COASTAL OBSERVER

Georgetown County’s future land use plan will no longer apply to the 16,400 acres if voters in the 29585 ZIP code approve a plan to form a municipality. Neither will the county zoning ordinance, proponents of the plan say.

That doesn’t mean they aren’t interested in the update to the zoning ordinance and development regulations that is underway.

“We’re taking a wait-and-see attitude at this point,” said Andy Hallock, who chairs the Pawleys Litchfield Municipal Study Group. He was among the audience of about 50 people who attended the public kickoff of the zoning update last week. “It seems like we’ve been down this road before,” he added.

The study group has collected close to 3,000 signatures on a petition to the S.C. Secretary of State’s office calling for a referendum. The study group is finishing a feasibility study for the proposed town that must accompany the petition.

The incorporation effort followed Georgetown County’s approval of a new land use element in its comprehensive plan that critics say will increase the population density of Waccamaw Neck when the area is eventually built out. The primary function of the proposed town will be planning and zoning, under the proposal that the study group rolled out to residents this spring.

It’s unclear how the unified development ordinance that the county is creating will affect the population density, County Council Member Bob Anderson said.

He asked the consultants from Inspire Placemaking Cooperative who are helping the county with the update whether the UDO, as it is known, will rely on just the future land use plan or whether it will account for the other nine elements of the comprehensive plan, particularly the population and natural resources element. Anderson said he didn’t get a firm answer.

“The population element should be the foundation for the land use plan and for the natural resources element,” he said. “We just don’t seem to understand that.”

Anderson opposed the updated land use element. He also opposes the idea of forming a town. Reducing density through the UDO takes away the argument for incorporation, he noted.

“I’ll be watching that very closely,” Anderson said.

But if the UDO implements the goals of the comprehensive plan, as state law requires, increased population density is inevitable, said Cindy Person, chief counsel for Keep It Green Advocacy and a member of the municipal study group. Her analysis of the new land use plan shows it would allow an additional 4,682 dwellings over what the former plan envisioned.

“It’s a conservative number,” she added.

Person represents plaintiffs in five lawsuits that challenge county land use decisions. Common to all is the argument that the county failed to follow state law by amending its zoning ordinance after prior updates to the land use plan, which is required every 10 years.

Whether the UDO will reduce some of the population density she projects “is hard to know,” Person said. “If we’re only looking at density, it is what it is. If we’re looking at trees and wetlands, which I hope they do, it will help.”

Amy Armstrong, executive director of the S.C. Environmental Law Project, supported the updated land use plan because it calls for additional protection for natural resources and includes goals for affordable housing and for increasing density on individual tracts as a way to preserve open space.

“I think it’s a fantastic opportunity,” she said after last week’s kickoff. Failing to update the zoning in the past “caused us some problems.”

Armstrong pushed back against the population density claims Person made at a community meeting on incorporation this summer. Those increases will only be possible if there is significant redevelopment, she said.

Person countered that there is plenty of property that is under-developed to support her figures.

“It’s all about the math,” Anderson said. “We don’t know any of that.”

He plans to press for hard numbers as the UDO is drafted so residents will be able to understand the impact. The consultants have proposed to submit its preliminary findings to the public in January. The UDO is expected to be up for approval in November 2026.

Members of the municipal study group say they have considered that a vote to incorporate could trigger a rush to obtain building permits and project approvals from the county before a town government can be elected.

Under state law, a jurisdiction can’t adopt a zoning ordinance until it has adopted a future land use plan that shows current conditions, goals and objectives, and maps of future uses.

For a new town, that process wouldn’t start until voters elected a mayor and town council. When Pawleys Island incorporated in 1985, its new council immediately adopted the relevant sections of the county zoning code while it drafted its own ordinance over the next two months.

That would be an option for officials if a town is formed in 29585, Person said.

A moratorium on building would be another. “Plenty of municipalities do that while they figure it out,” she said.

That’s for the elected representatives to determine, not the study committee, Hallock said.

“We’ll trust we can elect people who will make the right decision,” he said.