County Growth/Sprawl Challenges

[westsider28]

A few recent HJ articles (All signs point to housing boom in Spartanburg County and As Spartanburg County grows, so do traffic woes) got me thinking that we need a thread to discuss general growth and sprawl issues / challenges facing Spartanburg County, along with potential solutions.  Obviously this is a big problem that we need to address, and unfortunately county leaders (and many citizens) don't seem willing to get serious about it.  Implementation of area performance planning is going incredibly slow and doesn't effectively address the issues we face.

I was pleased to see an article today about impact fees to potentially help the situation.  Fort Mill has instituted these fees to help infrastructure keep up with the massive Charlotte-spillover growth they're getting.

What do you think?

[Spartan]

I have a very cynical outlook for the county. Growth a huge problem that Spartanburg County lacks the tools to deal with. Spartanburg County politics are too focused on property rights and far right politics to make any meaningful steps towards something that resembles planning or tools to implement good planning. Their current "zoning" process is about 30-40 years behind the times. part of the challenge is that developers don't build neighborhoods the way they used to - as an extension of the adjacent neighborhood. It's a classic sprawl pattern that is 100% focused on car-based transportation. There are no new roads or connections being built, nor is anyone talking about where new connections can be made to help deal with traffic.

Be prepared for 6 lane congested highways (e.g.: Wade Hampton Blvd) as the future of all the major roads on the west side of the county in addition to High way 9. The nature that people claim to love will continue to be mowed down for another subdivision, and people will continue to complain about how nothing is done while continuing to vote people into office who actively work against any efforts to make meaningful changes to improve the situation. 

Zoning is not the cure, but a goof comprehensive plan combined with a complimentary and visionary transportation (road) plan and a unified development ordinance would do wonders for the county's future if council were actually committed to making changes and not selling out to the first developer that shows up with money to spend.