Center Rock Voters Overwhelmingly Approve New Zoning Map

Greg Wilson/Anderson Observer

In the Center Rock Precinct, voters decided Tuesday that the future should arrive with rules of which they have approved.

By a vote of 452 to 95, Center Rock residents approved a zoning map for their precinct, choosing a system that will guide the uses, density, lot sizes, setbacks, and development patterns permitted there. The result was not a vote against growth, exactly.

The proposal grew out of a resident-led petition campaign and months of discussion over the question that increasingly defines fast-growing parts of Anderson County on how to welcome new homes and investment without allowing a rural community to become unrecognizable before its residents have had a chance to object.

Most of the precinct will be designated Residential Agricultural, or R-A, a classification designed for lower-density development and larger lots. Other portions will carry R-20 zoning, which permits single-family residential development on lots of at least 20,000 square feet. The map also recognizes a limited industrial area through an I-1 designation.

Existing lawful homes, farms, businesses, and industrial operations can generally continue as before. But future subdivisions, construction projects, expansions, and changes of use will now encounter a formal map and a written set of rules. A developer may still build; a property owner may still seek a rezoning. But the process will no longer begin in a landscape without precinct-wide zoning.

Anderson County’s unusual system gives voting precincts the ability to petition for zoning rather than imposing a countywide scheme from above. In Center Rock, the voters have now exercised that option decisively. The area will remain open to change, as every community is, but it will have a better chance of deciding what sort of change it is willing to become.