Cayce council hears public concerns on proposed ward lines, defers first reading

The Cayce City Council on Jan. 16 held a public hearing on Ordinance 2025-03, a proposed redistricting ordinance establishing new municipal ward lines based on the 2020 U.S. Census and repealing prior district ordinances. Catherine Kelly of the South Carolina Revenue and Fiscal Affairs Office presented the draft plan and the data behind it.

Kelly told council the city’s population rose about 10% since 2010, moving Cayce from roughly 12,528 to 13,781 residents and creating a new ideal district population of about 3,445. She said the benchmark report showed a total deviation of 54.74 percent across wards and noted state law requires a maximum range of 10 percent; RFA recommends a 5 percent target. Kelly said RFA’s work follows traditional redistricting principles — contiguity, compactness, minimizing precinct splits and attention to communities of interest — and that RFA sent 961 letters to affected properties and published notice in local media to invite public comment.

Several residents told council they were worried neighborhoods would be split under the proposed map. Gerald Cromer, who said he has lived in Cayce 65 years, told council he opposed splitting his Broad Acres neighborhood and that moving blocks into another district would reduce neighborhood cohesion. “I hate to see my neighborhood broken up,” Cromer said. Resident Kelly West urged council to consider planned housing developments when revising lines, noting new homes could change populations in affected areas though she acknowledged those residents were not counted in the 2020 census.

Council members discussed neighborhoods identified as local communities of interest — Moss Creek, The Avenues and Broad Acres among them — and sought ways to reduce splitting those areas while meeting legal population targets. Kelly and council members clarified that newly built houses with no occupants at the time of the 2020 census cannot be counted in this cycle’s population totals; annexations that included residents counted in the census can be incorporated if the annexation was completed and recorded.

After discussion about the feasibility of tweaks at the census-block level and the limited range of movement needed to reach the statutory deviation, a motion to defer first reading was made and seconded. The council voted unanimously to defer first reading to the second meeting in February (Feb. 19) to allow staff and RFA to prepare a revised draft and for council members and residents to submit neighborhood-level feedback.

The hearing included a review of the timeline: a council resolution adopting redistricting standards in March 2023, public notices and letters in June 2023, a first reading and deferred adoption in July 2023 to wait until after municipal elections, and renewed notice and letters in January 2025. RFA said it will finalize the map after ordinance adoption and notify the local and state election commissions.

Council did not adopt the ordinance; instead it voted to defer first reading for further review and potential redrafting. Staff and RFA offered to meet with council members and residents to mark census blocks on draft maps and assess whether proposed neighborhood adjustments are technically feasible.

Questions about whether an additional public hearing will be required were left to council discretion; RFA said it is not aware of a legal requirement for another hearing but recommended the council hold additional outreach if it wished to gather more resident input.