Horry County expects to have 100,000 new people in 20 years. Where will it put them?

Horry County is growing fast as more and more people call the area home. This creates a challenge for county planners as it faces balancing new development with the rural lifestyle some longtime residents love.

The county’s population is expected to exceed 420,000 by 2040 up from about 300,000 in 2015. More people creates new needs that the county has to meet.

Imagine 2040, a strategic plan from the county’s planning and zoning department, will be the guide for this expected era of unprecedented growth. The drafting process is wrapping up, and on June 14 the department will present three visions of future development plans for Horry County.

"The map is really our blueprint for what the county will look like in the future," Leigh Kane, the principle long range planner, said.

The strategic plan, a process that began last September and is required every decade, will feature a zoning map outlining land use.

Once finalized, the map will show where these newcomers to the area could go, as well as what project current residents want. The three scenarios being presented by development staff to the public this month are labeled sprawl, controlled or constrained, reflecting the density of future development.

Envision 2025, the current strategic plan adopted 10 years ago, was created at the beginning of the 2008 housing crisis. The country is required to make a new plan every decade and update it every five years.

While the plans have a 10-year shelf life, they influence development well after the next plan goes into effect.

The 2025 plan allowed for subdivisions to be built in the Longs area, but the recession stopped many of the previously approved housing projects. Kane said the development currently happening is a result of that plan and the approved projects it directed could still happen.

Based on the Horry County average household size, the Carolina Forest, Coastal Carolina University and South Conway area could accommodate over 40,000 additional residents just based off already approved residential developments, according to maps from Planning and Zoning.

Past reporting from The Sun News show that areas like Carolina Forest are in need of more roads and drainage, which prompted the county to purchase additional land in the area earlier in the year.

An additional challenge is determining which residents are permanent or just vacationers with secondary homes in the area. Even though many people leave in the winter, their houses remain and must be accounted for in development plans.

The fear of change and the pressures that come with it leads to a "NIMBY" response, Kane said. The acronym, “not in my back yard,” is used when people say they do not want development to happen near them.

For example, an Imagine 2040 survey found that respondents in the urban Myrtle Beach area listed the more rural or suburban Longs, Loris and Aynor areas as where they would like to see development.

Balancing all the different desires with the inevitable growth is where Kane says “smart development” comes in. The department is weighing all the interests and trying to understand what is going to work best, as some change is inevitable given the rise in population. But people need to speak up for this kind of development to happen.

"I think in looking at smart development and looking at infrastructure improvements that have to be made, looking at new public facilities, those are things we are getting better and have a better understanding of the implications of putting development in rural areas," she said.

According to past-approved housing development maps, the Longs, Mt. Vernon, Red Bluff and Star Bluff area could accommodate more than 11,000 new residents according to those same maps.

In the upcoming zoning plans, however, Kane said that the planning department has heard "loud and clear" that many rural areas want to stay rural, which will be reflected in the final zoning map.

While each map differs, all three keep much of the Northwestern area of the county rural. With the potential of more residential areas surrounding Loris and Aynor.

At the upcoming June meeting, the department will present the different scenarios of what the Land Use Maps. While that meeting will be for getting information out to the public, there will be future opportunities for people to voice concerns and preferences.

While the drafting period is almost over, the plan has a long way to go before it faces final approval from County Council later this year. Kane said if people do not speak up, then the assumption is they are OK with the plan's direction.

This story was originally published June 6, 2018 at 2:02 PM with the headline "Horry County expects to have 100,000 new people in 20 years. Where will it put them?."