Annexation affects more than just our individual neighborhoods and communities. It involves more than turf battles among cities, counties and special-purpose districts. It’s about more than preserving green space over building more affordable homes.
South Carolina’s outdated annexation laws present yet another challenge to our state when we look at how we compete regionally, nationally and internationally in the new economy. We see ourselves compared daily in the media to our neighbors in the southeast, especially Georgia and North Carolina. Both of these states have annexation laws that better reflect today’s growth patterns and allow cities to grow and expand as their population on the urban fringe grows.
South Carolina’s annexation laws give us just another reason to fall behind in our ability to attract businesses and workers of the new economy, because our cities are constrained by artificial boundaries that can’t keep up with the pace of our neighboring states. Not that any of our cities aspire to be a New York or Atlanta, but we do need to give our cities increased flexibility to take in new residents when it makes good sense.
New Carolina is in the business of increasing the state’s competitiveness through changing the way we think about ourselves and our economy. Through strong partnerships with organizations around the state, we are working toward a new and better South Carolina — one that encourages its cities and towns to become bustling metropolitan areas through planned growth. The fact that our state’s annexation laws can literally choke the positive growth in the hubs of regional economic growth — our cities and towns — is one of the major, yet often overlooked, challenges we face.
At New Carolina, we believe that developing clusters will help build our state’s economy. Clusters are groups of businesses that traditionally might be competing with one another but now work together to build on their common interests. Strong cities are anchors for successful clusters. By supporting the development of clusters and regional collaborations, cities and towns become the foundation of the bridge we must cross to make ourselves able to compete regionally, nationally and internationally.
A progressive and proactive approach to reforming annexation laws is needed by our General Assembly. Fortunately, several members of our Legislature see this need for our cities and towns to propel our state to economic superiority and competitiveness. While annexation reform legislation isn’t new — the state’s Municipal Association has been supporting this for years — there seems to be some broad legislative interest in pushing it this session.
Sen. Jim Ritchie from Spartanburg introduced three bills last year that address the three major annexation problems — filling “doughnut holes” of unincorporated areas completely surrounded by a municipality, expanding cities based on the population and degree of urban development, and reducing the number of property owners who must agree to an annexation.
Rep. Ben Hagood of Charleston is working on a comprehensive annexation reform package in conjunction with several unusual bedfellows including the state’s municipalities and conservation interests. Both of these legislators understand that better annexation laws are the key to smart, planned growth in our state.
When we allow cities to grow to their natural boundaries where the population is growing, they are better able to show realistic evidence of local population numbers and growth patterns to potential investors in their city.
Certainly there are many issues to consider when updating these laws that no longer reflect today’s growth patterns — density, services and taxes are just a few. But just the fact that this very important economic competitiveness issue is being discussed in our Legislature in a very good sign.
Mr. Sellers is chairman of New Carolina — South Carolina’s Council on Competitiveness, and of BlueCross and BlueShield of South Carolina. Mr. Fletcher is executive director of New Carolina.