Planning commission OKs rolling doors at Lowe's store
Columbia County planning commissioners voted March 16 to allow a future Evans Lowe's to have rolling doors on the front of its building.
At the meeting, Burks Mountain Road also moved a step closer to being paved.
Kendall Jones, representing the firm Hull Storey, the developer of the Lowe's that will be built at Washington Road at Industrial Park Drive, requested and won variances from an Evans Towne Center Overlay District prohibition against rolling doors on the front of a building and limits on the size of the signage on the building.
Jones said the doors will be nicer than those at most Lowe's stores. The variance for the signage requested that signs be allowed to take up 3.1 percent of the square footage of the front facade, which is greater than the 3 percent permissible under code.
Also approved Thursday was the plan to pave Burks Mountain Road in the northern part of the county near Pollards Corner.
The $1 million paving project, which is one of 46 proposed projects to pave dirt roads in the county, is divided into two phases.
The first phase would pave the road from Washington Road to Rosemont Road. The second phase would extend the paving to the road's end near the Savannah River.
Some area scientists said the second phase would involve straightening the road and might endanger two state-protected plant species and a species new to science found only on the mountain.
Columbia County Planning Director Jeff Browning assured planning commissioners that the construction department was willing to work with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources to minimize the impact paving might have on the area.
The second phase is not scheduled to be completed for four to five years, Browning said. The proposal, which passed unanimously, had been tabled twice since its initial hearing Feb. 17.
The next meeting of the planning commission, which was scheduled for April 4, has been moved to Thursday to avoid Master's Week traffic.
In other action at the March 16 meeting, planning commissioners:
- Approved the preliminary plat for Amberley Section II in Riverwood Plantation, including a road that will connect Riverwood Parkway with Washington Road through a future planned retail complex.
- Approved final plats for Ashbrooke II and III on Chamblin Road and Berkley Hills I on William Few Parkway, and preliminary plats for Woodlief IV on Wells Drive off Hereford Farm Road and Bartram Trial III on Columbia Road.
- Denied a rezoning of 9.15 acres in the 4500 block of Hereford Farm Road that would have added a Residential Cluster Overlay to the site's R-2 zoning.
- Tabled a rezoning request by David Bostick, of Wrens, for a subdivision with 406 planned home sites and a retail strip on 193 acres on Wrightsboro Road west of Grovetown.