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New Annexation


Spartan

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This is probably wishful thinking, but I'd like to see the old mill communities adjacent to the city brought into the city limits: Una, Saxon, Arcadia, Beaumont, Whitney, and Drayton. It's humbling to realize that Rock Hill has surpassed Spartanburg and now has close to 65,000 people.
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The good thing about South Carolina's annexation laws is that the city ISNT obligate to annex those parts of town. In North Carolina, annexation has to happen equally. Interestingly, NC's annexation laws are being weakened in that now to annex an area, it has to go to vote, and at least 15% of the city (including the area to be annexed) has to vote in favor of it.

I agree that the city needs to be selective about which areas it annexes. We need to build up the middle class in the city, and unfortunately annexing too many of those areas will not help the ol' statistics.

I want to see Spartanburg annex Cleveland Heights, Hilltop, and the Pinewood area up to Whitney Rd (along Beaumont Street). That's as far north as I think is necessary at this point. Doing this would position the city to help revitalize those historic neighborhoods which are in close proximity to downtown and offer some good quality housing stock. Cleveland Heights could easily be the next Hampton Heights, but it needs the City's zoning ordinances to make that happen. I think that Ben Avon would be a good annexation target area for the same reason.

Annexing the west side, particularly down Blackstock Rd, will get a lot more middle class into the city. Westview and points west of there will also help the stats and the tax books.

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One other thing about annexations... I expect that we will see cities across the state become more aggressive in annexing residential areas because of Act 388. This is the act that restricts the ability of a governmental entity to increase its millage rate by the population growth plus inflation each year. In Spartanburg's case, they aren't growing very fast, so the more people they can get in the city limits, the larger the budget it can work with.

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I'd really like to see Spartanburg jump across I-26 and pick up a few of those really large and upscale neighborhoods. Ben Avon and the Woodburn road area would also be a real trophy area for the demographics. I just don't see any more large annexations coming anytime soon though. I'm not sure if the City retained any rights to the Sewer System. I understood that it had been completely turned over to SSSD. If this is the case, I don't see how Spartanburg will ever annex residential property again. I wonder if Rock Hill has some kind of utility asset to dive its annexation. Rock Hill may have 65000 residents, but Spartanburg looks and seems much larger than Rock Hill.

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Rock Hill does have some sort of service. Not sure what though. I thought I had heard electricity though.

My understanding is that even though SSSD took over the city's service, they still have city representation, and the city can still get these agreements for sewer service. I may have posted that to UP a while back when they merged.

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I hope thats right Spartan. If its not they'll have a long road to significant gains in population. I would suppose they would accumulate as many agreements as possible until right before the 2020 Census and bag all they can at that time. It seems as though the 10 year census numbers are the only ones that really are significant.

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Yeah those are the only ones that impact how much money the state gives cities each year, but the annual estimates are what determines millage rate increases. I'm assuming its not necessary to increase millage rates every year, but for some places it might be necessary. If you're in an area that loosing population though...

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Votes were in favor of the annexation 6-1. Interestingly, the one councilmember who voted against it wasn't really against annexation, just the fact that the laws are so antiquated. He said that the laws should be changes to reflect NC's laws. Interestingly, Doug Smith, our former representative in Columbia, was the sponsor of the bill to update the annexation laws (which is dead in committee as far as I know).

HJ Article

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Tonights Council agenda will include a request by 7 residences in the Hillbrook area that were excluded from the proposed annexation by the City, but want to be annexed. Some of the 7 even hired a lawyer to make sure they get into the City limits. The article gives the addresses of all the requests. All are in the same general area but not contiguous to the other proposed annexation. Its funny how some have hired a lawyer to stay out of the City and others are hiring lawyers to get in.

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I used to hold Scott Talley in high regard. Of all people in Spartanburg, I would think he would be among the last to hold up the annexation process. I sincerely hope that we don't end up without an annexation before December 31st. He's now filed suit against the City indicating that the terms of the pending annexation are invalid. Ugh. Its a wonder Spartanburg manages to exist on a day to day basis.

HJ Article

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I used to hold Scott Talley in high regard. Of all people in Spartanburg, I would think he would be among the last to hold up the annexation process. I sincerely hope that we don't end up without an annexation before December 31st. He's now filed suit against the City indicating that the terms of the pending annexation are invalid. Ugh. Its a wonder Spartanburg manages to exist on a day to day basis.

HJ Article

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It is. I've always stated that my long term goal is to someday come back to Spartanburg. I just want it to be better than when I left, and Talley is not helping this process. My comments towards him are my actual feelings. When he was in Columbia he supported things I supported- including reforming South Carolina's annexation laws- which is why this issue is so confounding. Any other lawyer and this case would be standard BS, and not above average.

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It is. I've always stated that my long term goal is to someday come back to Spartanburg. I just want it to be better than when I left, and Talley is not helping this process. My comments towards him are my actual feelings. When he was in Columbia he supported things I supported- including reforming South Carolina's annexation laws- which is why this issue is so confounding. Any other lawyer and this case would be standard BS, and not above average.

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The City has a little fault here too. They knew these annexations were going to be pursued months ago and waited until the last minute to pull the trigger with no room for any problems. If they would have voted on the annexation before, then more time would have been available for a ruling on the annexations validity. I understand some of these agreements are from the 80's!!!!, why have they waited so long on so many annexation agreements. I am all in favor of all of these people getting annexed and I believe they will eventually, but next time they had better have a little better plan.

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The City Council voted to proceed with the east side annexation, though one person is threatening to sue. It doesn't make any difference though, because I think those annexation agreements are solid. That's just my opinion.

I think that it's unfortunate that the west side annexation can't go through before January. This will dramatically reduce the potential increase in population and proportion of funding the city receives from the state. But after further reading (in the previously posted article), it sounds like their might be some actual issues with services rather than just opposition based on principle.

HJ Article

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