What is York County’s plan? Come find out Thursday

Last year, York County started asking residents to contribute their concerns about the development of the county, hosting a series of community meetings from Fort Mill to York to get a first-person account of development needs across the county.

Now residents will have a chance to see the final result, when county planners show off their draft of a comprehensive plan at an open house Thursday at Banks Trail Middle School in Fort Mill.

“We’ve made a lot of progress since June,” said Jeff Petrosky, an associate with the Charlotte firm Land Design.

It was last June when York County citizens were last asked their thoughts on the county’s long-term comprehensive plan, at an open house hosted by county planners and private consultants such as Petrosky.

“We took those recommendations on the land-use plan and worked to get together an actual recommendation,” Petrosky said. “The policies and the strategy to accomplish this vision come from the public.”

“We’ve had about six or seven meetings with our advisory committee since then, looking at different aspects of the plan,” said Diane Dil, York County’s long-range planner.

State law requires the county to update its comprehensive plan every 10 years, setting out broad policy goals for everything from transportation to public facilities. Coming up with a renewed plan has raised issues for county staff since the last plan was approved in 2004.

“We hadn’t had the boom,” said Steve Allen, York County planning services manager. “That’s changed our land-use plan. We’ve had two Pennies referendums (Pennies for Progress) since then. We’ve had new census numbers come out that changed our understanding of the population centers.”

Some of the most common refrains planners have heard from the public have involved the pressures from a growing population, and the development and construction that come with it, such as transportation issues and the need for conservation to factor into zoning decisions.

“What they want to see is economic development along I-77, but they also want rural areas to stay rural,” Petrosky said. “They want to see more parks and open space.”

The York County Council is considering a proposal to freeze all platting for new housing in the most stressed areas around Fort Mill and Lake Wylie.

Otherwise, the county is somewhat limited in what it can do to meet some public demands. York County is working with public-private partnerships and agreements with the school districts to provide recreational amenities, such as two sports complexes partially funded by the county planned for Fort Mill and Lake Wylie.

But the comprehensive plan is mostly a blueprint, planners say. The bigger policy decisions that will result from it have to come later, with allowances for other changes over the next 10 years that can’t be foreseen today.

“If something big changes tomorrow, we’ve got to have the ability to do that,” Allen said. “It’s not a static document.”

This story was originally published February 24, 2016 at 8:42 PM with the headline "What is York County’s plan? Come find out Thursday."