The hints over the past 16 months that further development at North Augusta’s Riverside Village was a real possibility turned into the first formal actions taken to get the ball rolling again after a five-year hiatus.
The buttressing pieces to development at Riverside Village — the parking agreement and the general development plan — were both back in play as fair game for revision this week.
North Augusta City Council approved a revised parking agreement March 18, and the planning commission two days later, on March 20, gave its own 4-2 recommendation that the council also approve the changed development plan.
If it does, then it’s just the keystone left — the Master Development Agreement that for seven years has defined the perameters of North Augusta’s public-private partnership with Greenstone and which, if revised to admit South City Partners into the game, would allow for construction to begin this summer.
A public hearing on that agreement is scheduled for April 1.
If changes to the Master Development Agreement for Riverside Village get approved, one of the first builds would be 170 multi-family units on this parcel, next to the hotel parking deck and across from the Ironwood Apartments.
What’s proposed and what are people saying?
The idea, as defined in the development plan that now awaits City Council’s review, is one that would substantially tilt Riverside Village toward more housing. If finalized, the governing development plan for the Village would allow for 25% more housing than under the existing ordinance.
Of the 335 new homes in the proposal, all but 20 would be rental.
Riverside Village was always meant to have an “urban feel” to it, and commercial uses are still intended for it. A full 10,000 square feet across multiple of the parcels would accommodate ground-floor shops, restaurants and a neighborhood market.
But the senior living originally proposed for the parcel next to the Crowne Plaza parking deck is gone, replaced in these revised plans by 170 apartments; and the office space originally intended for the parcel next to the stadium parking deck is gone, replaced by four stories of multi-family housing and ground-floor commercial.
Proposed vision for Riverside Village
Click the arrows at top right for a closer view of what's proposed for each parcel.
All told, the revised development plan proposed for Riverside Village includes 335 new homes and 10,000 square feet of commercial space.
If all necessary approvals are given, construction would begin this summer with an estimated completion in December of next year.
Many North Augusta residents of neighboring Hammonds Ferry are saying they’re happy to see movement with new development at Riverside Village but that they’re also wary of increased traffic and of having more vehicles parked there when they say the city hasn’t kept a good track record of parking enforcement, even now.
“I am all about the growth. I’m just extremely concerned about the amount of traffic overflow that we’re going to have,” Stetson Corbitt said.
“Railroad [Avenue] struggles to handle the traffic, in my opinion, the two-way traffic, on non-event nights,” added Woody Shuler, who said he’s already seen some parking encroachment into Hammonds Ferry by those who don’t live there.
If changes to the Master Development Agreement for Riverside Village get approved, the "live, work, play ball" community anchored by SRP Park could see new construction as early as this summer. One of the first investments would be a five-story mixed-use building of ground floor retail and apartment living above.
The proposed lack of owner-occupied housing at Riverside Village also elicited a response.
“I would just like there to be people invested in our community and in our city on a more permanent basis,” Amy Schoenbaum said. “This is a real opportunity to decide the trajectory of kind of our, you know, our secondary downtown and how do we want it to look.”
But the main push from those who made their comments known is that regardless of what new development at Riverside Village looks like and regardless of how the parking is laid out in that revised agreement authorized by Council this week, the city has to buck up on enforcement.
North Augusta city officials, from administration to elected members of Council to Council’s advising planning commissioners, say they’re aware of that.
The intention is to first set the stage with revising the necessary contracts “and then see if this actually goes through all the wickets to see if this will be approved to even develop. Because if it is, then there are going to have to be some changes in how we do enforcement within the Village,” City Administrator Jim Clifford said Wednesday.
The parking agreement authorized Monday — and designed to support future development as that development is now being proposed — would leave 825 open parking spaces throughout the Village on non-event nights, and 19 on event nights, per the analyses run by the city.
Some of that parking configuration, though, raised a few eyebrows: 60 of the 220 spaces allocated for future residents of the apartments now proposed for the parcel next to the hotel deck would be reserved two blocks away, in the stadium deck.
“We would like to see a comprehensive plan about how the city is going to be managing that as we move forward,” Steve Cover, of Hammonds Ferry, said. People will “take the path of least resistance,” he added — and that path, in this case, would have those future residents parking in Hammonds Ferry, not the stadium deck, he said.
It was these apartments and the expected parking and traffic associated with them, that prompted planning commissioner Lisa Christie to vote against recommending approval of the changed development plans. Commissioner Rett Harbeson also voted against recommending approval.
“It’s a tough one,” said Jesse Elliott, who cast his vote in favor. “Sometimes you have to fix a problem when it happens, and you can't always just plan ahead knowing what it will or won’t look like. This is definitely a tough situation.”
North Augusta planning commissioners on March 20 recommended 4-2 that City Council approve a revised development plan for Riverside Village.
Commissioners Erin Slade and Chelsea Waddell and commission Vice Chair Bob Bigger joined Elliott in recommending approval of the new development plan for Riverside Village. Commission Chair Dr. Christine Crawford recused herself as a resident of Hammonds Ferry.
City Council is likely to take up the proposed changes to the Riverside Village development plan in the coming weeks.
Councilwoman Jenafer McCauley said on Monday that the parking agreement, now a done deal, is “appropriate for the development” as now proposed.
But, she said, “We have to do our part in implementing things such as enforcement, wayfinding signage, trolleys when we have those big events — things like that. Those are items we’re aware of when implementing this.”
The public hearing on the Master Development Agreement, a separate document from both the parking agreement and the general development plan, is scheduled for April 1. The MDA outlines the obligations of all parties involved in the partnership.
The biggest change to it, if approved, would be to bring in South City Partners to replace Greenstone as the primary developer at Riverside Village.
