Following a nearly hour-long discussion with a lot of back and forth between the Columbia County Board of Commissioners, the applicant and community members, commissioners approved, with conditions, the rezoning request for Wortham Lane.
The request was to change the zoning of 2278 Wortham Lane from R-A (residential agricultural) to S-1 (special) at the request of Mark Barinowski. The conditions are there will be no changes to the structures as far as an addition, the current businesses is what is being covered by the S-1, which is a radio service administration office, tower service administration office and a private charter administration office, the total non-family employees on the property shall not exceed four, all necessary permits and business license will be secured for the approval of the business within 30 days of the approval and the R-A zoning residential will remain.
“I think what this does is, this cleans this up and gets the Barinowski’s on a clean slate as it relates to what’s legal and what’s required, and it gives the county the ability to be able enforce as it needs be these things,” said County Manager Scott Johnson. “Once that’s done if there’s ever any other question then that has to come back before this body or a body.”
During the meeting, several neighbors spoke out against the zoning change, with Mark Walls stating that Barinowski has misled and misrepresented himself when it comes to the businesses at the property. He added that in 2005, Barinowski tried to get the property rezoned, but the commissioners at the time rejected the change and read a few comments from the staff recommendation at that time.
“The property is currently used as a single-family residence, radio station, outdoor storage,” Walls said when reading the staff recommendation from 2005. “There is no record of county action approving a radio station and storage operations at this location, and as the property is currently zoned, the use of the property for radio and storage activities is not permitted. Further down it goes on to say the applicant states that permission was given previously by the county for the radio station to operate at this location. Past investigation indicates permits were granted previously; however, those permits did not specify the building being constructed for a radio station.”
Walls went on to tell commissioners that the Barinowskis should not be forgiven because they decided to not ask permission and claimed they have been violating the county zoning policy for the past 20 years.
“We the residents oppose rezoning 2278 Wortham Lane from R-A to S-1,” Walls said. “We don’t feel a business with multiple employees should operate in a neighborhood.”
Resident Rick Viger stated that changing the zoning for the property would be like opening Pandora’s Box for businesses to expand into residential communities.
“You are the only hope we have of having our neighborhood stay like it is…,” Viger said.
After the community members spoke, Barinowski then spoke to commissioners to address some of the claims made and answer any questions the commissioners had. He stated there is not, and never has been, a tower on the property. He said they are not inviting public traffic back onto the property, but there are three families that live back there, and a few non-family member employees who work at the location.
“The other thing I want to refute 110% is we’ve never done anything underhanded here,” Barinowski. “The county was fully aware of what we were doing back there 20 years ago, matter of fact, I believe Mr. (Will) Butler (planning manager) said he found the file, there was a permit pulled, everything was inspected, everything was granted. So, what we were trying to do is add another building, about 1,500, 1,400 square foot to our existing building and came to the county and the county said you can’t do that, but you can do that if you rezone to an S-1 and the staff would really like your rezoning to an S-1 and that’s why we’re here.”
Scott Sterling, planning director, told commissioners that while he didn’t personally see what Barinowski was referencing, Butler did dig through and see something.
District 4 Commissioner Alison Couch asked Barinowski how many businesses operated at that location, and he said four.
“One of them is me, actually two of them are me, one is my brother and then the radio station which is nothing more than four offices with a recording studio,” Barinowski said.
Couch then asked if a business license has been issued for any of those businesses, and Barinowski said they fill out the personal property tax form every year and said there is one for Grovetown, but he wasn’t sure about the county and would have to check. Commission Chair Doug Duncan said every business should have a county business license.
“I need to go look, I know we have them for Grovetown. I had to do that for water,” Barinowski said. “I do for Georgia/Carolina tower. I thought that one was there, but I’ll just have to go look. But they’re really home businesses that in that office right there that we built because we’re all out there.”
Couch then asked if he had considered getting a home occupational tax for the businesses that are tied to the residential address.
“No, I do the personal property tax form for all of them,” Barinowski said.
Duncan asked Johnson for clarification about the business licenses and permits because they we rehearing different things.
“The business license is one thing, and the other is to build a commercial building, you have to have the proper zoning. I don’t know what they were 20 years ago,” Duncan said. “You say the county said yes, but the records say no. But you said there were records that said yes.”
Johnson told commissioners things are done differently now than they were 20 years ago and may have been a time when zoning permits were issued, and zoning was not verified.
“Regarding the licenses that you were talking about and home occupational taxes, home occupational taxes are allowed and are necessary to operate a home occupation in Columbia County, and to my knowledge based on our checks, based on what staff has reported back to me, none of these are on file in Columbia County,” Johnson said. “Not to say he doesn’t have some with the City of Grovetown or somewhere else, but if the business is taking place on these properties, then it would be incumbent upon the business owner to file the proper home occupational taxes and I don’t think we have any of those on record currently. Again, there are a lot of home occupations in Columbia County that probably don’t have those. When those are brought to our attention we go back and make sure we enforce that.”
Johnson then went on to state that if Barinowski was operating on the property being discussed, then it wouldn’t necessarily be a home occupational tax and lends itself to the reason for the S-1 zoning.
“I think there may be some confusion about S-1,” Johnson said. “S-1 is the most restrictive zoning we have. When we put a zoning of S-1 in there, it really allows the commissioners to put very strict conditions on that applicant to say you can only do these things and if you zone it S-1, and then said you’re required to have business licenses or occupational taxes for all the businesses, you’re operating there as a condition of zoning. That’s certainly something you could do. Again, we’re going to have to look at each of these businesses individually, where is it located, is it being run out of somebody’s house, is it anywhere on this piece of property, we’re going to have to investigate each one of these issues depending on what happens (during the meeting).”
Couch said she spoke to many of the neighbors, and many want accountability and assurance and suggested strict conditions be placed on the rezoning.
The commissioners ultimately approved the rezoning with certain conditions.
