As cities and counties across South Carolina grapple with growth, Spartanburg County is experimenting with a new type of zoning that promises greater adaptability and predictability in guiding that growth.
The method is called performance zoning and is designed to be more adaptive than traditional Euclidean zoning, which derives its name from a 1926 court case won by the town of Euclid, Ohio, that established local governments’ constitutional authority to enact zoning.
Spartanburg County adopted its performance zoning ordinance in 2019 and applied it in 2020 to the southwestern corner of the county encompassing the area surrounding Duncan, Lyman, Reidville and the portions of Greer within the county – among the fastest-growing areas in the Upstate.
Roads to growth
Euclidean zoning relies on placing every parcel of property in a specific zoning category that dictates what types of uses are allowed – residential, commercial or industrial, to name three examples.
But in the process of gathering public input on land-use regulations over the past 20 years, the county’s rural residents have made their opposition to zoning restrictions abundantly clear, according to David Britt, a member of Spartanburg County Council for more than 30 years.
Instead of imposing zoning where it was not wanted, Britt said the county has used buffers and setbacks to preserve property owners’ options in what they can do with their land while trying to minimize impacts to surrounding properties.
Britt has also spent years spearheading the council’s economic development efforts and said the county’s targeted approach to concentrating industrial projects along arterial roads, such as state highways 290 and 101 in the southwestern corner of the county, has paid handsome dividends.
The influx of companies has brought in more than $8 billion in the last few years and created more than 8,000 jobs, improving the lives of county residents, he said.
“Those companies that either expanded or came here were companies that we wanted … (and helped) our residents make an impact in their families’ lives,” he said.
Targeting the “golden box” of the Highway 290/ 101 corridor with performance zoning that encourages industrial growth along road arteries and residential growth along the interconnected local roads was a way of meeting the needs of both sectors, Britt said.
Striking a balance
The region’s unprecedented growth in recent years has begun to shift attitudes towards land-use regulations, Britt said.
He added that communities experiencing rapid growth like Boiling Springs northwest of Spartanburg are beginning to clamor for some means of controlling that growth.
Britt said county leaders are trying to strike a balance between preserving private-property rights and the need to impose some order on where development happens.
Opposition to traditional zoning remains strong, but the county’s use of performance zoning has worked reasonably well, Britt said.
“Performance zoning is intended to be adaptive and accommodating to development while offering balanced protections for property owners,” Assistant County Administrator Kevin Stiens said. “This approach is focused on the impacts or effects of land uses on the surrounding properties.”
As explained in a county-prepared video outlining performance zoning, designating a property’s zoning category essentially involves guesswork. Changing that category once established is an involved process that invariably involves contending interests.
Instead, the county’s performance zoning approach starts with a road-classification system as a more reliable indicator of where growth is likely to happen and what types of development that growth is likely to produce.
Roads are classified as arterial, collector or local. In essence, arterial roads are main thoroughfares where traffic volume and non-residential development are most likely. Collector roads connect arterial and local roads and are likely to attract a range of residential and non-residential uses, while local roads typically connect residential areas to the wider community.
Britt said the county is continuously evaluating its land-use policies and whether zoning is appropriate, and more importantly, supported by residents.
“When people want it, we’ll respond,” he said. “We aim to do what our constituents want.”
This story was filed as part of an editorial partnership between South Carolina Public Radio and the Greenville Journal, who is responsible for its content. You can learn more about the Greenville Journal here.