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Tryon Planning Board votes 3-2 in favor

TRYON—Tryon Town Council meets Thursday for a special meeting to rezone the old hospital on Carolina Drive to General Business with conditional use and the planning board has recommended approval. 

The Tryon Board of Planning and Adjustment met Monday for a special meeting to consider the rezoning application from R-2 (residential) to GB with a conditional use permit. 

During Monday’s planning board meeting, members Carl Wharton, Daniel Gerst and Jonathan Gerst voted in favor of the rezoning and members John Walters and Wanda May voted against the rezoning. 

Tryon Town Council will meet at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 12 to make the final decision on the rezoning. 

Public comments will be taken at Tryon Town Council’s meeting Thursday. The meeting will be held in the McCown Room at Tryon Town Hall. 

Many Carolina Drive area residents have expressed concern over the rezoning so it was suggested to make the rezoning conditional use, so any use there would have to get approval from the town. 

Dorothy Easley and Tom Brylowe are trying to purchase the property to eventually turn it into their residence and have offices for their businesses. In order to do the renovations and have businesses there, the zoning needs to be changed to GB, according to Easley and Brylowe. 

Easley and Brylowe said they are trying to restore the historic building, which was first constructed as the first St. Luke’s Hospital in 1929. Once the hospital moved to Columbus in 1973, the building was used by Polk County as the department of social services and the Meeting Place Senior Center until another building was purchased in Columbus to house those services several years ago. 

Easley said the property needs protection from vandalism, the roof is rotting and needs repair promptly and the land needs replanting. 

Easley, now an appellate lawyer, used to be a research forest geneticist. Brylowe works on patents for certain gun parts and plans to have an office and shop to work on those parts he makes by hand, Easley said. 

Easley said most of what would occur initially would be to repair the roofs to protect the structure, controlling the kudzu and re-planting.