Spartanburg County Comprehensive Planning Process

[eneely]

Spartanburg County is getting ready to kickoff its comprehensive planning process, to be completed in 2008. This plan will ultimately set the course for adopting land use regulations.

Upstate Forever, the PRIDE Task Force and the League of Women Voters are co-sponsoring a public informational meeting this Thursday (Mar. 22) at 7:00 pm at Wofford College's Olin Theater. (Directions: Enter Wofford College through main Church Street entrance. Turn left past fountain into parking lot -- Olin is the large glass-front building and the theater is directly inside the front doors.)

The meeting will feature Spartanburg County Assistant Administrator Chris Story and Planning Director David Rutherford. They will present an overview of the county's current policies and opportunities for citizen input in the planning process.

Please plan to join us on Thursday and stay abreast of County Council's land use discussions over the course of the next 18 months.

[Spartan]

Oh cool, I might actually be able to make that. I heard good things about Mr Rutherford. Hopefully he can get things moving in the right direction for a change... and maybe get people talking about the "Z word."

Is there a website, or are you planning to host one at some point?

Also, please stop by and keep us updated! I will pin this thread to keep everyone informed! And welcome to the forum!

[Spartan]

I'm suprised there's not more to say here. Here's my take:

The meeting was packed, standing room only.

Only 1 county councilman showed up: Tom Foster, from the westside area (Council District 6).

• Fun facts for Spartanburg 2030

• 12th fastest growing county in SC

• 85,000 new people

• 45,000 new homes

• 68,000 new cars on the road

• 35% more students in our schools

• 28 new school buildings

• 54% of residents will live in buildings built AFTER the year 2000

- Form Based Codes were mentioned as a possibility instead of traditional zoning since they are moe flexible and less focused on splitting up land uses.

- There will be talk of things like multimodal transportation, cluster development, transfer of development rights, historic preservation, and enterprise zones.

-They will coordinate with the City of Spartanburg [very important]

Software

There will be new software that will allow citizens to comment on a specific paragraph, policy statement, goal, or objective as well as other comments via the internet. The software then compiles all of this into a report that planners can use. This has been done in Providence, RI recently and I'm assuming it was successful. They weill have the site up in about two week. I'm particularly excited about this since I won't be able to make all of the meetings.

So this meeting just set the stage for what was to come. And I think that what is to come may suprise some people.

[emo]

glad to see some family on here. i hope the meeting went well.

[krazeeboi]

Again, this is something progressive, and I'm starting to see more and more of this for Spartanburg.

[Spartan]

Indeed. This goes back to what I've been saying in other threads: Spartanburg's leadership has really done a 180 in the past 5-7 years. The new blood is progressive and foreward thinking. The only problem is that some of the County Councilmen are only looking out for their own interests. Its my hope that since this plan will be done at the by and for all Spartans, and not by a contracted firm, it will be harder for Council to NOT accept what is presented.

[tdreamweaver]

I attended this meeting and was shocked at the turnout and thrilled with the proposed process. Citizen education and involvement is key in my book and they were talking it up that night. I left with a great feeling. It is just one more thing to add my list of good things happening in Spartanburg.

Yay Spartanburg.

[krazeeboi]

That's excellent. I'm sensing an air of progress in Spartanburg that I never knew existed up until this point. And what's more, the citizens seem to be a driving force in this, as evidenced by the comprehensive planning process and the charrette.

[tdreamweaver]

I was crushed to learn this morning that David Rutherford, the County Planning Director who is heading this fantastic project up, resigned yesterday. For the sake of the County, I hope and pray the County will find a like minded individual to replace him.

http://www.goupstate.com/article/20070405/...369/1051/NEWS01

t

[Spartan]

That is indeed very unfortunate, and such bad timing too, being at the start of the comp plan updating process. I hope that the County is able to find a quality replacement quickly.

[Spartan]

Does anyone know what the deal is with the comp plan these days? They were supposed to unveil a website, but I fear that with Mr Rutherford's departure, this process has been delayed.

[Spartan]

^ In response to myself, I found out through a friend that the process is still very much underway. The process was delayed because of Mr Rutherford's departure, but we should be hearing about some public meetings some time soon.

[Spartan]

Ok folks, its been almost 11 months since I've heard anything about the Comprehensive Plan. Has anyone out there heard anything? Is the County still working on this thing? When is the public going to get some new information?

[alias007]

Since there has been curiosity as to the status of the plan, I inquired with Joan Holiday as to the current status and if there had been any meetings in regards to it. Apparently, the plan has fallen to the wayside, but there have been 6 meetings for a new plan to take its place. I need to start going to these meetings. I'll try to keep an eye out for when the next meeting is. Here is her UNofficial response: (I say unofficial as this was nothing more than an email. Not a press release or anything.)

"When Mr. Rutherford left, it kinda sucked the air out of that effort since everyone identified it with him as the new planning director. Nevertheless, we must complete a new plan soon. There will be community meetings, although nothing is scheduled at this time.

We do have consultants working with our Administration and County Council to determine the direction that the community wants for the County. They may do some elements of the comprehensive plan and, perhaps, a new land development-type ordinance. Land Design and Duncan Associates had a series of six meetings around the County about growth and land use issues."

Again, I'll keep an eye out for upcoming meetings and try to attend.

[Spartan]

She's talking about the Zoning Ordinance. They did have 6 meetings, and they were well publicized. I have some of them documented in the "Zoning in Spartanburg County" thread. I doubt they will have any more public meetings. Maybe some public hearings in front of Council or something. The key with zoning is that we have to support this thing. Zoning is absolutely critical for Spartanburg not to sprawl itself to death.

Thanks for getting that information, alias007. Its good to know things are still moving, albeit slower. So the order of priority appears to be: 1) Adopt Zoning Ordinance and 2) work on Comp Plan. It makes sense because the contents of a comprehensive plan will be dramatically different if we have zoning in place to help with growth and land use issues.