ANSON COUNTY — During Tuesday’s Anson County Board of Commissioner’s meeting, commissioners voted to approve rezoning land that is currently zoned light industrial to Rural Agricultural (RA) 3 in order for the landowner to proceed with building single family homes on each parcel of his land.
“The summary of this request… Is three separate parcels that are currently zoned as light industrial. In total the three parcels are a little over 30 acres. The request is to zone them from light industrial to RA3,” explained Planning Director Nick Addison.
He added as a straight rezoning request there are no conditions imposed.
“If they are rezoned, they are allowed to pursue any permitted use within a RA3 district.”
As it stands, the parcels in question are currently rural and agricultural in nature, with the exception of Steel Mechanical Service, which has a facility on some of the land.
“The other thing to note regarding this property is there are some wetlands located on the back portion of two of the lots associated with a stream … they are designed as a 100-year flood zone, or [having] a 1% chance of flooding,” said Addison.
When dealing with rezoning, Addison mentioned the need to ensure the property aligns with the comprehensive land use plan Anson County adopted back in April of 2021.
“In that plan, it identified regions of the county as working farm and rural living land uses. In its current designation as light industrial, that is not compatible with the land use plan. Rezoning it RA3 does make it compatible with the land use plan and it would encourage things such as low density single family homes and preserve the agricultural and rural character of the region,” he clarified.
According to Addison, the planning board unanimously voted in favor of conforming with the land use plan and from his capacity as planning director, he sees no issue with this rezoning as he said he believes it will afford the area immediate growth and development of the land.
Addison explained if an industrial facility became interested in setting up shop in the area, under light industrial zoning, they could potentially do so fairly easily. However, if the land were zoned RA3, the facility most likely would not be able to move into the area. He pointed out Anson County’s zoning plan does not have a time limit on how long land must stay zoned under a particular ordinance.
“It doesn’t say if you rezone today you can’t rezone tomorrow,” he said.
Commissioner Joshua Ellerbe made a motion to approve the rezoning, seconded by Commissioner Lawrence Gatewood, which passed with no opposition to the proposal.
