COASTAL OBSERVER

A draft of an updated land use plan for Georgetown County won’t be completed until at least mid January, according to consultants that are doing the work.

None of about 70 people who reviewed their progress at two forums last week raised any objections to extending the original deadline past Dec. 31.  The sessions at the Waccamaw Library and the Howard Auditorium in Georgetown were the first since the consultants, led by the Columbia firm Boudreaux, outlined their framework for mapping out future land uses. 

The work was based on public comment received at three forums in September and a series of smaller sessions with participants representing a range of community interests.

“I’m encouraged,” said Leon Rice, a member of the citizens group Preserve Murrells Inlet who has been critical of county land use decisions in the past.

He particularly liked the idea that the new land use plan will include a recommendation to revise the “general residential” zoning district that applies to about 1,000 acres on the Waccamaw Neck. The district allows both single-family homes and multi-family developments with as many as 16 efficiency apartments per acre.

In many places, the current land use is less intense than the general residential district  allows, said Jake Petrosky, a community planner with Stewart, a North Carolina design firm.

“I’m very encouraged; excited, actually,” said Mary Beth Klein, a past member of the citizens group Keep It Green who has also spoken out against county land use decisions.

The recommendation that the county create standards for low impact development to replace traditional residential subdivisions caught her attention, but Klein asked what it would take for the county to require those rather than just promote them.

“There are a lot of other steps needed,” Petrosky said.

Recommendations for implementing goals in the land use plan will be included in the final draft.

“This is where the plan starts to make that turn into policy,” said Ryan Bland, a senior planner at Boudreaux.

The consultants created five study areas within the county, one for Waccamaw Neck, and identified three “place types” within each: rural, corridors and gateways, and neighborhoods. Each of those has a range of uses. The goal is to make sure future development maintains the character of the different communities.

While the county currently identifies property on the Waccamaw Neck as commercial in its future land use plan, the consultants noted that there are different types of commercial use.

“We want to encourage those differences,” Petrosky said. On Highway 17 in Litchfield, for example, “you don’t get the sense that this could be any place in the world.”

The land use plan is one of 10 elements of the comprehensive plan that the county is required by state law to adopt and maintain. It provides the legal basis for the zoning ordinance. The consultants are looking at ways to change the zoning where it doesn’t match the land use plan or where it can further the plan’s goals, Petrosky said.

There will be more land identified for conservation and preservation in the draft plan, he added.

“There is a lot of land in the county that is not appropriate for even low density residential development,” Petrosky said, and where it is identified for future residential development “it needs to be a lot lower density probably even than the current zoning.”

While attendance at the sessions last week was lower than the 300 or so people who attended in the first round, Irene Tyson, the planning director at Boudreaux, was encouraged by the response.

“We heard from several people that ‘you’re going in the right direction.’ I think it’s getting better,” she said.

At the opening session in September, Tyson heard from several Waccamaw Neck residents who said they didn’t trust the process to reflect the public’s views.

“This is the first draft of where we’re going, so finally seeing we paid attention to public comment, that’s reflected in all of this,” she said.

She hopes people will continue to send comments via email to landuse@gtcounty.org. The latest summary of the consultants’ work is also available online. There will be an online session Jan. 10 at noon. Register at tinyurl.com/LandUseWebinar.

The work has stretched out in part because county officials who got updates last month asked for additional information about existing infrastructure and the impact of solar farms. None of them expressed concern about continuing the work into the new year.

“They’re also committed to getting it right,” Petrosky said.