Two futures await Lake Wylie park voters. One if they say yes, another if they say no?

Kim Trainer was at the Clover School District Community YMCA, just after it opened Oct. 17 near Crowders Creek Elementary School.

"It's just great to see so many people out here using this facility that's been so needed for so long," Trainer said.

Trainer and other Lake Wylie Sportsplex committee members have worked for years, some at least a decade, to get a facility they believe is also needed - new sports park. About 16,000 Lake Wylie residents will decide Nov. 8 whether to approve a special tax district to make it happen.

“We could very easily throw away all the work that’s been done these last 10 years, and that’s in your hands,” Trainer told potential voters at a public forum last month. “Or you could think about the children who are yet to come.”

A park plan passes

If Lake Wylie voters decide to create a recreational special tax district, the path forward is fairly clear. The vote generates $2.45 in county hospitality tax money. The tax district will kick in up to $7 million more for construction, plus money needed to continue to operate the park.

“We have an opportunity,” Trainer said. “Within the next couple of months, we’ll be breaking ground and clearing trails and installing new swing sets, and our children will finally have a place to play ball.”

Russ Partin, committee member charged with initial design planning, estimates a formal contracted design for the park will take four to six months. Construction may take nine to 12.

“When we get started is going to have a lot to do with that,” Partin said.

Major decisions will be made by a tax board of five residents who live within the new tax district and appointed by York County Council. The new tax board will decide what tax millage to set, how fields will be reserved for tournament or recreation play, whether the construction part of the new recreation tax goes away once the facility is complete and other items.

Dist. 2 councilman Bruce Henderson, who respresents Lake Wylie, isn’t sure how soon the tax board would be named, given legal steps to certify a vote and pass ordinances establishing the tax district. Henderson will pass the baton to incoming Councilwoman Allison Love in January.

“Some of them probably could begin with me, but more than likely the committee that’s appointed will be a combination of us two,” he said.

Initially, the complex would include multipurpose and baseball/softball fields, tennis and basketball courts, along with trails and other amenities according to the park committee plans based on community input. The tax district ordinance doesn’t specify features. The tax board could add or remove.

“What we’ve proposed is what we’ve heard,” said Ron Domurat, park committee chair. “We can build other things.”

Winston Martinez, who represents the Lake Wylie area on the county hospitality tax advisory group, sees other possibilities at the sports complex. Festivals and other events, like sports, could generate tourism revenue, which is key to the whole plan.

“Are we looking at other revenue sources outside of sports?” Martinez said.

Former Council member Perry Johnston, also on the park committee, foresees a site with an array of benefits to the community.

“This facility will also promote business development,” he said. “This facility can be a gathering place for our community.”

There have been conversations with a nearby large landowner, about 300 acres, about the possibility of future recreation facilities nearby if the sports complex is built.

“The park is really the first piece of what could become more of a metro park,” said Tom Smith, former Council member on the park planning committee. “We’re going to have other recreation opportunities in the future.”

A park plan fails

A no vote Nov. 8 keeps the area as it is.

The county still owns the 50-acre site on Crowders Creek, and 18 acres beside it. Council can decide what, if anything, it may do with the land.

Smith, who as a Council member worked to get the 68 total acres as part of a 2,300-acre Crescent Resources rezoning in 2007, knows well what a no vote will mean. The same thing it meant when Johnston played on the ’62 Bethel Red Sox, and when Smith coached his sons just a decade ago.

“Between that team and our team, we had no fields in the area,” Smith said. “This was all done with Clover rec.”

One of the top needs Lake Wylie residents voice in studies through the last decade and public surveys is recreation. York County does not have a parks and recreation department, and no plans to form one. So in unincorporated parts of the county like Lake Wylie, local recreation would continue on school, church and rented space for groups like Lake Wylie Athletic Association.

“Those studies spoke loudly as to our needs,” Smith said.

But a no vote would void the $2.45 million in hospitality tax money, generated from a 2 percent tax on food and drink in unincorporated parts of the county.

“To pass up on this, we won’t get it back,” Smith said. “It’s done.”

A no vote would mean sports tournaments wouldn’t be an option to help draw more tourists to the Lake Wylie area.

“Our hospitality tax is generated from the people who live here,” Smith said. “Just because we chip in to the hospitality tax doesn’t mean we get it back. We haven’t been getting it back.”

The hospitality tax advisory group has been working more than a year figuring out how best to allocate money for capital funding requests. This month the group spoke candidly about past projects and ways to better quantify economic impact of each request.

“You’ve got Htax money, you want to generate more Htax money,” said county finance director Kevin Madden, who is working with the group. “That’s what it’s there for. At the end of the day, I want to be able to come up with something we can quantify.”

This story was originally published October 24, 2016 at 5:28 PM with the headline "Two futures await Lake Wylie park voters. One if they say yes, another if they say no?."