COASTAL OBSERVER

Georgetown County Council made 13 board appointments this week. Marlajean Hamby wasn’t one of them.

Her first term on the Planning Commission expires this month, and although her name was on the council agenda for reappointment it was passed over.

But Hamby, who came to the commission after serving as a leader of the citizens group Keep It Green, will continue to serve.

“I promised Bob I would continue to serve for at least two years,” she said, referring to Council Member Bob Anderson, who appointed her in 2021. “I will be 85 then, so perhaps it will be time to retire.”

Anderson declined to comment on the appointment.

Hamby said she wasn’t aware of the council action, but got some calls after this week’s council meeting. In 2022, then-Council Member John Thomas was blocked in his efforts to reappoint Sandra Bundy to a second term on the commission.  Bundy served until Clint Elliott replaced Thomas in the District 1 seat. Elliott appointed David Roper to the commission.

Bundy and Hamby were both critical of county planning and enforcement of regulations. So were the council members who appointed them.

Hamby, who is also active in Republican politics, said that Anderson also asked her to stop writing letters to the editor on national politics.

Hamby came to the commission by way of tennis, helping to organize Keep It Green to oppose the redevelopment of the former Litchfield Racquet Club in 2018. She stayed on the board as the group opposed a series of zoning changes and plan approvals that it said would increase residential density on Waccamaw Neck in violation of the county’s comprehensive plan. Four of those approvals are the subject of pending lawsuits.

“I do not attend the Keep It Green meetings anymore,” Hamby said. “I still support Keep It Green.”

She spent about 30 years in real estate and development. The Allston Point community in Willbrook Plantation has a Hamby Drive.

Commission members are required to take continuing education classes. “I’ve taken all that I can take trying to learn,” Hamby said, adding that she has also looked for information from other coastal communities about drainage and managing population growth.

She thinks she “might have” made a difference in her first term on the commission. “I think there would probably be a lot more density. I think there would be a change in the height allowed,” she said.

The county completed an update to its state-mandated comprehensive plan last year, including the land use element that provides the legal basis for zoning decisions. Hamby was one of three members who voted against the update. She said it didn’t do enough to reduce residential density on Waccamaw Neck.

The county was due to receive proposals this week from firms to update the zoning and development regulations to conform with the new land use plan.

“The only thing that I want to do is get the residential off the commercial corridor. I’m going to work real hard on that,” Hamby said.

She is also eager to move forward with a county wetlands ordinance. The current zoning ordinance only requires a 15 foot building setback from saltwater wetlands. Planning staff are working with environmental groups on an ordinance that will protect freshwater wetlands.

Hamby has also talked at various times for the need for a moratorium on new construction on Waccamaw Neck until the new regulations can be adopted. She still thinks that’s a good idea, particularly if it is tied to implementations of a stormwater master plan for Waccamaw Neck that the county adopted two years ago.

“We spent a lot of money on that plan and we haven’t done a thing,” she said.