Greenville Annexations

[motonenterprises]

On 9/22/2023 at 1:20 AM, apaladin said:

So how does this happen? Surely their areas were not initially that big? 

Because they can annex easier than Greenville can. Everything on the outskirts of the city limits is already developed and some of it is special districts that were created in Greenville's mill days. With the state laws on annexation you can't just go in and annex that. Those other cities had undeveloped area that could easily be annexed before it was developed. 

[vicupstate]

On 2/14/2023 at 12:44 PM, vicupstate said:

From 1849 until 1960 the Charleston city limits had not changed. The city was 8 sq miles and did not extend off of the peninsula. J. Palmer Gaillard was elected Mayor in late 1959 on a platform to grow the city's boundaries.  The city had been hemorrhaging population in a big way as development was largely in the city's suburbs.  In May and again in November of 1960, a series of annexation elections resulted in the city more than doubling in size as a huge swath of West Ashley was annexed. A large doughnut hole that bordered the Ashley River remained outside the city and as part of the St. Andrews PSD.  Today that area is a swiss-cheese patchwork of dozens of small doughnut holes.  The city was able to offer sewer services to homes that were on septic tanks.  St. Andrews provided Fire Service and garbage pickup and recreation but not sewer.  More recently, by annexing newer development west of the PSD, they city has effectively boxed in the PSD to a confined area and slowly chips away at that via piecemeal annexations.  

In July 1973 the city made its first annexation on James Island. The James Island PSD provided sewer service and garbage pickup and fire services.  Most residential areas on James Island stayed outside the city but the city did annex much of the island.  In 1983 the first annexation was made on John's Island. 

In 1990, Charleston County passed the Local Option Sales Tax , which lowered property taxes for all county residents but more so for those living in cities. This made property taxes lower in the city that in the PSDs in most cases.  This brought a wave of new annexations including virtually every apartment complex not already in the city. At the time using street ROW could be used for contiguity. This has since been removed as an option.  Initially Charleston was the only large county with the tax and this advantage for annexation.  Later Florence, Sumter and Richland counties enacted the tax and have also seen more annexations from it.  

Under Charleston mayors Palmer Gaillard (1959-1975) and Joe Riley (1975-2015), annexation has been a priority and pursued by any means available. In 1991 Daniel Island was annexed it what could only be called unusual circumstances. That opened the way for a major expansion in the Cainhoy, area as well.  

In summary, like Greenville, Charleston has had to contend with PSDs.  But by being aggressive and proactive, they have largely overcome that  obstacle. Greenville was unique in that it was all but forbidden to annex the mill villages that ran along the city's western edge, but that didn't and doesn't apply to the rest of the city (ie the Eastside).   Of course, the mills are mostly gone now and all of them have sold off the housing stock.  Therefore, those areas are options for annexation now. However, many of those same areas are of lower value and it would not always make financial sense for the city to annex them.   

So while Charleston may have had an easier environment to start with, the lion share of their success with annexation has just been their own doing. 

Posting this again in response to Apladdin's recent post and motoenterprise's response to that.    

[apaladin]

11 hours ago, vicupstate said:

Posting this again in response to Apladdin's recent post and motoenterprise's response to that.    

Thanks VCU. Still I live off Pelham Road near E. North, crazy we are not in the city limits. Again the city has not been aggressive enough. When you can easily walk to the city limits from Main St. , that is just crazy. 

[btoy]

I still don't understand why it matters what the the size of the cities limits are?  Anyone looking a statistics are going to use MSA and CSA populations anyways or they are looking at specific radii or drive-times.

[distortedlogic]

22 minutes ago, btoy said:

I still don't understand why it matters what the the size of the cities limits are?  Anyone looking a statistics are going to use MSA and CSA populations anyways or they are looking at specific radii or drive-times.

It probably doesn't to developers and people who are aware of those things but the average person doesn't even know what an MSA or CSA is. Regular people look at city populations, and by that metric, Greensboro is over 4 times the size of Greenville, Charleston and Knoxville are more than twice, etc; even though in real world they are the same size. Places like Mt Pleasant and Rock Hill are even larger. Greenville is completely misrepresented in comparison to other cities by it's city population. When you tell people Greenville has 70k people they say; "oh, that's a small suburb." I recently had a conversation with someone talking about Knoxville being over twice the size of Greenville and I couldn't convince them that was not accurate at all. I mean, does it matter at the end of the day? Is it a big deal in the grand scheme? Not at all. But it's a quirky thing for us to discuss that is a poor representation.

[apaladin]

Yes I guees it’s more of an ego thing but it is kinda misleadng when suburbs in NC boasts populations of 40k more and much smaller cities like Asheville and Gastonia boasts larger pops, 

[gman430]

12 hours ago, btoy said:

I still don't understand why it matters what the the size of the cities limits are?  Anyone looking a statistics are going to use MSA and CSA populations anyways or they are looking at specific radii or drive-times.

Agreed. Atlanta doesn’t feel like only 500,000 people. 

[apaladin]

1 hour ago, gman430 said:

Agreed. Atlanta doesn’t feel like only 500,000 people. 

Good example, actually a little under 500k. 8th largest metro at 6.2 mil. and Greenville is 58th(958k) 2022 stats. Asheville is #131(413k)

Edited September 27, 2023 by apaladin

[vicupstate]

1.25 acres on W. Faris Rd.

[vicupstate]

60.68 acres of ROW throughout the city

This is probably about establishing contiguity with more properties than anything else. 

[GMoxley]

Looks like the city is working to annex most of the cherrydale area

Just now, GMoxley said:

Looks like the city is working to annex most of the cherrydale area

https://www.greenvillesc.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Agenda/_02122024-3679

[gman430]

Wow. That would be a huge boost in terms of tax revenue for the city. Great to see. @ausrutherfordis a forum member on here. Maybe he could share more details. 

Edited January 13 by gman430

[vicupstate]

WHOA !!!!!

This is going to be controversial. I hope the city council is prepared to go the distance. Really glad to see this, but the last time the city tried a 75% annexation, it pulled away. Albeit a much less significant one.  

I wish the document stated which parcels had signed versus the ones that hadn't.  I notice that the Movie theater is excluded. 

[Galley]

Any idea what is going into the old Racks and Ribs location?  It has been under renovation for several months.

[btoy]

a church

[GVLer]

1 hour ago, btoy said:

a church

Because there isn't enough of them already?

[apaladin]

1 hour ago, GVLer said:

Because there isn't enough of them already?

There are still several corners without one, so no not enough.

[apaladin]

Still amazing square mile wise Greenville is 12th largest in the state, even some really small towns are bigger. The old excuse has been the archaic state annexation laws so how has Columbia and Charleston got to be 4-5 times as big as Greenville in square miles. 

[ausrutherford]

On 1/12/2024 at 8:02 PM, gman430 said:

Wow. That would be a huge boost in terms of tax revenue for the city. Great to see. @ausrutherfordis a forum member on here. Maybe he could share more details. 

https://greenvillesc.gov/2211/Cherrydale-Area-Annexation 

[distortedlogic]

You guys know way more about all this than I do. I would guess this would help out the city's tax base. I actually thought it was in the city limits all along but apparently not.

I wonder if this might make it possible to get some of the surrounding residential areas to annex. Montebello and Half Mile Lake would add some good population numbers and revenue. 

[vicupstate]

Glad to hear participation is more than the required 75%, which is already pretty high.

Has the Greenville News or Post and Couier covered this story? I am on vacation and don't get around the net as much as usual.

[gman430]

Of course there will always be some people unhappy with this but in my opinion they don’t have a leg to stand on especially when the property owners are requesting to be annexed themselves. It would mean an additional $590,000 for the city per year: 

https://www.foxcarolina.com/2024/01/25/fire-chief-county-councilman-voice-concern-over-potential-cherrydale-annexation/

[NewlyUpstate]

9 minutes ago, gman430 said:

Of course there will always be some people unhappy with this but in my opinion they don’t have a leg to stand on especially when the property owners are requesting to be annexed themselves. It would mean an additional $590,000 for the city per year: 

https://www.foxcarolina.com/2024/01/25/fire-chief-county-councilman-voice-concern-over-potential-cherrydale-annexation/

Weird that they have a quote from Parker's fire chief about how service will be inferior... unless he has other motivations?

Quote

He says annexation would mean a half-a-million-dollar tax revenue loss for them.

Oh there it is.

Also--

Quote

County Council has little say in city annexation efforts, but Blount is worried annexing will lead to increased mill rates to cover revenue loss and further annexation up Poinsett Highway.

Say no more. Make it happen.

Edited January 25 by NewlyUpstate

[johnpro318]

Lol and he’s spreading misinformation on Facebook in his comments. Go read - an echo chamber over there. The whole county should just be absorbed/consolidated honestly. It would be painful at first but the long term benefits are appealing. 

[GvilleSC]

23 minutes ago, johnpro318 said:

Lol and he’s spreading misinformation on Facebook in his comments. Go read - an echo chamber over there. The whole county should just be absorbed/consolidated honestly. It would be painful at first but the long term benefits are appealing. 

I hear you, but you can also go ahead and assume that County Council personalities (and views) would be elected to the newly expanded City Council. No thank you. Greenville City has had an ideal bipartisan mix for years, creating the successful centrist city that is well governed.