Comprehensive Planning

The Comprehensive Plan is a document intended to guide and shape future growth of a community. The South Carolina Local Government Comprehensive Planning Enabling Act of 1994 establishes authority for local governments to create the Planning Commission and to follow the Comprehensive Planning process as set forth by the Planning Commission. The Comprehensive Plan is organized into nine elements as follows: Population, Housing, Cultural Resources, Natural Resources, Economic Development, Transportation, Priority Investment, Community Facilities and Land Use. Each element includes an inventory of existing conditions, statement of needs and goals of the community, and implementation strategies to achieve these goals.

The overall intent of the plan is to identify expected development patterns and to guide and facilitate growth in a manner that is respectful of the County’s natural and cultural resources. After engaging in a robust public participation effort, staff completed major updates to the Land Use and Priority Investment elements for the 2015 plan, and the Transportation element was updated to incorporate goals and strategies related to the Penny Sales Tax. All other elements were reviewed to ensure that data was updated and relevant.

The Planning Department held three rounds of public meetings to receive public input for the plan. The first round of meetings, referred to as Community Conversations, was held in order to introduce county citizens to the Comprehensive Planning process and begin the initial stage of information-gathering.  The second round of meetings, called Choices Workshops, included interactive polling as a fun way to get feedback from citizens regarding their perspectives on growth and development and preservation of natural resources in their communities. Finally, a third round of meetings was held to present the draft plan to citizens and ensure that comments from previous meetings had been acknowledged and addressed in the plan. The draft plan was presented to County Council in early 2015 and formally adopted on March 17, 2015.

Please click on the links below to view the official version of the 2015 Richland County Comprehensive Plan.

2015 Comprehensive Plan

2015 Comprehensive Plan Appendix

Please click on the link below to view the official Future Land Use Map (FLUM) that accompanies the Land Use element of the Comprehensive Plan.

Future Land Use Map

Questions or comments regarding the Comprehensive Plan can be addressed to: Tracy Hegler at hegler.tracy@richlandcountysc.gov or 803-576-2190.