Some Darlington residents to get new address
Mayor Gloria Hines stands with Edna Pettigrew after signing a proclamation that April 24 -28 is ‘Week of the Young Child.”
Photo by Melissa Rollins
By Melissa Rollins, Editor, editor@newsandpress.net
Some residents of Darlington will be getting a new address, according to Building Inspector and Codes Enforcement Officer Alex Gainey, who spoke to Darlington City Council during the Tuesday April 4 meeting about the need to re-address homes on Bacote St.
“What happened is there was a lady who was trying to buy a piece of land and Ms. Helen at the courthouse realized we had an issue on Bacote St.,” Gainey said. “She called me and we talked about it; we knew we had to do something about it because the numbers were jumbled up.”
Gainey said that his primary concern is making sure that, in the event of an emergency, help can get to the proper location, which is a problem when two different homes share the same exact address.
“We need to get everything in line for emergency services,” Gainey said. “You get a 911 call out there, whether it be EMT, fire or police, they need to be able to find it. Having two of the same number residence on the same street is really not good.”
In the planning process, numbers 100 to 699 were allotted for homes on Bacote St. However, when homes were numbered they were not all done in sequential order. Currently, block numbers go from 500 to 400 and then to 600.
“The Housing Authority is where the 300 block picked up,” Gainey said. “When you cross over Southern Pine, you get into the 500 block and what you’ve got has an address of 502. When you cross over Magnolia Street, the first one is 400 Bacote; the second one is the second 502 Bacote.”
It is not necessary to change all of the addresses on Bacote, Gainey said, because only a portion of the house numbers are involved.
“I looked at it and I figured that we would try to break everything down into blocks,” Gainey said. “With that being said, where the one hundred block is on Bacote now, that area wouldn’t be affected. Where we reserved the 200 block, and the Housing Authority, those residences in those areas would be affected by the address change…At every intersection you get to, you are starting a new block.”
“This is not something we are going to be able to do overnight by any means,” Gainey said. “Once we determine that those address numbers are going to work, then we will start the process of informing citizens and everything we need to do. I’m not sure how long it is going to take but I know its not going to be quick.”
In other business, Gainey brought a proposal before council to change Article II, Section 2.3. Table 1 and Article IV of the city’s Zoning Ordinance.
Gainey asked council to consider issuing permits for conditional use of historic homes in residential areas.
“Basically, what happened is, we had an issue come to our attention a couple of months ago about the Wilds-Edwards House,” Gainey said. “It is an R-10 and, my understanding is, back in 2014 they said that that property could be used for a bed and breakfast. When you look at the code for a bed and breakfast it says that either the owner of the property or the manager has to live on the property to be able to use it as a bed and breakfast.”
Gainey said that he spoke to property owner Charlie Weatherford and was informed that it was not being used in that capacity.
“We talked to him and he isn’t really using it as a bed and breakfast but more for social gatherings and events,” Gainey said. “We started looking at it to see exactly what we needed to do to be able to accommodate that. The way that it is zoned, it really, truly, is not supposed to be used for social gatherings; that’s more of a business and its not zoned for that.”
Getting the property rezoned was not something Weatherford was interested in doing, Gainey said, so he began looking for an alternative.
“Charlie didn’t want to rezone it to general commercial because he was scared that it would cause problems with the property itself if someone comes in down the line and wants to tear it down,” Gainey said. “We started doing some research to see what we could do to make it to where he could use (it for) that but not just that piece of property but also other pieces of property that met the conditions that we set forth.”
Those requirements include:
• A lot size not less than one acre.
• A building structure no less than 2,000 square feet.
• The property must be annually inspected and approved by the building official and fire marshal.
• Conditional Use Permits for assembly halls must be renewed annually at a cost of $100.
• Houses must be located in a Historic District.
Summerville, Beaufort and Hartsville all have similar ordinances, Gainey said.
Council passed the first reading of Ordinance 2017-18.
During the citizen comment portion of the meeting, Darlington Walmart manager Kevin Lane asked council to consider a referendum to allow for the sale of alcohol in Darlington on Sundays. Lane said that his store and others in the city could benefit from having Sunday alcohol sales, especially during race weekend when tourists are traveling to neighboring cities to make their purchases.
“We are not asking council to vote on this issue directly,” Lane said. “What we are asking is for a referendum to allow the citizens of Darlington to vote on this matter in November…Hartsville passed it in November and now that we are booming and drawing more attention to Darlington, we are just asking that it be considered so that we can keep the business in Darlington.”
Council asked city manager Howard Garland to look into what it would take to put the referendum on the ballot.
Before the meeting, Mayor Gloria Hines signed a proclamation making April 24-28 the ‘Week of the Young Child.’
