Dwayne Cooper and his two neighbors say plans for a large new subdivision would change Page Lane, which is the only road leading to their homes in a wooded area surrounded by the Legacy Pines Golf Club near the South Connector in the Greenville County.
“They fundamentally change my legal access to my property,” Cooper said in an interview Thursday. “They can’t change it without my consent.”
Cooper and his neighbors expressed concerns about the proposed development for Green Pine Estates at a Greenville County Planning Commission meeting this week.
Commission members questioned the development engineer about the route of the access road to the existing houses.
Questions have also been asked about a small cemetery on the 203-acre property that is not included in the site plan for the proposed 437-home subdivision.
Another topic of discussion was the effects that Green Pine Estates and other recently approved developments in the area will have on surrounding roads.
And while it wasn’t discussed at Wednesday’s meeting, the future of Legacy Pines Golf Club also remains uncertain. Plans submitted to county officials indicate the Ranch Road golf course will disappear, but one of the partners involved in the development insists it could stay.
“We’re exploring our options,” said Tommy Biershenk, owner of the company that has leased the course from Greenville’s Hejaz Shrine Club since 2015.
What is clear is that the Planning Commission will wait at least a month before voting on whether to approve Green Pine Estates.
Before Wednesday’s vote was delayed, Planning Commissioner Metz Looper said he was impressed with Green Pine Estates’ plans. The homes in the complex would be built in clusters and about half of the property would be set aside for detention areas and open space.
“This is one of the best cluster subdivisions I’ve seen in a while,” Looper said.
Engineer says issues surrounding access road and cemetery can be resolved
Jonathan Nett, the engineer for Green Pine Estates, agreed to the one-month delay to study the development.
He said at Wednesday’s meeting he would seek to resolve any issues regarding the access road to existing homes.
“We’re happy to meet the residents,” Nett said. “If we have to lose a few lots to allow access through this, we will be happy to do so.”
Planning Commissioner Mark Jones said he was “very concerned” about the cemetery which was omitted from the development’s site plan.
“It should be protected because we already had one in Greenville County from the Revolutionary War that was destroyed, and we don’t need to see that again,” Jones said.
Nett said one lot could be eliminated from the site plan in order to preserve the cemetery and create a 20-foot buffer around it.
Partner in development: “We are trying to find a way to preserve” the golf course
Biershenk, who is a former professional golfer, said he and his partner, Easley developer Anthony Anders, would prefer to keep the Legacy Pines course open while developing custom homes on adjacent property.
“My heart is in it. We have 290 members,” Biershenk said. “We’re trying to find a way to keep it.”
He said plans had been made to replace the course’s clubhouse which burned down last year.
If Green Pine Estates’ current site plan is approved, Legacy Pines could be the second golf course in the area to fall prey to residential development in recent years. Nearly 850 housing units are being built on the old Bonnie Brae Golf Clubwhich closed its doors in 2019 after being open for almost six decades.
Mauldin area residents seek to avoid another Woodruff road
In addition to being concerned about the road leading to his home, Cooper said at Wednesday’s meeting that he was concerned about increased traffic in the rapidly growing area south of Mauldin.
Cooper said the former Bonnie Brae Golf Club subdivision is among seven developments near Ashmore Bridge Road that have been approved in the past three years.
He suggested that Green Pine Estates developers conduct a thorough traffic study that takes into account the congestion these new developments will create over the next few years.
“We don’t want to end up with another Woodruff Road,” he said Thursday.
Kirk Brown covers government, growth and politics for The Greenville News. Contact him at [email protected] or on Twitter @KirkBrown_AIM. Please subscribe to The Greenville News by visiting greenvillenews.subscriber.services.
