January 22, 2009
Greenville County Square
Council Chambers
5:30 pm

The Moving Forward meeting was held on January 22nd for an audience of forty-one people, including Councilmen Fred Payne, Willis Meadows, and Planning Commission Chair Bill Robinson. The meeting featured the results of the "One County, One Future" event and presented the various alternatives from those results that could be used in forming the comprehensive plan’s Future Land Use Map.

Faced with the alternative scenarios for growth, the audience chose their preferences using the department’s new "iClicker" technology. This technology enables the attendees to select responses to questions using a mobile handheld device. This device, in turn, provides immediate results for the audience to view.

Of the scenarios shown, the audience chose the most compact, highest density growth pattern to be the framework for the Future Land Use Map. It is important to note that this map, being general in scope, does not constitute a specific policy map but rather provides the future guideline for how such a map will be created. In other words, the chosen scenario illustrates the audience’s desire for a more compact, high density form and it is the stated intent that the Future Land Use Map will illustrate such when it is created.

After choosing the preferred scenario for growth, the audience then chose its preferences for the types of land uses they wish to see more, or less, of in the future. This involved a series of multiple-choice questions that gauged their inclination for such notions as increased multifamily development or decreased "big box" development. Combined with the results of the map selection, the meeting effectively provided the department with two basic guidelines for action: 1) it specified the form (i.e. high, medium, or low-density) and general location of future development in Greenville County, and 2) it specified the type of development to occur (i.e. infill, multifamily, convenience retail, office, etc).