The Lancaster County Planning Commission voted on Tuesday to recommend denial of a conditional use permit that would have allowed a mosque at 10935 Harrisburg Road in Indian Land, sending the matter to county council for a final decision after nearly two hours of public testimony and commissioner discussion.
The application, filed under case CU 2026 0168, sought a conditional use permit for a place of assembly on a roughly five acre parcel currently zoned Low Density Residential. Place of assembly is an allowed use in LDR with a conditional use permit. Commissioner Sheila Hinson recused herself from the matter.
County planning staff had recommended approval, finding the application met the requirements in chapters 5 and 9 of the Unified Development Ordinance. The Technical Review Committee identified no departmental issues, and the Lancaster County Water and Sewer District reported that no review was needed at the conditional use stage because no change in utility impact had been proposed.
The Application
Angelo Tilman of AllPro Development, based in Charlotte, presented the application on behalf of the applicants, which included Abdul Manan of Fort Mill. Tilman told commissioners the mosque would serve roughly 40 to 50 members initially, with parking for up to 100 vehicles to accommodate visitors and occasional events. He said services would generally be held once a week on Friday afternoons.
Tilman also stated the mosque would have no outside audio speakers, meaning no external call to prayer. He said the applicants would meet buffer zone and landscaping requirements and wanted to work with the community on any concerns. A civil engineer had consulted with the planning department before the application was submitted, he said.
Public Opposition
Chair Shelly Richards said she received a package of 24 emails from citizens opposing the application. The synopsis identified concerns about traffic, noise, nonresidential use in a residential area, property values, impact on emergency services, and overflow parking on the street.
More than a dozen residents spoke during the public hearing, most in opposition. Traffic on Harrisburg Road was the most commonly cited concern. Elizabeth Howie of 11187 Harrisburg Road told commissioners the South Carolina Department of Transportation recorded an average of 7,300 vehicles per day on the road in 2025. She and others described traffic backups, accidents, and on street parking tied to an existing mosque roughly 1.8 miles north of the proposed site.
Trisha Hunt of Patterson Plantation said residents in her 10 home community already have difficulty entering and exiting their subdivision and raised concerns about security planning at the site. Martha Ray of Carolina Acres Road and Dawn Cummings of Indian Land said the area’s infrastructure cannot support additional traffic, noting a new school planned for the area.
Two speakers raised questions about a possible cemetery on the property. Judson Connor of Carolina Acres Road said the matter had come to his attention shortly before the meeting, and Howie said a prior owner of the land had told her a cemetery existed on the parcel.
Adrien Kroger of McFalls Drive told commissioners that a website for a nearby Fort Mill Islamic center described an existing facility serving an estimated 5,000 Muslims in the broader Charlotte area, and he said the applicant’s suggestion that there was no mosque in the area was inaccurate. Tilman, when asked to respond, said he had not been aware of the nearby mosque because he was serving as a contractor on the project.
Several speakers raised religious and ideological objections, citing passages from the Quran and expressing concerns about Sharia law. One speaker asked the commission to table the matter pending state legislation.
Commissioner Discussion
Commissioners focused their stated reasons for the denial on land use compatibility rather than religious objections.
Commissioner Frances Liu said she drove past the property before the meeting and concluded the location was not suitable for any place of assembly, noting the parcel sits between two houses in a residential area.
A second commissioner, who said the property is in her district, agreed with Liu and said the site is incompatible with the surrounding area and with a planned school site nearby.
“I just don’t think that it fits with what we already know is coming to the area or the existing area,” the commissioner said.
Commissioner Judianna Tinklenberg pointed to broader infrastructure strain, citing a 2005 Clemson Institute fiscal impact study that she said warned the county could not sustain the pace of growth it is now experiencing.
“The issue here is overgrowth. It is sewer, traffic, infrastructure that we are just not in a place that we can continue to sustain,” Tinklenberg said.
Richards said she had consulted Muslim friends before the meeting to better understand how mosque services operate and had also driven the area at a peak traffic time. She said the heavy residential character and congested traffic made the location a poor fit regardless of the religious denomination involved.
Staff Report Dispute
Before the public hearing, Tinklenberg read a prepared statement objecting to a passage in the staff report that attributed to her and Richards a question about prayer schedule and call to prayer noises at the April 2 workshop. Tinklenberg said she did not make that statement. She said her question at the workshop had been about the frequency of uses and their impact on the surrounding community, a standard question she said she would ask for any conditional use request.
Tinklenberg said the inaccuracy was deeply concerning and may rise to the level of defamation, and she urged planning staff and leadership to implement improved redlining and peer review processes. She also referenced a separate error from the previous month, in which she said a published staff report included incorrect information about permitted uses under the UDO.
Richards said she had been the commissioner who initially raised a call to prayer question at the workshop but had withdrawn it after staff clarified the religious implications. She said she then consulted Muslim friends to better understand the practice before voting.
Next Steps
The planning commission’s role on conditional use permits is advisory. The application will now go to Lancaster County Council for a final decision, and the applicant will be notified of the date and time of the council hearing.
Other Business
The commission took up seven other agenda items during the nearly four hour meeting.
Capital improvement plan ranking. Josiah Park, a budget analyst with the Lancaster County Budget Office, led the commission through its annual ranking exercise for capital improvement plan projects. Commissioners were asked to rank new and previously approved but unfunded capital project requests for the upcoming fiscal year. After filling out individual ranking sheets, commissioners voted 6 to 0 to recommend a top 10 priority list to county council, which will be presented alongside the administrator’s recommended budget on May 6. The commission then voted 4 to 2 to recommend that council add the remaining unranked new project requests to the 10 year CIP in unfunded status. Park noted that in each of the past two years the consensus ranking has produced a natural break at the top 10 items.
Commissioners asked several questions about specific projects during the discussion, including the scope of a proposed fire service training center, the function of a fire dispatch CAD system, and the nature of a proposed EMS microhub. Interim County Administrator Steve Willis clarified that the training project under discussion is intended as a live fire training facility.
Commissioner Frances Liu questioned how much weight the planning commission’s ranking carries with county council, noting that a previously approved airport fuel tank project appeared at the top of the reference list alphabetically even though commissioners had not prioritized it. Park responded that council is the only body that can appropriate funds and that the planning commission’s ranking functions as advisory input.
RZ 2026 0308 Rollins. The commission voted 6 to 0 to recommend approval of a rezoning request to change a parcel from General Business to Professional Business. Planning staff said the request was intended to correct a nonconforming use issue for two existing triplexes and one existing duplex on the property. Staff told commissioners the change would not allow additional units to be added.
RZ 2026 0322 Lopez Steel Street. Commissioners voted 6 to 0 to recommend approval of a rezoning request to change a parcel from Manufactured Home to Professional Business. The applicant sought the change to correct zoning and code violations and to allow an upfit of two existing triplex structures. Staff said no additional units could be added under the new zoning.
RZ 2026 0409 Freeman. The commission voted 6 to 0 to recommend approval of a request by Russ Freeman to rezone a portion of an adjacent parcel owned by Paws in the Panhandle so that Freeman can attach it to his property off Flint Drive. Planning staff said Paws in the Panhandle had indicated it intends to sell a remaining cutoff piece of the parcel to the Lancaster County Water and Sewer District as part of a sewer extension to Shiloh Woods.
NRN 2026 0402 Hillview Acres Drive. Commissioners voted 6 to 0 to approve a request to name a private driveway off Andrew Vincent Road serving three newly created parcels. The application was submitted by Lisa Giovanelli on behalf of Hillview Acres LLC.
NRN 2026 0417 Legacy Point Place. Commissioners voted 5 to 1 to approve a request to name a commercial driveway Legacy Point Place. Planning staff said the name had been reviewed against county records and was considered sufficiently distinct from existing names. One commissioner voted against the name, citing the nearby Legacy Park neighborhood and concerns that GPS users could confuse the two locations.
Planning updates. Commissioners requested that staff provide an update on the county’s comprehensive plan at the May 7 workshop meeting. Commissioner Liu asked whether the ongoing rewrite of the Unified Development Ordinance would revisit the practice of allowing places of assembly in Low Density Residential zones, noting that the issue is likely to come back before the commission in future cases. Staff and commissioners confirmed the topic is among those still under consideration by the UDO committee. Commissioners also asked for an update on the status of the county’s impact fee study.
Source: Lancaster County Planning Commission meeting, April 21, 2026.
