COASTAL OBSERVER

A zoning change that could triple the number of dwellings. A conflict with the future land use plan adopted a year ago. A group of residents who asked Georgetown County Council to vote to protect their community.

It’s a familiar mix to Waccamaw Neck residents.

“We came up with revising our land use plan to try to fix those particular things that plagued us with the struggle on the Waccamaw Neck development. Now we are going back and doing the same thing with the western part of the county,” Council Member Louis Morant said.

The council did it last week to 75 acres on the Sampit River 6 miles west of Georgetown, changing the zoning from commercial and half-acre residential lots to allow lots of 6,000 square feet, about a seventh of an acre. To do that, it also had to change the tract’s designation on the future land use map from the lowest density to the highest.

A document submitted with the rezoning application shows the site could accommodate 185 single-family lots. It’s part of a larger tract, and 39 acres on the river will be zoned “conservation preservation.”

“It sounds like the Waccamaw Neck,” Council Member Bob Anderson said at last week’s meeting in Georgetown. “It certainly does, but we’ve got to treat this side of the river just like we treated the other side for the last five years. And that may be a hard pill to swallow, but it’s a fact.”

It was hard for area residents to swallow.  Felicia Howard told the council that the closest area with a similar zoning is in Murrells Inlet.

“I don’t think anyone in that part of the county wants it to look like Murrells Inlet,” she said.

Crystal Grant has a farm nearby. “It’s a rural area,” she said. The zoning change “is bringing in more people, more cars.”

Others also talked about the traffic and the change to the character of the community, but told the council that they lived beyond the distance limit to receive written notices of the zoning change. The sign on Highway 521 giving notice was too small to see, they said.

No one spoke against the rezoning when the Planning Commission held a hearing in October. The commission voted 5-0 to recommend the change.

Robert Turner, the former county stormwater engineer, represented the owner. He told the commission that the owner was talking to national and regional homebuilders about the property. She wants to “maximize the value for her heirs,” he said.

But he also said the average home price would be around $250,000.

“Georgetown County needs homes that working people can buy,” Turner said. “You’ve got to have small lots to make the math work. It’s just math.”

The rezoning went through two readings by council without comment. At the final reading, Morant noted that a zoning change didn’t commit the owner or future owner to a development plan or affordable housing. 

“The county can’t hold the developer to those sketch plans,” he said.

Council Member Ernie Cooper moved to defer the final reading. Morant joined him on the losing side of a 2-5 vote.

Council Member Raymond Newton, whose district includes the property, moved to approve the rezoning. Anderson provided the second.

Morant said he assumed that his colleagues voted against deferring approval so they could vote to deny approval, which he urged them to do.

“We’re talking about giving the highest density level to a rural area,” Morant said. “Is council just going to sit back and do that?”

Anderson pointed out that there are $37 million worth of water and sewer projects for the rural areas included in the capital project sales tax approved by voters in 2024. 

“It’s just time that we started to develop our rural areas,” he said. “I’m not saying I love that fact. I love what we’ve got over here, but things are going to change.”

“Sometimes we need to consider our residents,” Morant said.

“We haven’t taken care of our residents on the Waccamaw Neck very well,” Anderson said.

The vote to rezone the property was 5-2.

Anderson, who has voted in the minority against zoning changes and development plans for projects that increased density on Waccamaw Neck, said afterward the issue of rural zoning wasn’t about payback, but about adding to the tax base.

The property rezoned last week has a market value of nearly $730,000, but is taxed at just over $15,000 due to credits for timber production.