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Subcommittee sends proposed enhanced buffer standards back for staff refinement
Summary
Horry County planning staff presented a suite of proposed enhanced buffers for major residential, commercial and industrial development including 100‑ and 200‑foot examples and a proposed 500‑foot industrial buffer; committee members said the package was complex and moved to send it back to staff for further review and public input before recommending council action.
Planning and zoning staff presented proposed revisions to the county’s buffer standards that would create several new buffer types and substantially expand required separation distances between certain new development and existing uses.
Stevie Brown summarized the draft changes, saying the proposal defines Type A opaque buffers (for single‑family adjacent to major residential) at 100 feet; Type B buffers between major residential developments at 25 feet; Type C external roadside buffers up to 200 feet (reduced in some locations to 25–35 feet depending on corridor classification); and a new industrial Type D buffer as large as 500 feet between industrial sites and major residential development. Brown also described an internal Type C buffer (20‑foot) for spine roads and a requirement to landscape berms (3–6 foot minimum height) where a planted buffer does not exist.
Committee members said the packet presented many options that were difficult to absorb quickly and flagged the absence of broad public input. One member recommended an objectives worksheet to guide staff review and to avoid repeated iterations without a clear endpoint. Members also discussed phasing the rules to avoid unfairly affecting developers with active projects, and asked staff to hold targeted conversations with community representatives and come back in October with a refined approach and supporting drawings.
Councilmember (S4) moved to send the proposal back to staff for additional review and community engagement; the motion was seconded and the committee agreed to revisit the item after staff fine‑tunes the proposal.
What happens next: staff will refine the buffer package, prepare clearer objectives and drawings for committee review, and conduct targeted outreach to represent multiple viewpoints before returning the item to the subcommittee.
