City/County planner Phil Lindler cited lack of interest as the reason for the zoning change.
The Greenwood City Council voted last month to rezone 61 acres from high-density residential manufactured home (RM7) to high-density residential (R7), according to the Greenwood Index-Journal.
“Our hope is that some of the improvements that have happened along Maxwell will continue to go down Maxwell, and all of that area will prosper,” Lindler said. “We feel that manufactured homes provide a quality of home that older homes don’t have. We had originally zoned that section of the city to allow for manufactured homes that would blend in as a housing option.”
The Index-Journal noted that in the last 12 years, no housing permits have come forward for manufactured homes, which prompted the change.
The 118 parcels within the newly rezone area will not be affected by the judgment, according to the Greenwood County Joint Planning Commission.
“The change to an R7 zoning designation will ensure that the character of the neighborhood remains consistent with single-family homes replacing structures that are being removed in the revitalization efforts.”
Greenwood city manager Charlie Barrineau said that the rezoning made sense based on long range planning.
“As redevelopment increase in Greenwood’s city center, it appeared to make more sense for neighborhood adjoining the Maxwell Avenue gateway from the Connie Maxwell campus into the Uptown Greenwood area to be zoned residential.“
On a different issue, the South Carolina Manufactured Housing Association’s Ed Schafer told MHProNews that, “For the last three or four years, the South Carolina association’s focus is to move beyond killing bad zoning proposals and working to reopen areas that have been closed to manufactured homes for many years.”
As in other states where zoning, investment and public understanding issues are often-front-and-center, the struggle for getting more acceptance of manufactured housing is ongoing. ##
(Image credits are as shown above).
Submitted by RC Williams to the Daily Business News for MHProNews.
