From Staff Reports

GREENVILLE, S.C. — Travelers Rest City Council will decide soon on annexation and rezoning requests for the Inn at Altamont, Greenville television station FOX Carolina reported on April 14.

The luxury hotel, proposed for Paris Mountain, has sparked much criticism from residents and some Greenville County leaders over the last few months.

For instance, on April 14, “residents in red” showed up to the county’s zoning public hearing to support environmental zoning protections for Paris Mountain.

“The Inn at Altamont proposal has triggered a larger conversation about development on Paris Mountain and how annexation and environmental concerns could play a part,” FOX Carolina noted.

“‘Everyone who lives around Paris Mountain does that for a reason — they enjoy and have moved there to enjoy nature,’ said Carol Hammond, who lives on Paris Mountain, noted as she joined her neighbors in red T-shirts at the April 14 meeting,” according to the TV station. “Hammond said she feels saving Paris Mountain from over development should be a priority, adding, ‘Well, my major concern was environmentally — the impact that it’s going to have on the wildlife....’”

FOX Carolina added, “It was the Inn at Altamont that started the conversation. Right now the mountain acres where the proposed project may sit is zoned as an environmentally sensitive district in the county.”

To that end, the TV station quoted Greenville County Councilman Steve Shaw as saying, “It’s really an area of critical state concern and definitely an area of critical county concern. it’s a gem that we can never get back if it’s gone,” 

Much of the mountain remains under the same zoning, which was created some time before the 1990s, when county development protections were put in place in response to  sewer and traffic infrastructure concerns.

Shaw told FOX Carolina that “people had foresight to see that this stuff was coming. They didn’t want it to become another Chattanooga or Pigeon Forge, or whatever. They saw these other places, so they said, “Tthis is a special environmental place and we’ve got to protect it from this type of commercial development.”

The TV station added, “But in the text they left what he considers a loophole. Developers could avoid the environmental protections by building an entrance off Old Buncombe Road instead of Altamont Road, allowing for higher density projects like apartments or condos.

“We’re going to say, ‘No, it needs to stay environmentally protected,’” Shaw told FOX Carolina, which noted that “Shaw’s requested an amendment that would remove that loophole.

“But if Travelers Rest annexes and rezones land for the Inn at Altamont into the city limits — those county protections for the site disappear,” the TV station stated. 

FOX Carolina also reported the following:

• Hammond said : “I don’t like the fact that Travelers Rest has say so in what Greensville County is doing with our land.”

• Shaw said: “The ‘annex laws’ right now are old and they’re outdated and they’re unfair and they’re not fit for reality right now. In 2025, there’s no way a city should be able to do this.”