Mauldin City Council has amended an ordinance banning U-Haul rentals in certain zoning designations after a local business owner filed a lawsuit challenging the rule.
The change will grandfather in Sarks Automotive, which has a C-2 zoning, and allow it to continue its truck rental operation indefinitely after owner Jeremy Sark sued the city with support from the Institute for Justice, a nonprofit law firm based in Arlington, Va.
Sark was one of two businesses impacted by the ordinance, which City Council enacted as part of a larger overhaul of its zoning. But the other business that was affected by the new rule, Yogi Food Store, is zoned CRD, the designation for the city’s coming city center, and will not be grandfathered in under the amended ordinance, according to David Dyrhaug, Mauldin’s director of business and development services. The change did give business owner Jigar Patel more time to end his truck rental operation, moving the sunset date from the first of the year to Dec. 19 2024, Dyrhaug said.
While Sark will be able to continue renting U-Hauls, which he said makes up a significant portion of his business, he will be subject to new regulations under the new ordinance, including a requirement that he keep no more than two box trucks in front of his store facing North Main Street at any time.
Mayor Terry Merritt said following the unanimous Dec. 19 vote to amend the ordinance that the original intent was to end U-Haul rentals within the corridor where Mauldin intends to establish a new development that would act as a downtown for the growing Greenville County town. Patel’s shop is the only such business in that area. The inclusion of Sarks Automotive, which sits about a mile north of the planned project, was an oversight, he said.
“We were so focused on our CRD and it was moving so fast and furious that we didn’t really look beyond it, at least on my part,” Merritt said. “I missed it and I should have known better. I’ve lived here. In working with our city planner and our city attorney, we worked out an amicable solution.”
Merritt said the ordinance was designed to beautify the city’s central corridor as Mauldin works to create the city center project on a 24-acre tract just off North Main Street near Butler Road. Patel was previously in conversations with a developer to sell his property to make way for the city center project, but those talks ultimately fell through.
Patel was not involved with the lawsuit Sark and the Institute for Justice brought against the city.
In an emailed statement from the law firm, Sark said he was relieved he would be able to continue to do truck rentals.
“We’re relieved that this important part of our business will continue next year,” Sark said. “What the city tried to do wasn’t right and it would have hurt our employees, customers and people who move to and from Mauldin.”