Comprehensive Plan
In general terms, a comprehensive plan is a document that guides growth by outlining expectations -- and making recommendations -- for such issues as transportation, recreation and natural and cultural resources. South Carolina law requires the plans be reviewed every five years and overhauled every 10. In Beaufort County, the Zoning and Development Standards Ordinance enforces the principals outlined in the plan.
The General Assembly authorized municipal planning and zoning in 1924 (S.C. Code Title 5, Chapter 23) and county planning in 1942 (S.C. Code Title 4, Chapter 27). The most widely used enabling legislation was the 1967 Act codified in Title 6, Chapter 7. Act 129 of 1963 was local legislation relating only to Greenville County. The Local Government Comprehensive Planning Enabling Act of 1994 replaced the 1967 Act, repealed all of the above statutes and required all local comprehensive plans, zoning and land development ordinances conform to the 1994 Act by December 31, 1994. S.C. Code § 6-29-310 through § 6-29-1200. Municipalities and county governments that don't update their plans every 10 years forfeit their zoning authority.
Terry Farris, director of the city and regional planning program at Clemson University, said comprehensive plans are not meant to be "inflexible documents," and the public should keep in mind that rezoning will always be a "legislative function."
Comprehensive Plan for Beaufort County
Comprehensive Plan in Port Royal
Dispute with Yemasee
Yemassee, a municipality with straddles the Beaufort/Hampton/Colleton count lines, withdrew from the Northern Beaufort County Regional Plan, a long-term planning effort that Beaufort County, Beaufort and Port Royal backed. That, in turn, threatened the town's inclusion in the Beaufort County Comprehensive Plan.
The county's 10-year plan borrows heavily from a pair of north-south specific plans that citizen volunteers, professional planners and elected officials from the county and municipal councils -- including Yemassee Mayor J.L. Goodwin -- produced together that outline how growth should proceed through 2025. In October 2007, County Council Vice Chairman Skeet Von Harten proposed that if Yemassee fails to pass a resolution endorsing the Northern Beaufort County Regional Plan before the County Council took up its comprehensive 10-year plan on final reading, then the comprehensive plan would not include Yemassee in a document that delineates mutually agreed upon annexation boundaries. In September 2007, a majority of the Yemassee Town Council said it did not want to be limited to the prescribed annexation boundaries.
In November 2007, the Northern Beaufort County Regional Plan's implementation committee, made up of elected officials and planning commissioners from northern Beaufort County governments, unanimously voted to amend the draft intergovernmental agreement in order to block uncooperative councils from receiving the rights and benefits that come with the planning effort. It wasn't entirely clear to the committee exactly what those rights and benefits would be besides maintaining good faith. Earlier that week, Gov. Mark Sanford called Yemassee a "renegade municipality" with regard to planning.
Yemassee Town Council is the only northern Beaufort County government that had not endorsed the plan to that point. The plan had been completed that June and was meant to guide growth and land use through 2025. Mutually agreed-upon annexation boundaries are a major component of the plan. The Yemassee Town Council's reluctance stems from those restrictive boundaries. Annexation can bring tax relief and economic development, committee member and Goodwin said. According to the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the town had a median household income that was 60 percent of the national median and 23 percent of the population lived below the poverty line in 2000. In contrast, Beaufort's median household income was 87 percent of the national median and 13 percent of the population lived below the poverty line in 2000.