More students crowding schools. More cars congesting roads. Construction workers building sewer lines for new housing developments. Longer wait times for ambulance, fire and sheriff’s deputies responding to more emergencies over a larger, more crowed area. As South Carolina boasts the strongest population growth rate in the nation, residents are counting on their local governments to deal with the influx of new people.
For Symantha Melemed, an Aiken resident and horse farm owner, “leapfrogging” growth in her county without the capacity to meet the demands of new residents has raised concerns.
“When we come into planning meetings, there are petition after petition for very large housing developments,” Melemed told lawmakers last month. “They’re impacting equestrian communities like mine. I have a 100 acre historic farm. When people talk about why they moved to Aiken County, it’s often because of the beauty of places like where I live.”…