COASTAL OBSERVER

Down the street from an 8-acre tract being cleared to make way for 40 townhouses, residents said they need more information before they decide whether to support an effort to form a town in the area even though the purpose of the town would be to control land development.

“There are lot of residents not in favor of incorporation,” said Vincent Davis, president of the Pawleys Island Civic Club, which hosted a presentation by the Pawleys Island Litchfield Municipal Study Group last week at the rec center in Parkersville. If the goal is to take charge of land use, he asked, “is incorporating the only way to do that?”

The study group now has signatures from 15 percent of the registered voters in the 29585 ZIP code, outside the town of Pawleys Island, on a petition asking the S.C. secretary of state to approve an incorporation referendum. They are now working to complete a feasibility study that must accompany the petition and will show how the town will provide services and fund its operations.

The meeting with the civic club was the ninth of its kind since Memorial Day weekend. The study group formed three years ago and went public in July 2024. Civic club members asked why they hadn’t been asked to participate before now.

“I just heard about this a few weeks ago,” said James Linen. “Y’all didn’t go to the Black churches.”

The study group meets weekly at the House of God, where one of the members, Cindy Person, attends church. The Rev. Johnny Ford, the pastor, said he was learning the details with the rest of the community.

“Is the Black community an afterthought?” he said. “Even with this group meeting in our church, at the House of God church, that was always at the forefront.”

But Ford said he was willing to listen. Like Linen, Davis and other members of the civic club, he has spoken at public hearings against development plans in Parkersville and the surrounding areas. He is also a plaintiff in lawsuits brought by Person, chief counsel for Keep It Green Advocacy, challenging Georgetown County’s approvals for those projects.

“I have more questions than I received answers,” said the Rev. Dr. Norvel Goff, pastor of St. John AME. He also served on the city council in Hartford, Conn. “I want to be able to stand before the congregation which I pastor to inform them, not mislead them.”

The Rev. Rodney Thompson has tried to get the county to rezone property for the church he pastors in Georgetown and for a housing development. “They told me no,” he said. “I realize they pass what they want to pass.”

But he wondered how forming a town would help.

“How are you going to stop something when the bus is on top of you?” Thompson said. “We’re five years behind the bus.”

The study group usually starts its presentations by underscoring that it plans to operate the town without a municipal property tax. It flipped the script for the civic club meeting to highlight the potential for future development in Parkersville.

“There’s a whole lot of heirs property in this community that’s still up for grabs,” Person said. “The county has stacked the deck in favor of developers.”

Heirs property is land that has been inherited without a will and often has many fractional owners. State law used to allow someone to buy an owner’s interest and petition the court to sell the property at a public sale. 

Even though the law changed in 2017 to try to protect family members, Person said “the only ones to profit from this are the developers and the county,” which she said would get increased tax revenue from new development.

The county’s new future land use plan will increase development, particularly along Highway 17, by making commercial property available for residential use, she said.

“Local businesses will be pushed out by national retailers,” Person said. “The traditional minority communities will also be pushed out.”

Skip Van Bloem asked how a new town government will represent minorities. He lives in Ricefields, but is the poll manager for the voting precinct at the rec center. The study group has proposed a mayor and four council members be elected at large.

“At large councils don’t typically represent minorities very well,” Van Bloem said.

Person said the initial structure of a town government is set by state law, but the incorporation referendum will allow voters to choose a different form, which will take effect after two years.

“Districts are definitely an option, and definitely one that I would propose because it’s super important for y’all to be represented,” she said.

But residents said they thought incorporation was “a done deal” without their input. Norman Reid asked where the people who signed the petition lived. 

Andy Hallock, who chairs the study group, said they came from throughout the 29585 ZIP code, but added that of the 75 people who volunteered to collect signature only two or three were from the Parkersville area.

He said afterward that the group plans to hold 20 sessions to explain its proposal. He estimated that 2,000 people out of the over 16,000 who live in the proposed town limits have attended the sessions so far.

“I’m a little bit disappointed to hear some things, because I could not be more involved and more concerned about this community,” Person said. “It keeps me up at night.”

The study group isn’t trying to force incorporation on anyone, it’s trying to give them a choice, she said.

“I’m not saying this is a perfect solution, probably isn’t,” Person said. “But I don’t know what other alternative there is to prevent what I can see is going to happen.”