A new residential neighborhood is coming to Conway. But could it be in a flood zone?
Horry County planners are trying a new method to mitigate flooding in a to-be-built Conway development: Building the roads and homes well above the Hurricane Florence flood levels.
But some County Council members and advocates are skeptical the plan won’t work, or will make flooding worse in neighboring areas.
At its bimonthly meeting last Tuesday, the Horry County Council approved a measure to rezone a plot of land near SC 90 and Old Reaves Ferry Road in Conway that will be part of the Canebrake Plantation development and adjacent to the Fox Rae Farms development.
That approval came with conditions: In exchange for allowing a single access road to the development, county planners are requiring the developers to build the roads at the same level where Hurricane Florence brought flood waters. That means the base of the homes will be nearly a foot above the high flood level.
The numbers break down like this: Hurricane Florence registered high water levels of 20.8 feet above sea level. The roads for this development must be built at 20 feet above sea level, or higher. And the base of the homes must be built at 21.5 feet above sea level or higher.
Some council members and advocates, though, aren’t convinced the design will prevent flooding in the area, which flooded during Florence. Confounding matters, though, is the fact that FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Administration, doesn’t include the area on its so-called flood maps, a reference point county planners use to make modifications to developments. So with no flood map designation, but Hurricane Florence floods in its past, it’s not clear how often, if at all, the area will flood.
April O’Leary, president of the advocacy group Horry County Rising, said flooding is a worry for the development because its near a drainage basin in the Waccamaw River floodplain. In order to raise the subdivision area up, developers will have to bring in fill from other parts of the county. O’Leary, who’s spoken about the project at two public meetings so far, said if that happens, other areas could flood worse.
“It will affect the way the water will flow,” she said in an interview. “Assuming those homes and that development doesn’t flood, someone is going to flood.”
O’Leary wants county officials to push pause on the development and better assess how surrounding areas might flood before building. At Tuesday’s council meeting, she noted that the county’s Community Development Department is actively pursuing federal grants to mitigate the affects of flooding while its Planning & Zoning Department isn’t considering future risks of flooding.
“These flood events are costing us billions,” she said. “The fiscally responsible thing to do here is to prevent this cycle.”
County Council member Harold Worley, who represents Little River and part of North Myrtle Beach, asked Tuesday that if the property flooded during Florence, why would the county approve a development in the area?
“This bait-and-switch has got to stop — this thing about building homes in flood prone areas,” he said. “We talk about 500-year floods, (but) we’ve had two in one year.”
County Planning & Zoning Director David Schwerd, though, said county planners didn’t have many options when this project was brought before them. He explained that under the current zoning, developers could start building roads and homes well below the Hurricane Florence flood levels, or, with the rezoning, county officials could set conditions for building the neighborhood. With regard to using fill from elsewhere to build up the roads and homes, Schwerd said the effect won’t be significant.
“The impact is negligible compared to protecting the homes there,” he said.
O’Leary agreed that the impact of this one development could be negligible, but said she worried about the effect over time.
“This is a drop in the bucket compared to how much water storage we need but it’s a cumulative affect,” she said.
In total, the three phases of the development, none of which have broken ground yet, will include 260 new units of housing. The first two phases, known as Fox Rae Farms, will consist of 160 new units and the third phase, known as Canebrake Plantation, will consist of 97 new units of housing. On average, the entire development will contain 1.6 units of housing per acre. According to Schwerd, developers could break ground on the project by 2022.
A phone call and email to Robert Grigg, an attorney and the developer of the property, were not immediately returned.
