Local Radar

It is not the zoning, it is the process!
web posted November 17, 2005

A personal opinion colum by the Editor

COLUMN – Last week the Edgefield County Planning Commission voted to accept and recommend to the County Council zoning the Lake Trenton and Courtney Road area. The classification was the unstudied and just worded Rural Residential classification. It was passed at the same time.

The main focal point in the matter is not whether to zone or not zone the area. If a majority of residents prefer to have their property rights assigned to them by government; more power to them. The focal point is the process in which it is being done.

The admittedly bungled zoning debacle of 1999 was said by all to never be repeated. Then came the secret zoning of the county...

The Edgefield County Council rightly overturned the sneaky vote to zone the county without telling anyone and again the distrust of the Administration became painfully apparent. Now the Planning Commission, who has repeatedly said they were not ever going to rush to zone property, did an about face and voted to zone property without telling the people and most importantly without studying the matter.

The new zoning classification, Rural Residential, has not even been through committee yet. It was just drafted at the last meeting and has never been discussed. Furthermore the matter was not even on the agenda for a vote. The commission stated in unison that they would seek a majority of land owners requesting zoning before they would zone yet threw that out the window in favor of a simple minority of one third.

Commissioner Bernadette Hudson was attacked by not only Ms. Horne but fellow commissioners, who referred to her as “young lady” in a most condescending tone, for being anti-zoning. Mrs. Hudson on the other hand has publicly stated during the meetings that she is not against zoning but requires notification and a majority of land owners in order to zone. A position Ms. Horne, who spearheads the Lake Trenton group, and the entire planning commission agreed with just last month. Commissioner Hudson told EdgefieldDaily.com that her opposition to what took place Thursday night was not about zoning, “I am upset over the process that is being used.”

What happened?

Rodney Cato is about to win the legal challenge Ms. Horne’s group has filed and they know it. In an assisted move to zone in order to stop Mr. Cato, which is a move that would no doubt end the county in a federal lawsuit, the pressure is to enact zoning before he can complete the legal challenge and receive his permit to build his chicken farm.

Now, I have been accused of being anti-zoning myself. To a point that is a fair assessment of my personal opinion when it comes to my property rights. The pro-zoning groups say they do not want other people to place something on their land that might affect their “property values” or invade on their property rights, all the while insisting that taking your property rights away is just fine. Roads go both ways you know.

However, just as I stated in 1999 and 2000 during the zoning of Merriwether, if a majority want zoning they should have it. Furthermore I insisted that the process had to be honest, open, and above board. It was not done that way in 1999 and it is not being done that way in 2005 with the planning commission. That actually disheartens me. I stood before the County Council just a few months back and praised the planning commission for their commitment to taking all zoning slow, deliberate, and done above board.

Six members of that commission made a liar out of me. They have lost the years it took to regain my trust in one night and they have lost the trust that so many others had come to place in them. That, above all, is the largest casualty in the battle so far. Another group of politicos that you cannot trust is the last thing Edgefield County needed.
 

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