Criminal Defense Attorney inCampobello, SC

Three years after enacting zoning for southwestern Spartanburg County to regulate growth, County Council is moving forward with plans to bring zoning to the entire county.

Planning Director Joan Holliday told council members Monday public input will be sought in drafting a performance zoning plan to be ready for council approval by this fall.

The plan would not apply to incorporated towns and cities, but could bring order to fast-growing unincorporated areas like Boiling Springs and Campobello, where many residents have said uncontrolled growth has brought traffic headaches.

Some residents said they want to see what's in the plan before outright supporting it.

"If you surveyed citizens of this county today, most would say that development is out of control," said Sally Rock of Campobello. "Will the proposed zoning be a political path to more rapid development? How do citizens in the southwest corner feel zoning is working there?"

Spartanburg County's Southwest Performance Plan is modeled after Lexington County's plan, Holliday said.

The 160-page Southwest Performance Zoning Plan covers a large area from Greer to Woodruff, where most of the current industrial and residential growth is occurring.

At first, county officials anticipated expanding the zoning to four other areas, piece by piece, but have now decided to simply expand the Southwest Plan countywide.

If enacted countywide, it would replace the county's 22-year-old Unified Land Management Ordinance (ULMO) that has regulated development with rules such as buffers, height, landscaping and setbacks.

Over time, the ULMO has been criticized by many residents as too weak to protect against sprawl and address infrastructure needs such as roads, before growth happens.

Two years ago, County Councilman Bob Walker cited an example, saying the ULMO would not prevent an RV park planned on Landrum Mill Road in northern Spartanburg County that residents have opposed, but performance zoning might require the developer to find another site.

Performance zoning, on the other hand, is loaded with what uses are allowed in certain areas. It classifies roads from most traveled to least traveled: arterial (heavily traveled); collector; local; limited local; restrictive local; and residential local.

The greater the traffic volume on a road, the more uses that are permitted, such as schools, daycare centers, hospitals, flea markets, retail stores and manufacturing facilities.

Highway 101 is an example of a major arterial road with the highest classification.

The zoning also includes restrictive districts by protecting rural areas and guiding development toward population centers.

Former County Councilman Roger Nutt, who headed up the process of drafting the Southwest Plan, said the plan preserves property rights – a major concern at the outset of planning.

Public input will be sought on zoning plan

Holliday said meetings will be held with council members and planning commission members in February and March, followed by "stakeholder engagement" from April to August.

Planners will then seek public input from July to September, with a planning commission review in September, and finally three readings of the ordinance by county council in September, October and November.

Details of where and when public meetings will be held have not been finalized.

Residents react to zoning effort

Campobello-area residents critical of uncontrolled growth said the plan is long needed.

"I was a big proponent of performance zoning," said Jeffrey A. Horton Jr., a resident of northern Spartanburg County. "I feel it's the only way to regulate growth and preserve rural areas of my district.

"It's not necessarily meant to stifle growth, but guide it where it can become viable and manageable. People are jaded with traffic, state of our roads and over-congestion this population growth has produced, yet no one is actively addressing these issues."

Lou Nespecca of Campobello said he hopes the plan provides grandfather provisions to exempt some current uses.

"I would find it hard to tell someone who has done something for 25 years it is now illegal," he said. "I would like to know the push behind this agenda. Do they now want to over-develop other areas of the county and plan to force people out of their current situation? What happens if the pig farm was there first, and houses start to pop up around it?."

Rock, one of many northern Spartanburg County residents who oppose a planned RV park near Landrum, said she hopes the county is sincere in taking public input into account.

Opponents of the RV park were upset after the Planning Commission gave conditional approval to the RV park in March 2021. Opponents said they were not notified ahead of time. County officials said the park plan was on the Planning Commission's agenda and properly posted on its website a week before the meeting.

"This county has a track record of not welcoming citizen input and ignoring citizens' concerns when it comes to development and a vision for the future," she said. "Folks feel they have zero voice in local government land use planning. If you surveyed citizens of this county today, most would say that development is out of control."

Nathan Williams, a third-generation farmer on Highway 357 in Campobello, said the influx of housing developments is causing streams to flood more often and destroy topsoil needed for crops. He's also seen more traffic on narrow roads, making it impossible at times for his combine – a machine to harvest grain crops – to get to fields without the use of an escort.

He said he hopes the zoning plan will preserve farmland and steer growth to population centers.

"I don't know the solution," the 60-year-old farmer said. "I'm just concerned that in our future, we're not going to have anything left to farm."

Mike Brady of Boiling Springs has often been critical of the lack of county planning in Boiling Springs, where commercial growth branching out from the Highway 9 corridor has prompted many discussions about whether Boiling Springs should be incorporated with its own laws.

"The county has always held the opinion that zoning is the answer, but look in areas that have zoning regulations like Greenville County. I don't see it has worked very well there," he said. "Council holds the opinion that I am anti-growth, I am not. I'm for the county doing its job of planning areas for the benefit of the communities the growth will impact.

"Roads are a prime example of the tail wagging the dog. Let development come in unplanned, congest an area, and then try to address the problem on the back end. Old-timers like myself are looking at leaving the communities we have loved and worked in for a lifetime because of the issues lack of planning has created."