Columbia’s Dilly-Dallying Costing State Millions

When it comes to sheer government ineptitude, the city of Columbia, S.C. is giving the jokers at the S.C. State House a run for their money – not to mention costing the state millions of dollars in the process.

Seriously, people … if there is a more incompetent municipality in South Carolina (well, not counting the bovines up in Anderson County), we’ve not heard of it …

A perfect example of Columbia’s aversion to common sense is the ongoing soap opera surrounding the still-vacant Bull Street property, a 181-acre tract of land situated in the Northeastern corner of the city center. This property once housed the S.C. Department of Mental Health, or the “Lunatic Asylum of South Carolina” as it was known back in the good old days.

Owned by the State of South Carolina, the property is no stranger to controversy – and costly delays.

Its most recent delay, however, could be the costliest yet. That’s because the City of Columbia has imposed yet another layer of regulations on anyone interested in developing this sprawling campus – red tape that’s been added to the equation three years after the city’s master plan for the property was supposedly finalized.

Not only does this new red tape reduce the value (and jeopardize the eventual sale) of the property, it also raises serious concerns about the way Columbia handles its business – as if the city’s multimillion deficits weren’t sufficient evidence of bureaucratic incompetence.

From a state shareholder’s perspective – and for those who care about the treatment of the mentally ill – it also means the S.C. Department of Mental Health could end up being locked out of a $10-$15 million payoff.

Yikes … how did we wind up here again?

Let’s recap …

Five years ago, S.C. Gov. Mark Sanford and state lawmakers agreed that the vacant Bull Street property should be sold as part of a broader effort to identify and unload surplus state assets. Sanford pushed for the proceeds from the sale to be shared by all agencies, while lawmakers wanted to split the funds between the Department of Mental Health (DMH) and the S.C. Budget and Control Board.

In a controversial decision, S.C. Attorney General Henry McMaster sided with lawmakers, although the Supreme Court ruled in February 2007 that “proceeds from any sale of the property must remain in trust for the benefit of DMH for the care and treatment of the mentally ill.”

Rightly or wrongly (and we believe wrongly), “that settled that,” although another two years passed before the property wound up on the market.

Of course, the fight over who was to receive the money from the sale of this property was just a warm-up to the larger battle over how the property itself would be developed – a battle that is still raging to this day.

In 2005, the City of Columbia spent a quarter of a million dollars creating a master plan for this development – one that preserved several of the most historic, architecturally significant structures on the former DMH campus. The goal of the study was to make the project “shovel-ready,” so to speak, ensuring that no additional, unexpected regulatory hurdles would crop up during the development.

Frankly, other than protecting the structures already assigned to the National Register of Historic Places, we don’t see why anybody would want to keep a bunch of old nut houses standing – but that’s just us.

Anyway, with a concrete development plan in place, the dispute over proceeds from the sale resolved and the property finally on the market, you’d think that things would be rolling right along towards a vibrant, downtown development capable of expanding economic activity in South Carolina’s capital city, right?

Wrong.

Last week, in a decision that could dramatically impede (if not altogether squash) the sale of the property, Columbia City Council voted 5-3 to effectively put the project under the control of the city’s Design/Development Review Commission, a quasi-judicial architectural review committee that operates independent of City Council’s authority.

In fact, any decision made by this Design/ Development Review Commission – a preservation society that has been granted wide-ranging latitude over the project – would not be adjudicated at the municipal level, it would be decided by a state court, meaning that by virtue of handing over authority to this group, the City has automatically given up its right to appeal any decision the commission makes.

Say what?

Yup.

Basically, Columbia has ceded control of the biggest development in its history to an unelected panel of tea-sipping, artsy-fartsy brick-huggers  who seem intent on leaving South Carolina taxpayers holding the bag while they ponder the aesthetic sensibilities of a campus that may never be sold at this point.

Not surprisingly, the Design/ Development Review Commission is already imposing all sorts of new demands on the property, including the “preservation” of fourteen additional buildings of questionable historic value. In other words, the commission is putting overlay on top of existing overlay – and doing so after prospective buyers were told that a plan had already been approved for the property.

This last-minute “flipping of the script” doesn’t sit well with Columbia Councilman Kirkman Finlay, who has emerged as the leading opponent of the new regulations.

“This historic overlay diminishes the value of the time, effort and money spent on the (2005) study,” Finlay told FITS. “It’s going to leave developers unable to trust our city to do what we say we’re going to do. Worst of all, our state’s most needy citizens are going to lose out because mental health doesn’t receive the best value for its property.”

Finlay isn’t the only one ticked off.

State lawmakers are reportedly fuming over City Council’s latest decision and are looking at ways to protect their investment – to say nothing of retaliating against the city for its short-sightedness.

Still, the biggest question is why in the world these brick-huggers waited until the last minute to insist on additional “preservation.”

“Why wasn’t this brought up three years ago during the study?” Finlay asks. “Why is it being brought up today?”