How large is Indian Land now? Big enough for a new seat at Lancaster County’s table
An area that’s tough to pinpoint on a map of Lancaster County, and won’t stop growing, appears poised to get another seat on county council.
Steve Willis, county administrator, said recent data sent to municipalities by the U.S. Census Bureau puts the Indian Land panhandle at more than 40,000 residents.
“We don’t have Indian Land per se,” Willis said, “because it doesn’t really exist.”
Indian Land is an unincorporated area of Lancaster County. Municipalities, even much smaller ones in the tri-county area, have routine population figure updates from the census bureau. Unincorporated areas like Indian Land, Lake Wylie and the Baxter or Carowinds corridors don’t have the same defined boundaries, nor do they get the same updates.
The 40,680 residents listed by the census bureau in the panhandle area covers nine census tracts north of S.C. Highway 5. That region includes most of Van Wyck, then goes north to the North Carolina state line. The panhandle population is more than 40% of the total county population of 96,106.
That means the panhandle will get more representation on the seven-member county council. That area now has two representatives. Total board membership will remain at seven, but new boundaries must be drawn so that three of the seven council members will represent the Indian Land area.
“They’ll definitely be getting a third seat,” Willis said.
Willis has sent messages to council members and county staff outlining options for creating new boundaries for voting districts. It likely will happen in October or November, he said Tuesday. It’s up to the current elected representatives to make final decisions with the data from the census bureau.
“Council has to redraw the lines,” Willis said.
Other voting districts can be impacted. Historically, for instance, the state legislative delegation has gone with county council lines to determine school board voting districts. The legislative delegation will make that decision.
The bureau takes an official tally every decade. Years in between, population estimates are released based on surveys and public data the bureau collects. The most recent bureau estimate for 2020 for the first time put Lancaster County at more than 100,000 residents.
The county has tract level data, but not yet the smaller and more finely tuned block level data. It’s expected soon. At the 2010 Census there were two tracts to cover the panhandle. Now there are nine. That change was needed to better identify changes and patterns in the high-growth area.
Other census bureau estimates show the panhandle population has more than doubled in the past decade.
Willis says the census data may undersell how many people actually live in Lancaster County.
“I’ve got to think that’s low, because of COVID,” he said. “That’s lower than our estimate.”
Willis said the lower response rates in the county came closest to the city of Lancaster area. The city actually shrank some in population from the last census, based on the new data. If there are significantly more people living in Lancaster County than the 2020 Census accounts for, it could be a missed opportunity for the county. Annual estimates aren’t used for federal funding decisions from roads and schools to housing and other issues. Official census counts are.
Even with a number lower than he expected, Lancaster County has enough people in the 2020 counts to rank as the third fastest growing county in the state since 2010. York County was No. 4. Lancaster County grew by more than 19,000 residents.
If the county council districts were broken down evenly in the new redrawing, each would have a little more than 13,700 residents. Only three of the 22 census tracts in Lancaster County had a White population at less than 50%, all of them in the city Lancaster. Those tracts have just more than 11,000 residents combined, so other tracts would be brought in to create a county council district.
For Indian Land, a new county council seat would mean more representation. In 2018 several Indian Land residents went through the formal state process to put the question of townhood on a public ballot. Those residents argued money from homes and business in the high-growth panhandle was spread too far throughout the county. Needs in Indian Land compared to more rural parts of the county, the argued, were different.
Van Wyck did incorporate into a town ahead of the Indian Land vote. Proponents there said at the time they didn’t particularly care to be a town, but made the move to protect themselves from inclusion in the Indian Land decision. Voters in the non-Van Wyck portion of the panhandle overwhelmingly voted against the plan to incorporate Indian Land.
