George's Information and Comments

Growth Impact Action Committee

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Proceedings: April 19 Envision 2025

Horry County Comprehensive Plan

        -- George Edwards

Note: These are not official proceedings, but as I observed them. I intend to continue publishing the officially approved Land Use Element minutes (which will likely include more or fewer items and details) with other supplemental material provided by staff when such becomes available.

To move to a particular topic on this page, click the appropriate table link below.

You can click here when you want to move back to the main menu for the Land Use Element of the Envision 2025 Horry County Comprehensive Plan.

Steering Committee Membership Changes on the Horry County Web Site

As of this writing (April 24, 2007), Dr. Susan Libes, Steven Norris and Eric Rabon are newly shown on the Horry County Web site as the appointees of Coastal Carolina University, Coastal Carolinas Association of Realtors and County Council District 10 respectively.

Previously, Eric Rabon had been shown as the representative of Shoreline Engineering, an organization not included among those named in the Horry County ordinance that established the steering committee.

Click www.horrycounty.org and then click Envision 2025 to determine any possible future changes in the official membership.

If you want to return to the top of this page, click here.

Top Level April 19 Envision 2025 Unofficial "Minutes"

Placards for voting members were available for pick up at the entry table rather than pre-placed on the table to identify those members. It was announced that the allowed time for completion of the Envision 2025 Comprehensive Plan steering committee meetings has been extended to June 30.

Julie Harbin, the District 4 appointee, suggested two additions to the minutes, one of which the committee agreed to have added.

Shirley Graham, the Horry County Planning Commission chairman's appointee, asked why David Duvall was off the committee. Ravin Gore, senior planner, said he was not uninvited. Graham said Duvall was no longer shown as a steering committee member on the county Web site. She said that he represented the Holliday family and as such surely deserved inclusion.

The county Web site shows Russell Holliday as representing the Holliday family. It indeed no longer shows (April 24) David Duvall that it did earlier when it showed him as a representative of Black Water, an organization that was not listed as one of those among the steering committee members named in the ordinance forming the committee.

Holliday Associates is listed as a member that can make one appointment. If David Duvall was intentionally removed from the county Web site by someone, it would likely have been because he said he was a Black Water, rather than a Holliday Associates appointee. Holliday Associates, of course, has full power to make appointments as it chooses.

Graham then questioned the credential of Dr. Susan Libes who was sitting as a voting member at the table. Janet Carter, Planning Director, said that she had received a letter from Coastal Carolina University appointing Dr. Libes. Coastal Carolina University is an organization named by ordinance as having a steering committee membership and so appointment authority.

The steering committee chairman, Fred Richardson, said that any question concerning valid steering committee membership should be taken up with Janet Carter or Liz Gilland.

As questions on steering committee credentials seem to be an ongoing issue, I am putting a copy of the attachment to the ordinance that established the steering committee on a distinctly different page identified in the "Envision 2025 Comp Plan" menu as "Steering Committee Membership Criteria."

Richardson said that he had been approached by those who felt that certain fundamental findings in the comprehensive plan should be given more prominence. A general discussion followed with several lauding staff's write up of the newly distributed "Future Land Use"  portion of the "Land Use Element." Greg Lipscomb, the North Myrtle Beach ex-officio representative said that it was the best that he has seen. The particulars as to how best to incorporate suggestions such as Richardson's comments on bringing fundamental findings into prominence was left for staff to incorporate in updating the plan for further committee review. Roy Taylor, principal planner, offered to sit down and discuss suggestions with anyone on the committee.

Taylor, then presented the latest version of a future land use map for Horry County emphasizing that it was a work in progress. Felix Pitts, the Burroughs and Chapin representative, and Holly Kauffman of the Horry County Planning Commission said that considerations for anticipated new highways such as I73 and those already becoming dangerous because of development along them, such as S.C. 9 should be included.

George Edwards, the District 8 appointee, emphasized the need to show the areas with or without adequate public infrastructure support and asserted that the belief that those areas shown as urban necessarily had adequate public infrastructure in place was often wrong. He opined that preparing a map adequately addressing infrastructure adequacy as well as the concerns expressed by Pitts and others was way beyond what could be accomplished during the steering committee tenure.

Marty Ekster, District 1 representative asked how many developments that were already approved were on the map. Kauffman noted that some had been zoned to permit development for twenty years without being developed. Ekster observed that the development was already approved regardless of what might develop as a consequence of comprehensive planning.

Lipscomb of North Myrtle Beach Planning said that the city of North Myrtle Beach permitted enough new construction every year to double its population. He said that the baby boomers are coming. We would be seeing the "greatest migration in the world."

Pitts of B and C that we should be less arbitrary about drawing lines. Taylor, planner, said no one feels that development should be held to the map. Pitts said when seeking rezoning, the county looks at the comp plan. It affects the results of rezoning requests. He cited the restrictions on wedge districts, etc. named in the current comp plan.

Ibrahim Aborsey Ashly, the District 7 appointee, said that he questioned staff's projection of Horry County population. He said he did not know where it came from. He said that staff had not responded to his regression and binomial/ compounding analyses.

As I understand him, the 2025 Horry County population figure given in the population element was 336,908. His regression analysis based on the 1950-2000 data leads to a 2025 population estimate of 417,491. His binomial/compounding analysis based on a 3.15% population growth per year (that I gather he deduced from the population element populations given by staff for the years between 1990 and 2000) yields a 2025 population estimate of 498,071.

An unsophisticated testing approach that could be used is with the approximation to determine the number of years for a quantity to double by dividing the compounding rate into 72.. At the 3.15 rate, this yields 22.875 years. Subtracting this from 2025 gives 2002.125 as the year from which the population would double. This supports Ashly's analysis in that it approximates half the 2025 population that he computes.

Lipscomb from the North Myrtle Beach planning department said something to the effect that there were many population increase estimation methods and all were just that, estimates. Richardson said that, in any event, population projections were something to be settled with staff. 

Dr. Libes said that the cost of development would increase even more with new development. Someone said that was the developer's problem, not something the committee needed to concern itself with. She said she was talking about the cost to the community in increased taxes, not the developer. Developers are not paying for the infrastructure necessary to support their development.

Richardson said that to him it was just like bananas, the more you sell the less the unit cost. Harbin cited inflation as one factor of increasing costs. Graham said there was a lot of good land to develop. David Utterback, the District 3 appointee, said that all problems of development are not paid for by developers. Ekster said the assumption that developers don't care was wrong.

Edwards said that no one was saying developers were bad people. But unlike the resounding unchallenged statement made in an earlier meeting, growth does not pay for itself. Numerous studies and statistics nationwide show that growth does not pay for itself, even with impact fees. Kauffman said that a Coastal Carolina study showed otherwise for Horry County. Edwards said that this is apparently the only area in the country for which this is true. Pam Creech, the appointee of Wildlife Action Inc., has said that if growth paid for itself, Horry County should be awash in money.

The detailed goals, policies and strategies of the land use element were gone over, paragraph by paragraph. Only one staff addition was changed during this meeting. The introductory words in the overall goal to "Provide sufficient land for future development . . . " was agreed to be changed as suggested by one of the authors, principal planner Taylor, to "Identify land suitable for future development." 

Strategy B. under policy II was changed so that the words "density bonuses to" were struck out  so that it would read: "Develop and implement an Incentive Zoning ordinance that rewards [snip] developments that provide public facilities, infrastructure improvements and/or improved design standards."

Strategy D. was changed to read: "Encourage the preservation of sensitive environmental features and open space within development plans in exchange for[snip] incentives to the developers."

Just prior to adjournment, Edwards said that he would seek revisiting the "Community Benefits Agreement Strategy" at the next meeting, in the hope of including it in the 2025 Envision 2025 comprehensive plan. As prepared by staff for the very first land use element strategy, it read: "Promote community involvement and stakeholder participation through the use of Community Benefits Agreements (CBA's)."

A community benefits agreement was defined in the land use element kick-off presentation by staff as follows:

A Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) is a contract between a developer and a coalition that represents various stakeholders in a community. Such stakeholders often include neighborhood groups, unions, faith-based organizations, advocacy groups and charities. In return for being able to build in the community, the developer agrees to provide benefits such as living wages, local hiring and/or training, affordable housing, park or recreation areas, environmental improvements, and other community services, facilities or amenities.

The next steering committee that is scheduled for May 3 is to start at 3 p.m. rather than at 1 p.m. as the last two meetings have.

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