allows
administrative, financial, and professional offices; banks/savings & loans; churches, educational institutions; doctor/dentist/chiropractor/optometrist/podiatric offices and clinics except drug & alcohol treatment centers; group homes
except fraternity or sorority; libraries; office parks; research and development centers and cemeteries,
R4 allows only single family residences and requires a minimum lot size of 10,000 square feet.
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John Danford said that he had sufficient information from the meeting to prepare it for the approval of the golf course zoning
committee of the Planning Commission with Lawrence Langdale in attendance to assure that Wicked Stick management was
agreeable.
I would think this would be agreeable to all county government as this was also agreeable to the Southwood Board,
representing the Southwood home owners association. However, it still requires Horry County Council approval, hopefully,
with the Planning Commission’s positive recommendation.
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