spartanburg county

A few weeks ago I sat through a Spartanburg County Council meeting about land use planning. It was a special session to hear ideas from other communities. The guest that day was a former administrator from Berkeley County who had successfully guided it through a transition to zoning and planned growth. I sat quietly in the back and took notes. Many of those surrounding me were developers, true believers with strong opinions about land use.

There's a theory that everyone has an opposite somewhere in the world, a person that is you, only it's your dark twin turned 180 degrees. I just spent a week in a vibrant little village in southern Ohio. Boiling Springs, South Carolina, meet Yellow Springs, Ohio.

Spartanburg County Council is contemplating entry into the modern era of land-use planning. As Yogi Berra so famously said, "It's déjà vu all over again."

You see, talk of Spartanburg County land-use planning is nothing new. It came up here a decade ago. There's talk now of a referendum in November with a single question to see which way the land-use winds are blowing.