The short version: Stop pussyfooting around and bite the bullet on zoning already! You’re wasting everyone’s time!
The long version: The Spartanburg Herald-Journal‘s Jason Spencer tells us that all is not well when it comes to the Spartanburg County Council’s zoning-without-zoning half-measure they’re calling “design standards.”
After two months on the fast track, design standards for new commercial and industrial development in the unincorporated part of Spartanburg County have hit a few bumps in the road — but haven’t yet been derailed.
The standards — which regulate types of building materials, the amount of outside lighting and the types of signs and landscaping — are already in effect, and they apply to new developments near homes, neighborhoods, subdivisions and institutions such as parks, schools and churches.
So what are the roadbumps?
“The commercial crowd is fired up. They’ve put a lot of time into this,” said Manning Lynch, president of the Home Builders Association of Spartanburg. “This will be a train wreck if they pass it the way it is right now.”
He continued: “We’re not against design standards. What I’d like to see them do is pare the thing down so it’s not affecting every parcel of land in Spartanburg County. We need to get it so it’s the Country Club Road Dollar General solution.”
A Dollar General that’s being built on Country Club Road and the outcry from some of the more affluent members of the surrounding community is what lit the fire under council and got it to push the proposed design standards.
Right … So what we have is a conflict between homeowners who want protection from nearby commercial development, and developers who want to develop wherever they can. The solution is simple. It’s called zoning.
So what’s the problem? Zone already.
Since many communities have zoning in place before going to design standards, that disconnect is avoided because commercial, industrial and residential areas already are spelled out on a map. But zoning is a real bone of contention in Spartanburg County.
Instead of facing this head-on like responsible community leaders with a plan for the county’s growth, they’re waffling because anyone who tries to introduce zoning — something that would actually address all of the issues in a fair, sane, responsible way — will be made into a land-use bogeyman by the property developers. Yet, doing nothing will likely alienate homeowners from County Council as well.
To Spencer’s great credit, he actually follows up on this. What’s the reality business support for land-planning? Not of just real estate developers, but of actual business owners.
A survey of about 140 members of the Greater Spartanburg Chamber of Commerce found overwhelming support for design standards.
… Asked about their support of design guidelines for commercial development, 73 percent of respondents said they agree or strongly agree with that notion. Only 6 percent disagreed, while the rest were neutral.
Further, asked whether they could support county implementation of land-use planning, 70 percent said they agreed or strongly agreed with that idea. Ten percent were opposed, and the rest were neutral.
Cordeau acknowledged that the term “zoning” can mean different things to different people and said, when asked about a basic, bare-bones form of zoning, “We’re not there, yet.” Part of that is because of deeply rooted philosophical beliefs, he said.
Think about this absurd word game the County and the business community are having to play. By any reasonable definition, “design standards” are a kind of zoning, although as the County Council has set them up to bow to the concerns of the various parties, they’re far more arbitrary and toothless than actual zoning. It’s all the crappy parts of zoning, with very little of forethought and planning.
Meanwhile, actual zoning is a taboo subject as almost everyone in a position of authority is afraid of saying that word. I mean, these are the people who were elected to deal with these issues, and they won’t even talk about them seriously, much less address them head on. It’s not like Spartanburg is the first county to ever face the need for zoning, and it’s certainly nothing to be afraid of. Except, I suppose, having to actually do the job you were elected to do.
While I’m personally in favor of zoning, I’d rather see the concern properly addressed and resoundingly defeated than a bunch of largely arbitrary “design standards” put in place that do nothing to address the crazy, unchecked sprawl in, say, Boiling Springs. It’s not a matter of being pro-zoning or anti-zoning, it’s a matter of not letting County Council continue to postpone a debate about a problem that has been brewing for years, and which will only get worse as time goes on. This year it’s Dollar General, and the band-aid is “design standards” which wouldn’t have actually impacted the building in the first place.
What about next year? What about five years from now, when it’s obvious that the “design standards” aren’t working and zoning HAS to happen because the commercial developers and the homeowners are at each other’s throats?
Props to Jason Spencer for another excellent story that gets right at the issues without resorting — as I’ve done — to overtly picking a side.
Steve Shanafelt
Jason Spencer rocks.