Groups appointed by a city or town council, like the planning commission or board of architectural review, are often involved in recommendations and decisions of great interest to a community’s development. This can lead city councilmembers to take an interest in the groups’ actions.
Even so, the process runs the most smoothly when councilmembers avoid involvement at the level of the appointed group’s work — avoiding participating in its meetings, and avoiding making public comments before the council considers any recommendations it has received.
Some types of involvement violate state law. SC Code Section 8-13-740(A)(5) prohibits municipal officials from representing a person before any component of the municipality such as appointed boards. For example, imagine that a councilmember works for a development firm. That developer then seeks approval from the architectural review board for a project. The councilmember may not represent the developer in the board’s meeting.
Even in scenarios without official representation, the councilmember should avoid involvement in the board’s meetings and decision making. In the case of a local planning commission, the commission members make recommendations to be voted on by council. By waiting until the group’s recommendations come before the council for a decision, councilmembers can help avoid distractions and foster a better sense of impartiality in the decisions they make.
Here are several types of boards and commissions for which councilmembers should avoid involvement:
Local planning commissions
Municipalities that regulate land development must establish a planning commission. Under SC Code Section 6-29-340, the commission is empowered to:
- create and revise a comprehensive plan for the municipality and recommend its adoption to council;
- make recommendations to the council on how to implement the comprehensive plan through ordinances, regulations, policies or procedures; and
- administer the land development regulations adopted by council by approving or disapproving submitted plans and plats.
Boards of zoning appeals
A municipality that adopts a zoning ordinance may create a board of zoning appeals to enforce the ordinance. The powers of such a board, described in SC Code Section 6-29-790, include
- making decisions on appeals that arise from the administrative decisions of the municipality’s zoning administrator; and
- granting or denying applications for variances or special exceptions from zoning ordinances.
The board’s decisions are subject to appeal only to a circuit court, not to the council.
Boards of architectural review
Councils can establish a boards of architectural review within zoning ordinances that makes specific provisions for the protection of historic, architecturally valuable neighborhoods or scenic areas. As SC Code Section 6-29-880 notes, all of these boards’ powers derive from the zoning ordinance.
When crafting such an ordinance, the council should name any restrictions to the areas under the board’s jurisdiction, such as the conditions required for building, demolishing or altering the appearance of buildings. Clear language explaining the board’s powers and limits is critical for its operations. Its decisions can be appealed to the board of architectural review and to circuit court, but not to council.
Local hospitality tax and accommodations tax boards
Cities and towns that enact a local hospitality or accommodations tax sometime reserve the decisions on how to divide up and disburse the H-tax and A-tax funds for the council. In other cases, the council chooses to establish an H-tax or A-tax committee to make recommendations to council for how to use these funds, although there is no requirement in law for this.
For those that appoint these boards, councilmembers should handle them as they do with planning commission actions — give the appointed board space to operate, and then take up the recommendations as they come to council.
Find information on planning and zoning boards in the Municipal Association’s Comprehensive Planning Guide for Local Governments.