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Later, dude: Under-40s not involved in development plan
By Scott Miller
Staff Writer
They’re the leaders of tomorrow, but in some cases, they’re not around today.
That absence is evident in Charleston County’s efforts to update a long-term comprehensive development plan. Nearly 300 people attended a series of workshops designed to give the public the opportunity to craft the future look and feel of their communities.
But of those 300, only nine were between the ages of 19 to 29, and just 34 were between 30 to 44, even though the two demographics collectively represent more than 40% of the county population. A paltry 15% was represented at the workshops.
“It’s like an election. Do we really have everyone vote? No,” said Dan Pennick, director of the Charleston County Planning Department. “We have a democracy in this country, and you really have to participate. You have to choose to participate.
“Obviously, on a younger person’s agenda, (attending public workshops is) not a priority.”
Spurring community involvement
Professional organizations are trying to change that.
The Charleston Metro Chamber of Commerce launched Charleston Young Professionals in August 2006. The group already has more than 600 members. Activities tend to focus on networking, but the ultimate goal is to get young people more involved in their communities.
The Urban Land Institute South Carolina, meanwhile, throws young professionals right into the planning process through its Young Leaders program.
In December, ULI invited more than 150 community and business leaders, environmentalists, developers, engineers and others to participate in a regional land planning exercise using Lego building blocks. Participants gathered around large maps of Berkeley, Charleston and Dorchester counties and used Legos to plot the location of new development and infrastructure to handle population growth in the next several decades.
In the future, the Berkeley-Charleston-Dorchester Council of Governments will use the information to create a regional land-use plan, plotting everything from a light commuter rail to new parks and land preserves.
To ensure young people were involved, ULI put members of its Young Leaders program at each table to facilitate and take notes, said Executive Director Paige King. The organization has about 35 members in the Charleston area and more than 200 statewide. Members of the group will remain active as the land-use plan evolves, King said.
“These are our next leaders and they need to be involved. They need to understand the process,” she said.
And the plans, both COG’s and the county’s, ultimately will affect younger people years down the road.
“The county is making decisions as it relates to providing certain public services,” Pennick said of the county’s comprehensive plan.
That means public safety, road improvements and garbage collection, for example. But it also addresses parks and recreation, affordable housing, environmental protection and myriad other topics that will impact the quality of life in the Lowcountry for decades.
Update 10-year plan
Per state mandate, the county is updating its long-range comprehensive plan, a year-long process that all counties and municipalities must do every 10 years.
“The key component is land use, because how you use the land will have big impacts on all the other areas, particularly the environment. Residents here are really concerned about the character,” said Jamie Greene, a principal with ACP Visioning & Planning, an Ohio-based planning consultant hired to assist the county’s efforts.
The county has held public workshops since last fall to give citizens the opportunity to craft the plan.
The problem is getting people to show up.
The county mailed notices about the workshops to every resident of unincorporated Charleston County, Pennick said. The county also took out newspaper ads, among other methods, to spread the word.
To encourage participation, the county held the meetings in four locations spread across the county, rather than at one location that could have been more inconvenient to some.
That worked. Attracting nearly 300 people is a good number, Pennick said.
“If you have an apathetic public, that can be a problem,” he said, noting Charleston County doesn’t have an apathetic public.
Most attendees 45-plus
But more than half of the attendees were between 45 to 65, and more than a quarter were older than 65. And members of the different demographics certainly will have different goals when it comes to crafting a development plan.
“One group might be more interested in playgrounds, where an older age may be more interested in passive activities, senior centers,” said Greene, adding that different people have different priorities that could impact the final comprehensive plan.
“But I don’t think they’re competing because the community knows it needs to provide a wide variety of activities,” he said.
Still, Greene would like more participation from younger age groups. Trying to make comprehensive planning fun isn’t an easy task, but that’s ACP’s goal. Greene wants to at least make the process relevant.
The inability to attract younger audiences to public planning exercises isn’t unique to Charleston County. It’s nationwide, said Greene, who has public clients across the country.
“That 20 to late-30 (age group), even early 40s, is a tough demographic because they have families with children, and they’re also at that point where they’re trying to establish their careers,” Greene said. “That group has some built in obstacles that the 50-and-over group might not have.”
The next round of public workshops will be in May. The times and dates haven’t been set, but Greene hopes to attract a crowd.
“(The workshop) should be useful to them. It should be interesting to them. And with any luck, it could be fun for them too,” he said.
Scott Miller is a staff writer at the Business Journal. E-mail him at smiller@scbiznews.com.
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