Lexington County needs a strategic plan

Lexington County has deteriorated thanks to so many subdivisions thrown up too quickly without rhyme or reason.

We don’t have enough emergency services to handle the explosion, and roads cannot provide delivery of those we have. First responders cannot get through. Without side roads, and with the nature of lake peninsulas, help cannot arrive in time. My neighbor fell and broke his back outside in 30-degrees. Took the ambulance 45 minutes to arrive. Neighbors kept him from going into shock. If he’d had a heart attack or stroke, he would’ve died. My family is afraid to call 911. Time is best spent driving to a hospital.

Pollution chokes coves from subdivisions stripped of trees, topsoil, and vegetation. These new residents then hire lawn care, putting chemicals in the lake. They build in designated wetlands. Coves are shallower. Fish have disappeared.

If developers cared, we would not have these infrastructure problems, safety problems, basic quality of life problems. We blame Mungo, DR Horton, Great Southern Homes, Essex, and so on, but they are actually following rules our politicians have put in place. Politicians from town and county councils to state legislators have allowed this fiasco.

The average person isn’t aware of what is coming until land is razed. Politicians are meant to protect constituencies, but they haven’t even tried. That is, unless the average person is not the right constituent. . . and a developer is.  

When these subdivisions pollute the lake, make traffic unsafe, and deprive us of emergency services, a voter should feel violated by more than developers. Politicians saw this coming, approved a lot of it, even pushed it through.

Lexington County Council is attempting to slow this development run amok with a 180-day moratorium to allow for a more strategic plan, to stop the bloodletting. However, the Building Industry Assoc of SC (BIA) has filed a lawsuit against Lex County. The very presence of this lawsuit proves their allegiance to making money over preserving quality of life in this county.

This could have been avoided by our politicians. Instead, it’s been condoned and abetted by our elected officials, the voter written off as ignorant.

Support the Lexington County 180-day moratorium on development. Write the council, your state representatives and senators. Vote for who helps your quality of life, not who gives the BIA permission to tear it down. POLITICIANS NOT FOR THE MORATORIUM, ARE AGAINST IT.

Cynthia Hope Clark

Chapin, SC