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County Spotlight: Comprehensive Plan
COUNTY CONTINUALLY SHAPING PRESENT TO MEET THE FUTURE
The Richland County Comprehensive Plan serves as the guiding document for determining how and where growth and development occur within unincorporated areas of the County. The Comprehensive Plan highlights the County’s vision for the future, along with goals, objectives and specific strategies for meeting that vision, which residents directly shape through public input.
Per state law, jurisdictions such as Richland County must follow a basic planning process in preparing a Comprehensive Plan. They must consider existing conditions, make a statement of needs and goals from those conditions, and develop strategies for meeting those goals and needs.
As part of this process, the Comprehensive Plan must address nine specific elements: population, land use, housing, transportation, economic development, natural resources, cultural resources, community facilities and priority investment.
The law requires a Comprehensive Plan to be revised periodically to reflect growth and development changes. Plans must be evaluated at least every five years and completely updated every decade. Richland County adopted its current Comprehensive Plan, PLAN Richland County, in March 2015.
The County’s Community Planning and Development department is moving to evaluate PLAN Richland County as it reaches its five-year mark. County staff will likely complete this process around 2020 and begin establishing a new plan for 2025.
As one part of this process, Community Planning and Development has sought to revise the County’s Land Development Code and Zoning Ordinance, the regulatory framework that determines rules for land development, including location, type and conditions. This ordinance is a tool for directly implementing the vision and goals of PLAN Richland County.
The Comprehensive Plan and the Land Development Code and Zoning Ordinance update need County residents’ input to succeed. For more information on the Comprehensive Plan, visit richlandcountysc.gov. For more on the land development code update, visit weplantogether.org or call 803-576-2190.
