sense, the backyard makes sense. The front yard is an ask that is not absolutely
necessary, and I think makes this a poor design for it. That is my opinion.
MS. LOE: Commissioner Placier?
MS. PLACIER: I agree with Commissioner Geuea Jones about the front, the
impervious surface on the front. Part of the historic character of the building was the front
yard and the trees and all of that, and that's been turned into a concrete slab. It is tragic
that Greek Town, if you look at it as a whole, has become almost as covered up with
surface and buildings as the Columbia Mall. I mean, that's what it's become, like a big
box area or something, just so that we could squeeze in more amenities and living
space, and crowd more people in. I -- at this point, you're -- you're one of the last ones
coming along with a request, and you are trying to preserve the at least historic front of
the building, but in the process, there's something being lost. And while I understand the
limitations of pervious surfaces, I wish somebody had at least looked into those options
off of the front of the building. I think there's a loss there to the historic nature of it, and
it's a beautiful place. That’s my comment.
MS. LOE: I, too, am concerned about the front yard. And, Mr. Smith, you raised
this point in your report, which is this property is close to the M-DT. And the report also
identified several characteristics about this area, Greek Town, as being more comparable
probably to M-DT, which is the downtown area, versus a standard multi-family which is
it's denser, larger, perhaps more compact multi-family units, and walkable. This -- this
close two things. So one thing that we haven't discussed yet on the dais is the
walkability, and that's one thing that we kicked around a lot when coming up with the
standards for the front yards and for the parking and for the screening, and I feel as if this
plan does not give us much with preserving -- I think what I'm hearing as far as concerns
go is that we're losing too much of what makes Rollins a nice street to walk down. We're
giving up too much. And as Mr. Smith said previously, a PD plan needs to -- if we're
going to be giving, we need to get something back. So I'm also really sorry we're losing,
you know, some amazing trees on the site, and we're losing those. So I -- I'm willing to
compromise, but I need more to keep the street a nice walkable street. I'm not happy
when I hear you're not -- I mean, walking at 2:00 in the morning anywhere could be scary
-- I get scared walking out in the middle of a field at 2:00 in the morning. But we want --
we're trying to make Columbia a walkable community, so we're -- the measures we have
in place are to encourage that. We don't want to let building go in place that makes it
feel like you're just walking down the parking lot. What if Phi Kappa Theta turns their
front yard into a parking lot? I mean, it's -- you're going to feel like you're just walking
through cars to get to school. So I looked at the M-DT standards because I also like to
have a standard when coming -- I don't like to be subjective. And their standard for
multi-family is, when there's more than 20 units, half a parking space per bedroom, not