Hundreds more mobile homes could be coming to Horry County. The developer runs Carolina Pines.

The developers behind one of South Carolina’s best known mobile home parks are looking to expand their Horry County footprint with a second site along U.S. Highway 501.

Sun Communities — which manages Carolina Pines RV Resort — is hoping to build 348 more units near Aynor.

Sun’s “biggest scope of business is manufactured homes, and they do a really good job at it,” Mike Wooten, a principal at DDC Engineers, told the Horry County Planning Commission Jan. 5. “The architecture is such that now they have the ability to do the same design standards as a single-family home, and they’re really good properties.”

The commission unanimously recommended the county council rezone almost 9 1/2 acres abutting U.S. 501 from highway commercial to mobile home park — the same designation for 68 acres that surround it.

A separate vote will be need to approve building and design plans for the homes.

Gerald Blackmon, a homeowners owner on Dog Bluff Road near the park’s proposed location, had concerns about what the additional buildings will mean for a retention pond that cuts along his property.

“When they put that many homes in there, where’s the runoff going? In my pond. I’m not having that,” he said. “When they flatten all that land and put all those mobile homes in there, the water’s got to somewhere and I’ve got thousands of dollars in maintaining that pond, that’s why I bought that property.”

Wooten said the project will meet county storm water and drainage regulations.

Carolina Pines opened at 5800 S.C. Highway 90 in July 2019 with 450 sites, but plans call for a total of 841 lots once fully built out.

Since 2010, Sun Communities has acquired $11.7 billion worth of property, according to the company’s latest financial disclosures.

This story was originally published January 8, 2023 at 7:00 AM.