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About a month after the Sandfly Community Betterment Association rekindled its long-stalled efforts to get historic status, the group has now collected enough signatures to move that process forward.
About 30 Sandfly property owners attended an informational meeting at Speedwell United Methodist Church on Montgomery Crossroad this week to learn more about the historic ordinance process and its potential consequences.
Chatham County requires the consent of more than 50 percent of property owners within a proposed district to create a historic ordinance, and that’s only the beginning. Ellen Harris, director of historic preservation and urban planning at the Metropolitan Planning Commission, said of the 278 parcels in the proposed boundaries of the Sandfly Historic District, 147 signatures were collected.
What comes next, she said, is verifying the validity of those signatures followed by a series of community meetings to get input from residents on potential design standards. The boundaries of the map may also evolve, Harris said, but it gives the community a starting point.
“It’s a starting point to begin a conversation,” said Harris.
The top question Harris received from those in attendance was what benefit a historic ordinance would provide. Harris said an ordinance provides a measure of predictability for residents and ensures that new development is appropriate and respectful to the surrounding context.
A historic ordinance would only apply restrictions to the exterior of buildings, such as materials used, and does not dictate use. In other words, property owners may still request to have their property rezoned for
commercial uses.
“That doesn’t mean that new buildings have to look like historic buildings, but perhaps in scale, size and materials they are complementary,” she said.
She also said those standards are not dictated by the planning commission but by the community itself, meaning it can be as restrictive or non-restrictive as the community wants.
“It can preserve your historic resources that you have left,” she said. “Sandfly has seen a lot of changes, particularly more recently, so this provides a protection measure in place to preserve those resources for future generations.”
Herbert Kemp, the former president of the community association, first led the effort for historic status after a contentious battle with the developers of Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club that started around 2002. He began collecting signatures in earnest in 2008, but the effort stalled after he fell into poor health.
Some in attendance had sharp questions about potential tax increases, the boundaries of the current map and why they should have to seek permission to make changes to their properties.
“It sounds like what you’re proposing is to have the same covenants like what they have at The Landings,” said one resident.
Another resident said he didn’t mind commercial neighbors like Wal-Mart and Bi-Lo, while others said the influx of commercial development threatened to diminish Sandfly’s charming residential character.
“You used to be able to see stars in Sandfly, and now you can’t see stars anymore,” said Andrea Stiles Russell, who grew up in Sandfly but lives in Southbridge.
She said she attended the meeting because she and her relatives still own land in the area and are interested in what’s happening. Like many other families in Sandfly, their land has been divided among descendants over several generations, not all of whom still have a stake in the area.
Others are facing similar situations. Norman Luten, current president of the neighborhood association, has been a resident of Sandfly for 17 years after moving back to his great-grandfather’s homestead off Skidaway Road. He recently spoke out against a proposed pharmacy going next to his house after a cousin sold off a neighboring tract.
Kemp, who attended the Tuesday night meeting, said it was important to get some standards in place to protect the character of the area as commercial interests grow.
“We need to keep them from bulldozing antebellum homes down,” said Kemp.
Most recently, the community of Pin Point sought and received local historic ordinance through a similar grassroots effort. Harris said Pin Point held a total of eight neighborhood meetings to hash out and develop those design standards.
“It’s a really collaborative, community-based process,” said Harris. “For example, in Pin Point, their greatest concern was larger, out-of-scale residential buildings that weren’t in keeping with the more modest, historic buildings.”
Ralph Champion, a property owner, also had questions about whether a historic district would make it harder to get his land rezoned to commercial.
He said Family Dollar had approached him about building on some of his property several years ago, but he turned them down because he was sensitive to the families who had been there a long time and wouldn’t want it. The retail chain later opened in Norwood Plaza.
“I envision this area doing something like Helen, Ga., did with its Alpine village,” he said. “I think we can have the commercial and residential co-mingle and complement each other.”
Charlie Strickland lives in Sandfly and said he likes having the convenience of shopping centers nearby, though he recognizes that not everyone feels that way.
“I’m not opposed, as long as the people trying to do this don’t get the false expectation that they’re going to impede progress,” he said.
For more information on the Sandfly historic district initiative, contact Norman Luten, president of the Sandfly Community Betterment Association at 912-354-0128.