As Black residents build wealth in rural Horry, mobile homes threaten to divide community
During World War II, when the U.S. military took over 56,000 acres outside of Conway to use as a bombing range to test various weapons, James Bryant’s family was forced to move.
About 17 miles North of Conway, down Highway 90, Bryant’s family and other Black residents had built up farms and homesteads in the early part of the 20th century. But when the military wanted to use their land to test weapons, they had to move West of Highway 90. Bryant recalls community members wanting to save the building they used for church, and spent weeks and months lifting it up onto logs and, ever so slowly, rolling it away.
After the war, Bryant’s relatives got their land back, but they had to build up their homes and farms again.
“They had to move people off this side of the road, and it was an African American community,” Bryant said. “They didn’t move anybody from up the way. They didn’t bother those people. But they did it in this community which was the most ridiculous thing in the world.”
It’s historical experiences like those that make Bryant so proud, and protective of the home he and his family have built and community they’ve created in the area over the last several decades. He’s managed to put his three children through college and said his son is considering building a home of his own on land the family owns nearby.
His relatives — his father, grandfather and uncles — “taught us the history of what went on this community and they instilled it in us to make sure we take care of it and protect this community.” The U.S. Army Corp of Engineers published an investigation into how the former bombing range affected the area in 2018, but didn’t mention the residents who had to leave their land to establish it.
Now, Bryant and some of his neighbors are worried that another neighbor wanting to place several mobile homes in the area could diminish the value of his property and take away from the hard work he’s done over the last several decades.
Earlier this month, the Horry County Planning Commission heard a request by Lenoris Willard, who, like Bryant, lives in the Poplar community, to rezone an acre of land across the street from Bryant’s home. Willard says that, like Bryant, he’s trying to build up a small homestead for his family in the community, and wants to place four mobile homes on the acre he owns. The way the land is currently zoned, Willard could place two mobile homes there, but sought the rezoning so that he could put homes for his son and daughter there, as well as one or two others to rent out.
But Bryant and other residents of the Poplar community turned out on June 3 to oppose Willard’s project, telling members of the planning commission that locating so many mobile homes on that property could decrease their property values. Others believe adding more people would contribute to traffic and noise issues that already exist.
In the historically Black Poplar community, the conflict between neighbors — many of whom are also relatives — raises key questions about what should be allowed on land that was once taken, returned and rebuilt from scratch.
And as newcomers continue to flood into Horry County, and increasingly locate in the Western, rural parts of the county, the conflict also raises questions about if those new residents will be able to coexist with those who have lived here for generations.
In Willard’s view, he owns the land and should be allowed to do with it as he pleases, provided he follows the county’s rules.
“I feel to each his own, if a man can afford to do it. And some of us can and some of us can’t. But I worked hard for what I got,” Willard said. “My kids need somewhere to stay, too, just like the rest of them back there.”
Neighbors debate mobile home project
More than half-of-a-dozen of Willard’s neighbors filled a row of seats during the commission meeting and said they were concerned that putting four mobile homes on an acre of land could harm the neighborhood. But what was unique about the group that turned out was that some of them were related to Willard.
“Mr. Willard is family, we’re all family, but at the same time he does not live on this road,” said Shirley Willard-Ross, referencing the fact that Lenoris Willard lives across Highway 90 from the community. “There are nice houses, and there are mobile homes but if we put all this in here it’s really going to bring down the neighborhood.”
As Bryant and Willard-Ross see it, they and their families have worked hard over generations to build up value in the land and homes they own in the community, and don’t want to have tightly-packed mobile homes — which Willard-Ross described as “ugly eyesores” — potentially taking away from their gains.
But by that same token, others in the neighborhood argued that Willard, too, was deeply invested in seeing the community be successful for everyone, including his family.
“Lenoris is a carpenter, a very talented carpenter, and the house that he has over there, he has remodeled and he’s put a lot of work in and he’s not going to let people who aren’t going to keep it up stay there,” said Willa Alston, who lives in a double-wide mobile home around the corner from Willard’s property.
“We as a community, we don’t want to hinder each other, we want to help each other,” Alston added. “This man has worked hard all his life, he has. And once he puts them there and you have something to complain about, you can complain then.”
Despite Alston’s defense of Willard, newcomers to the community joined Byrant and the others opposing the project. Debbie Morales told planning commission members that she and her husband recently built and moved into a new home up the road from Willard’s property several months ago and doesn’t want to see more mobile homes in the area. She suggested that she and her family may move elsewhere if issues like mobile homes in the community aren’t resolved.
“Like they said, setting up a mobile home park is going to bring down the value of my property, of my home, and that’s not something I’m looking forward to,” Morales said. “I’ve been living in it for six months now but I don’t know how long I’m going to be there.”
Though Willard told the commission that he planned to keep the area with the mobile homes for his children and other family members, they weren’t convinced. In a unanimous vote, members said they disapproved of the project. That vote, though, doesn’t carry legal authority and is used to inform Horry County Council members when they vote on the project in coming weeks. Planning Commission Chairman Steven Neeves told everyone who showed up to debate the mobile home project to contact their county council member.
“It’s a tough one,” he said. “County council can overturn (our vote), so all of you who are here, including the applicant, need to talk to your county councilman. Follow this through.”
Using his land
Willard at said that he might try to do just that, and work with his county council member, Mark Causey, to resolve the matter before the council definitively votes down his rezoning request. After several of his neighbors spoke at the meeting, Willard told the planning commission that those in his community “don’t have it all correct from the start.”
He said that, like many of them, he, too, isn’t wealthy and was simply seeking to get ahead financially for his family by providing his children a place to live. Even if his request is voted down, he plans to clear the trees off of the lot and use it somehow, maybe by getting permits for fewer mobile homes, which the current zoning allows for.
And even though it was a cousin of his who organized the neighborhood against his project, he said he’s not holding a grudge. From his point of view, more mobile homes in the neighborhood wasn’t going to change much, and the community’s concerns about those homes lessening property values weren’t fully accurate.
“I’m not going to do anything out of the ordinary. I’m a peaceful fellow,” he said. “But they chose to do what they did, so I live with it. I’m not mad at them and everybody’s got their reasons but it wasn’t pulling the land down that much.”
This story was originally published June 7, 2021 at 10:43 AM.
