Stadium lights were a hot topic at Tuesday’s Columbia County Commission meeting with Augusta Preparatory Day School and one resident of Springlakes at odds with each other.
The commission approved the school’s rezoning request but not without some arguments.
Augusta Prep wanted to modify the conditions of its present zoning, which is a special zoning district. The area surrounding the school is residential.
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Two conditions of the rezoning were that Augusta Prep would limit the total number of days the field lights would be used to 18 days, and that the school would plant and maintain a significant landscape buffer in compliance with an agreement between the school and the Springlakes Community Association dating to 2011.
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Springlakes resident Dean Thompson spoke against the rezoning request, asking that the school only be allowed to use its lights eight nights during the school year. He cited several alleged breaches of the 2011 rezoning agreement, including the claim that the school exceeded its usage limits in several years.
In addition, he said the school dug a drainage ditch behind his property, removing several landscape buffers, and did not maintain the original plants.
Thompson said he had contacted Columbia County code enforcement four times over regarding the conditions of the rezoning agreement in 2011.
“Instead of enforcing the conditions, they appear to want to get the conditions changed, so they don’t have to do anything,” said Thompson. “This taxpayer doesn’t appreciate that.”
Thomas Burnside, an attorney representing Augusta Prep, responded that the buffer was cleared and required significant plantings, that the school was called regarding the ditch and addressed the issue.
“Prep wants to be a good neighbor,” said Burnside. “But at the same time, Prep owns the land, Prep was there first, Prep spent thousands of dollars to build these lights.”
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Burnside also noted that in the original agreement with Springlakes, the school agreed to wait three years before attempting to add the number of times limited for the school to use its stadium lights, and that 10 years have passed since the agreement.
“We’ve agreed only to use the lights 18 days out of the year,” said Burnside. “To put it another, more positive way, Prep agreed not to use the lights 347 days out of the year.”
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After a motion by commissioner Don Skinner, the board ultimately agreed to permit the zoning changes under the condition that the school attend to the landscape buffer.
Other business included the approval of the conditional use request for a property at 4571 Cox Rd., currently zoned professional, for one suite of the building to be used as a massage business; and the approval of a major planned unit development revision with a conditional use for a tattoo parlor to operate.
Skyler Q. Andrews is a staff reporter covering Columbia County with The Augusta Press. Reach him at skyler@theaugustapress.com.
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