OUT OF CONTROL?
Let’s not spin out of control
If we cruise along thinking things aren’t going to change, we’re as the reckless as the dummies doing donuts around here!
Tipping Point?
My office is located in the Visitors Center on Main Street in Walhalla.
Every day people stop in looking for information. More often than not they say, “We just moved here.” And “We love it here! We’re planning to relocate.”
People are drawn to the laid back life style, outdoor recreation opportunities, relatively inexpensive homes and land prices. The most sought after request from our Visitor Center is a road map to drive around scouting for property and places to live.
Mind blowing
I’m the webmaster for visitoconeesc.com, and I check in quarterly to get reports on our web traffic.
I had a recent zoom call with our SEO (search engine optimization) expert. He blew my mind with how much traffic to our website has increased since he started tracking in 2019.
We’ve seen 1,000% more people coming to our website this year than three years ago.
Our organization is geared towards attracting tourists to the area. The goal being to have people visit, enjoy what we have, support area businesses and leave.
But the last two years we’ve seen first hand that people from all over are looking for a fresh start. They’re sick of high costs of living, traffic, crime and unchecked development where they live.
They come here to get away. But then they see what a good thing we’ve got and they want to stick around–permanently.
To that point, according to The Journal in an article dated May 11, 2022, there are 10 new subdivisions in the planning phase…
- Chambery Farm (between Hwy 11 and Seed Farm Rd. outside of Westminster)
- 119 lots on 79.7 acres
- Cliffs Keowee Marina (Keowee Town Landing Road in Salem)
- 25 lots on 38.6 acres
- Cliffs Keowee Snakes (Cliffs South Parkway in Salem)
- 35 lots on 138.47 acres
- Cliffs Keowee Tip/Harbor Cove (Nimmons Bridge Road in Salem)
- 26 lots on 83.8 acres
- Coopers Mill (Mountain and Clearmont Roads outside of Westminster)
- 175 lots on 48 acres
- Magnolia Creek (Elizabeth Lane and Blue Ridge Boulevard in Seneca)
- 126 lots on 67.4 acres
- The Pier North (J.P. Stevens Road in Seneca)
- 115 lots/222 townhomes on 50.87 acres
- The Pier South (J.P. Stevens Road in Seneca)
- 143 lots/33 townhomes on 57.88 acres
- The Pier-Student Housing (Edinburgh Way and West Cherry Road Seneca)
- 207 units/914 beds on 69.94 acres
- Wells Station (Wells Highway)
- 79 lots on 21.22 acres
None of these subdivisions are planned in Long Creek or Mountain Rest. Whew!
But it would be short-sighted not to expect developers to come our way.
Moving forward
We don’t have a mayor looking out for Long Creek or Mountain Rest.
To me, this means we (you, me, neighbors, business owners) need to be having conversations about our local rural community. We should be discussing land use and the vision we hope will be reality decades from now.
