COASTAL OBSERVER

Candidates know the race for the District 6 seat on Georgetown County Council will focus on land use issues, and Stella Mercado came to the first forum in the campaign prepared to defend her record over the last three years.

Residential density cut by 50 percent in the updated future land use plan. A 70 percent reduction in multi-family density in the top zoning district. Potential redevelopment on two golf courses reduced by 90 percent.

“I’ve worked hard to make historic cuts in potential residential development density,” Mercado said.

Bill Ringer, who is challenging Mercado in the Republican Party primary, told the county GOP Club a different story.

“Time and again, residents have voiced serious concerns about increasing population density and land use decisions only to feel ignored or disappointed by County Council’s responses and decisions,” he said. “What we need most right now is not more politics or promises. We need someone with experience, the guts and the common sense to listen to his constituents.”

A series of speakers among the audience of about 100 people used the question time at the forum to reinforce Ringer’s claim that voters don’t feel their voices are heard.

“I watched  20, 30 people parade in front of that Planning Commission, sometimes in tears, virtually on their knees, begging to preserve their way of life in this community,” said Nicole Barksdale, a resident of Council District 2 who sported a Ringer sticker. “I watched again and again you raise your hand against them.”

Karen Wesdorp, who lives in District 6 and also had a Ringer sticker, recounted talking to Mercado at a drop-in. “I asked you why you made that decision to vote against all the people that had asked you to do something different,” she said. “You looked at me and said, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Karen.’”

Mercado said she understood people were frustrated, but said she first had to vote to update the land use element in the county’s comprehensive plan – long past the 10 year window required by state law – in order to pass the change to the zoning ordinance that cut the top multi-family density from 16 to five units an acre.

“Land use is hard,” Mercado said. “We have a lot of things to balance, and property owners’ rights are one of those.”

Jerry Rovner, who chairs the GOP Club, gave Ringer a chance to weigh in, asking both candidates to define “common sense growth.”

“Common sense growth is growth that the people support,” Ringer said. It isn’t “turning this area in an area of multiple-unit housing, hugely increased commercial use.”

Mercado said it’s “smart growth,” and she pointed to Willbrook Plantation as an example, with a mix of residential development at different price points and commercial development that doesn’t require residents to get on Highway 17.

Amy Armstrong, a District 2 resident who was appointed to the Planning Commission by Mercado, asked Ringer if the county could deny approval for a development plan that meets the property’s existing zoning.

“If the zoning is in place, then it has gone through the right process,” he said. “That is what the permits should be based on.”

But he said he would question the basis for that zoning designation.

Mercado agreed, and pointed out that if the county did otherwise it would risk a lawsuit unless the owner was compensated for a taking.

Asked by Mary Beth Klein, another Ringer supporter from District 2, about a vote to approve a townhouse project on Petigru Drive despite the Planning Commission recommendation for denial and District 2 Council Member Bob Anderson’s opposition, Mercado said she was following the zoning. (A lawsuit by neighbors and the citizens group Keep It Green over that decision is awaiting a ruling from the state Court of Appeals.)

Mercado also said the project was less than the maximum density allowed. “So I viewed that as a decrease in zoning per acre. That was part of the reasoning,” she said. “Bill and I just agreed that if something is zoned a certain way that it  is not part of our ability to change that, right?”

Both candidates pointed to Anderson as a model. Ringer called him “a notable example of a County Council representative who votes according to what his people want. I want to do the same for my district.”

Mercado handed out copies of an op-ed article Anderson wrote opposing an effort to form a municipality in the Pawleys Island-Litchfield area. Ringer was a member of the group working on the incorporation proposal until he resigned to run for the council seat.

“Bob is an experienced leader who I have a lot of respect for,” Mercado said. “I’m proud to stand with Bob against the incorporation effort.”

Anderson stood to one side of the Waccamaw Library auditorium and watched in silence.