Horry County forming task force for Highway 90, 905 and Conway Perimeter. What to know
Horry County leaders said they will form a task force to study the infrastructure and public safety needs of Highways 90, 905 and Conway Perimeter Road corridors, to address the rapid growth and building occurring in those areas.
“This group will be tasked with immediately getting busy and rolling up their sleeves and looking at these areas and coming up with a phased plan and an urgency as far as the needs and what needs to be done along these major corridors,” said county council member Al Allen, who chairs the Infrastructure & Regulation subcommittee in announcing the task force Tuesday. “It’s time for the council to have something in-hand to where we know where we need to try to get funding for instead of just throwing funding at something, we need to have it worked out and planned for the future.”
The major travel corridors around Conway, including Highway 90, Highway 905, the Conway Perimeter Road and other routes, have become the latest frontier in a rapidly-growing county that adds thousands of new residents and homes each year. U.S. Census data released last month showed that nearly 82,000 new residents moved to Horry County between 2010 and 2020, with much of that growth occuring in the unincorporated areas of the county, including along Highway 90 and the other corridors.
Both new residents — and those who have lived in Horry County their whole lives — have said they chose to live in the once-rural areas outside of Conway because it provided a quiet location for a home and had easy access to stores and the beach. Highway 90 is a 20-mile road running from Conway to North Myrtle Beach, Highway 905 is a more than 23-mile road running from Conway, through Longs and into North Carolina, and the Conway Perimeter Road is currently planned and will connect El Bethel Road in Conway to Highway 701.
But growth along those corridors has rankled residents, both old and new, who complain of worsening and dangerous traffic, increased flooding where it didn’t used to occur in the past and the fact that suburban sprawl is reaching their once-rural doorsteps.
“...I know development is going to come, but there’s people who want to live in the country and they’re building a city around us,” longtime Highway 90 resident Tammy Baker, who’s joined organizing efforts to push the county to bulid more responsibly, told The Sun News earlier this year.
As residents have organized and grown more concern, they’ve turned out in force at county Planning Commission, County Council and other community meetings to call for a slowdown in development. In response to those concerns, the County Council last month put a moratorium in place for new rezonings along Highway 90 until funding could be allocated to widen that road.
Discussions about funding for an Interstate 73, which is unrelated to the rapidly-growing corridors, has even sparked discussion for funding for Highway 90.
Allen on Tuesday said the task force will include the following members:
County Council member Mark Causey, who represents Loris and Longs, will serve as the chair;
State Rep. Kevin Hardee (R-Conway will serve as vice chair;
County Council member Orton Bellamy, who represents Conway;
County Council member Danny Hardee, who represents parts of the Highway 90 and Highway 905 corridors;
April O’Leary, the head of the anti-flooding and pro-responsible building group Horry County Rising;
Danny Knight, the head of the Horry County Solid Waste Authority, which operates a large landfill along Highway 90;
And the Conway attorney Burt von Herrmann.
County Council member Dennis DiSabato suggested adding state Sen. Greg Hembree (R-Little River) to the task force because he represents some of the corridors and has expressed a willingness to ask for state funding for Highway 90, DiSabato said. It’s not clear if Hembree will ultimately join the task force.
Allen said that “everything is on the table” for the task force, which will have county staff members supporting their research efforts. Ultimately, Allen said, the task force will present County Council with a list of needed projects and ways to fund those projects. Those projects could include infrastructure, public safety, flooding, traffic and other subjects, Allen said.
“It’s very broad because they need to be looked at in conjunction with one another,” he said. “The growth is coming out this way, a lot of growth is already here, there’s a lot of needs out there and those needs need to be looked at, identified and prioritized.”
Allen cautioned that even if the county can’t come up with all of the funding it would need to complete the needed projects along those corridors, it needed to at least know what to prioritize. Estimates for widening all of Highway 90, for example, are around $500 million.
“We may not have the funding right now but again we need to know what the needs are and they need to be prioritized,” Allen said. “Because if we don’t start doing something right now we’re going to fall further behind the 8-ball.”
Allen said he encouraged the task force to meet “as soon as possible.” It’s not yet clear how long the task force will be in operation, or when or where it would meet. Allen said the task force was necessary because the Infrastructure & Regulation subcommittee couldn’t handle the work in addition to its other duties of overseeing various county departments.
“It’s a large area, large needs,” Allen said. “...Before we can find the funding and assign the funding, we need to know what those needs are and how much it’s going to cost.”
This story was originally published September 14, 2021 at 6:25 PM.
