It will still be Camden City Council’s call on April 9, but the Camden Planning Commission (CPC) voted 2-5 during its March 19 meeting against recommending that council approve an ordinance that would annex the majority of the Camden Training Center (CTC) property into the city, attach a special zoning classification of master planned development (MPD), and approve a development agreement between current owner Stuart Grant and the city. The vote took place at the end of a public hearing on the proposal for Grant to build The Paddocks of Camden, an equestrian-themed residential subdivision. The bulk of the property is under county control, comprising a doughnut hole surrounded by the city.
In 2023, Grant, a Delaware attorney, proposed a nearly 800-home development on a majority of the CTC’s 335-acre property. One 90-acre parcel already inside the city limits is mostly wetlands and, therefore, undevelopable. Following a public hearing on that proposal during which 25 people spoke, the CPC voted unanimously to deny the annexation until such time as a development agreement was reached with the city.
On March 19, Grant proposed cutting the number of homes down to 350 on 152.5 acres, leaving the CTC’s two horse tracks — one to the northeast and another to the south — intact for now. At the end of the night’s public hearing, City Planning and Development Director Shawn Putnam gave the staff’s report, which concluded with a recommendation in favor of Grant’s new proposal.
The split vote against that recommendation came more than three-quarters through what turned into a nearly three hour and 15-minute meeting after Grant himself, colleagues from developer Beechwood Homes (no relation to the similarly named property in Camden used by the county’s Karesh long-term care center), and 20 opponents spoke during the public hearing.
After giving some background history on his ownership of the CTC, Grant said that at the facility’s peak, it housed 180 horses and employed 200 people. Now, he says, there are only eight horses at the CTC and hardly any employees. He said that was because groups who used to house their horses there left, often to other states, due to reasons ranging from climate change to the advent of year-round racing.
“We continued to pour money into the training center trying to make it the best training center in all of South Carolina,” Grant said. “In 2010, the (industry’s) foal crop was 44,000; last year, it was about 18,600. That’s it. That’s about a 60% decline in the number of race horses needing a training center.”
The year-round racing phenomenon, he said, rose during the last 15 years or so, thus reducing the need for places (to stable) during the winter. In addition, he said climate change has made it less difficult to keep horses in Kentucky and stables in northern states.
“And then the crushing blow came a few years ago when the sheikh who owned Shadwell (Stables), my largest tenant, died. That caused Shadwell to dispose of their horses,” Grant said, resulting in the drop of horses. “The sad and true fact is that keeping the Camden Training Center as a race horse facility is simply not economically viable. We’ve tried. We’ve tried every year.
“And, frankly, no one has the right to tell someone else that they have to keep a money-losing business going.”
Grant also stated that if the property was not annexed into — and, therefore, controlled by — the city, he would be able to build some 1,500 homes on the CTC grounds under the county’s R-6 zoning.d
“We approached the city and have had months of discussions about what type of development would be best for Camden. We thought about the many economic benefits … and we thought of the potential downside, and we didn’t think of that in a vacuum. We collected data. We worked with facts. Facts are extremely important because I’ve heard a lot of objections to this development based on speculation and just theories, but no facts,” Grant said, and then rebutted rumors that human bodies were buried on the CTC property.
On opponents’ traffic concerns, Grant said an S.C. Department of Transportation-approved 250-page traffic study shows that Battleship, Carter and Chesnut streets can handle the proposed development’s additional traffic. Grant said it does recommend a right turn lane be built from Battleship Road into the development. Putnam later said an associated left turn lane leaving from The Paddocks onto Battleship Road would be part of the plan as well.
At two different points in the public hearing — during his initial comments and then during a follow-up after hearing from the public — Grant said he spoke to Kershaw County School District (KCSD) Superintendent Dr. Harrison Goodwin about the impact the development might have.
“Instead of standing up and saying, ‘Gee, the schools can’t deal with the influx of new students,’ and that unsupportable conclusion, we decided (to) speak to the people who know,” Grant said. “So, we went to the superintendent of schools, who reviewed our original 792-home development and concluded that the schools could handle the increase. Now, we’re requesting less than half the number of homes, so there’s no issue about school capacity.”
Grant said nearly the same thing about various utilities’ capacity to serve the development.
“And instead of just shouting that Camden doesn’t have the capacity to provide those utilities, we spoke to the folks who actually run the city department that’s in charge of those utilities, and they confirmed not only did the city have the capacity, but the fees that we would pay as well as the monthly usage that would be paid by the owners of these new homes would be cash-flow positive for the city. In other words, rates would be lower for everyone with this development than without it,” he said.
When opponents started indicating their displeasure with that statement, Grant qualified it by stating that he meant that when rates rise, they would not rise as much with more customers than without them.
Grant also said that he and his partners learned that the average price of homes being sold in Camden exceeded $340,000. He then said the average price of the homes to be sold in The Paddock would far exceed that amount. He also said that when he listened to the objections to the original plan back in November, “I would have thought that we had proposed building a nuclear waste dump.”
A little later, Grant said that depending on how the new proposal works out, he hoped The Paddock could come back to the city to have the rest of the original project built out. That elicited a loud, negative response from the approximately 120 people gathered for the meeting.
Grant then listed out what he believed were the benefits of building The Paddocks: jobs, “desperately needed” revenue for the city, and new members of the community who could add “to the fabric” of Camden. He said the University of South Carolina’s business school conduct an impact study, that concluded there would be a $45 million impact in 2025 and 2026 from the construction of homes, amenities and infrastructure; an annual economic impact of $15 million; 366 new jobs during construction; more than 125 new permanent jobs; and more.
Soon after this, Grant turned things over to Steven Dubb, son and principal partner of Jericho, N.Y.-based Beechwood Homes owner Mike Dubb, and Beechwood Carolinas Division President Bob Kardos.
Kardos said he suspected some 50% or more of The Paddock’s future residents would be from inside the Camden/Kershaw County market because there is, as he put it, very little choice in homes to buy. He also said that buyers would be able to customize their homes, an advantage, he said, over the ones offered by “big builders.” Kardos also mentioned walking tracks that the general public, not just Paddock residents could use, and that the amenities would include a pool, pickleball and tennis courts, and more.
Following Kardos’ presentation, the CPC called up the first of the evening’s 20 public speakers: Kristie Ayers, a Carter Street resident who said she lives in a Habitat Home. She expressed concerns that her property and others like hers would get caught up in the annexation of the CTC and, therefore, no longer be able to afford living where she does.
Putnam later assured those present that the only affected properties for annexation and rezoning belonged to Grant and no others.
Other speakers said they are opposed to the project at any level due to what they feared would be negative impacts to the area’s quality of life and peace of mind. Several, including city council candidate William Wilkes, said they wanted to see studies of what impact The Paddocks would have on the area’s infrastructure. Still others said they felt like their comments wouldn’t make a difference.
One of those, Ted Brunson — who directed most of his comments to his fellow opponents to the project rather than commissioners — said one thing bothered him the most about the situation.
“Beechwood is out of Jericho, N.Y. Carlyle (Development, Grant’s company) is out of Delaware, but centered out of New York City. When these houses are built, the money and the profit is going to go to New York. It’s not going to be here. Now, if you look up what the definition of ‘carpetbagger’ is--” at this point, the audience erupted with laughter and applause “--if anybody would like to know what that is … (more applause) … an outsider who pretends to be an insider is a carpetbagger. It’s a person who tries to take advantage of a group by joining it only for his own, personal benefit. Northerners who moved south during Reconstruction in the 1860 and 1870s were the original carpetbaggers. I’m not saying because of the other work that Mr. Grant has done (that) he is a carpetbagger, because I respect a man who can change my perspective on what he has done for this community. But it doesn’t stop today. We stay; we don’t go anywhere. This is our town, and we invest every day in it, with our sweat and our tears and our taxes.”
Lynne Conto, an equestrian, claimed that while there may not be human bodies buried at the CTC, there are horses buried there. Conto suggested that an equine overlay be created for the city of Camden and went over some particulars about that. In counterpoint to Grant, she said she could “guarantee … there are plenty of horses” in Kershaw County and that “destroying a historic landmark is not an option.”
Conto also said that KCSD Director of Operations Billy Smith told her that “this is going to be a challenge” regarding schools, despite what Grant said Goodwin had told him. She also said the potential added traffic from The Paddocks would be “deadly.”
Di DuBose asked commissioners, “Don’t throw away our hearts,” and then challenged Stuart to be as philanthropic in Camden as she said he had been in his home state of Delaware. She said that in a television interview, a Carter Street resident said he and his fellow residents were “just throwaways” in the face of the pending annexation of the CTC.
Arch Kingsley said the equine industry is “far from over” in Camden and it not “a dead part of the community.”
Julia Fisher, of the S.C. Horse Council, said that while the state’s horse industry is “hemorrhaging” money to other states, South Carolina’s lawmakers are addressing such issues, and that a study recently put the horse industry’s impact to the state at $2 billion. Fisher also said that Camden was “turning around” its losses, thanks to such things as having two active hunt clubs and the pending return of the Colonial Cup this fall.
Attorney and Camden resident Weston Adams, who has argued environmental and property cases, including one involving Sarsfield here in Camden, pointed out that there is no requirement to approve an annexation request.
“Any developer who is coming to you to ask you to annex a property is coming to you with their hat in their hand,” Adams said. “There is no requirement that you do anything — this is entirely discretionary; it’s a policy decision. Do we want to facilitate the development of that property, do we want to rezone the property when all of that is contrary to the comprehensive plan that Camden has in place? And I would answer that is, ‘no.’ ”
Adams said he plans to say the same thing to city council tonight.
“There is no right of any developer to force annexation; they have no legal right to do that. There’s no takings claim here; there’s no vested right here,” Adams said, adding that he believed it would be very difficult for city council to vote in favor of The Paddocks plan in the face of opposition from four different community groups.
Two people, Melissa Barton and Katie Minton, both said they were speaking in opposition to the project on behalf of children for both their future and their current school situations.
Diana Wenman suggested that with the possibility of an almost completely new city council after this year’s elections, that the decision on The Paddocks be deferred until those people are elected this November.
Following all these and other comments, Putnam provided the staff report, including that the MPD for The Paddocks would include 20-foot buffers around the entire development, with an additional 10 feet, for a total of 30 feet, along at least certain points of Carter Street. Putnam said the development agreement would be valid for 10 years, which is longer than Grant stated the development would take to complete, which he projected would be in 2030. Through the document, the city is agreeing to provide water, sewer and electric service to The Paddocks, which are all provided to the CTC currently, Putnam said. In addition, he said that the city has received preliminary approval to upgrade its wastewater treatment plant for 800,000 gallons per day, providing additional capacity for new development. Putnam also said that The Paddocks would be served with an electric line running along Battleship Road that is currently a single-phase line. He said that, per the development agreement, the city would upgrade that to a three-phase line.
Putnam then went through how costs would work out, according to the development agreement, including the fact that the developers would be responsible for paying for engineering, design and construction work for water, sewer and stormwater service. The developers would also have to reimburse the city to lay underground electric conduits, with the city responsible for the remainder of any other electrical work, including purchasing and installing transformers. Putnam said the developers would be responsible for creating all streets, sidewalks and walking trails, as well streetlights. Those would be later taken over by the city when the development reaches a particular threshold. Putnam later said, however, that the sidewalks would be maintained by The Paddocks’ property owners association.
Putnam then said that a traffic impact study conducted by a registered professional engineer concluded that the street system would continue to operate at an “acceptable level of service” with the anticipated increase in traffic for the original 792-unit development as long as the Battleship Road improvements are made. That brought some murmurs from the audience.
“That does not mean that there will be no increase in traffic,” Putnam said in response. “There is no way to design a neighborhood and not have a traffic impact at all.”
Putnam pointed out that there will have to be a second public hearing on the development agreement itself. He said that would take place when Camden City Council takes up first reading of the new ordinance for The Paddocks at the April 9 meeting. He also said The Paddocks, if developed, would be the first in Camden to have architectural standards applied to it.
After Putnam provided the staff’s recommendation to approve the annexation and rezoning, Grant was brought back up to make any final comments. As he did so, a woman began complaining that it was “a done deal” and said something else that Grant took as an accusation of him “paying people off.” Nevertheless, Grant repeated his assertion that there are “simply no horses” at the CTC and that it was unfair to place a burden on him to keep the property as it is.
Commissioner Mark Mohr said that there has been little if no actual data or plan presented by the school district as to how it would accommodate the additional students that would come from a 350-home development, much less the original nearly 800-home plan. Grant reminded Mohr that even the original plan was going to be developed over time, and that he was told that even when built out, that there would be enough capacity at Camden High School or Camden Middle School. However, he also relayed Goodwin’s caveat that in later years, the area’s elementary schools would have the capacity, but that a “certain amount of redistricting” might be necessary.
Putnam said he had shared the revised Paddocks plan with Goodwin, and that the superintendent’s only concern was that of bus traffic on Carter Street because of its narrowness. He said that was why the development agreement includes the additional 10 feet of buffer on the Carter Street side of the development.
In answering another question from Mohr, Putnam said the development agreement does not require that all 352 homes be built, and even includes the option to extend the agreement beyond the 10-year mark if necessary. Mohr then asked what would happen if even the smaller number of The Paddocks’ lots were not sold or if the developer simply decided not to build all the homes, thereby leaving behind unused infrastructure. Putnam said the city always has the option to revise the MPD, which brought another round of complaints from the audience.
“We did this with a previous subdivision, at Bridlewood on Springdale Drive, which was originally only 14 lots. It had the unfortunate timing of the infrastructure being completed at the end of 2007 and none of the lots sold,” Putnam said. “Four or five years later, the developer came back, reconfigured all the lots into 35 to 40 lots. They all sold within three years.”
After this discussion, Chairman Johnny Deal called for a motion and a second and then called for the vote, but was reminded by Commissioner Travis Hall that the commission needed to discuss the proposal as well.
“We’ve heard from (20) people speaking tonight … it seems in poor taste and poor judgment to say that we’ve heard all that they’ve said, and I’ve listened to what’s been said, in just this little bit of time. I’ve got a handful of notes here…” Hall said, and was interrupted by a round of applause. “...I do believe in the idea of closing doughnut holes. I’m not necessarily against this project, but I do feel that this is a big deal and there could be a way to do it right. I don’t want to do a big deal wrong.”
Deal then called for the vote, which came down 2-5, with himself and Commissioner Mark Chickering being the only ones in favor.
In other business, the commission:
• also split, 2-5, against a recommendation to rezone four adjoining properties along Railroad Avenue, with one fronting Lyttleton Street, from R-6 to to GBD (general business district) after several people from the Kirkwood Community spoke against the proposal because they wished to keep the neighborhood as a single-family home community;
• agreed, with no vote, to have Putnam bring back several changes to the city’s land development regulations due to concerns over some of the verbiage in those changes; and
• unanimously approved amendments to future development agreements so that it conforms more easily with state law.
The ordinance for the development agreement changes was already approved by city council on first reading the previous week. However, a situation turned up where the commission had not been able to have a chance to recommend approval ahead of time. Council will take up second reading of the same ordinance tonight.
Council will also consider proclaiming April as Fair Housing Month and encouraging equal housing opportunities during tonight’s meeting.
