News & INSIGHTS

Greenville City Council approved the city’s comprehensive plan, GVL 2040, in the first of two required readings Monday, beginning the process of adopting a 124-page document that steers the city’s vision for the future. 

“The GVL 2040 Comprehensive Plan will guide city leaders’ decision-making process for the next 20 years,” city spokesperson Beth Brotherton said in an email. “Over the past 18 months our citizens, stakeholders and staff have worked together to create a guidebook for quality growth in Greenville.” 

In the plan, which can be viewed online at greenvillesc.gov, the city hones in on three key issues: open space and the environment, affordable housing, and transportation and mobility.

Overarching goals for the future include: 

Preserve up to 35% of Greenville’s remaining vacant land as open space or parkland “to bolster quality of life” and protect the environment.  

Make at least 10% of all Greenville’s new housing income-restricted, up from the current 8.5%, to support affordable housing in the city. 

Diversify transportation on major thoroughfares, making walking, biking and transit accessible and safe alternatives to cars. 

A comprehensive plan, required under South Carolina law, does more than ensure uniform zoning and development regulations. It helps set the city’s priorities, creating a vision for the future that is translated into “ordinances, budgets and the decisions made by elected and appointed bodies that wield policy and decision-making powers,” the plan states.

“The vision for Greenville in 2040 is a place where you don’t need a car to get around, there’s a park near your home and comfortable, livable housing is available to people of all income levels,” Brotherton said. 

Greenville officials seek higher-density, mixed-use ‘nodes’ of development

The city will also adopt a new blueprint for development: channeling Greenville’s growth into higher-density “nodes,” which are mixed-use community hubs throughout the city connected by major streets. 

This type of development is more profitable than the lower-density growth most common outside of Greenville’s downtown, according to the plan. Visit greenvillesc.gov to read more about what these nodes are. 

A node is an area that evolves into a mixed-use community hub, featuring housing, employment and retail.

Since the city unveiled the first draft of the plan in November 2020, city leaders have made edits to what councilwoman Dorothy Dowe calls “the roadmap for steering growth in the future.” 

Among the updates is a sharper focus on economic development. 

“We kind of saw the vision, the wants, where we steer growth, the how it serves the community, quality of life — but there wasn’t anything in there that answered the question, ‘How do we pay for it?’” Dowe said. 

The city added a section about economic development, tying it to Greenville’s quality of life, and detailed its plans to build out a separate economic development strategy — one that will guide the city’s approach to job creation, the composition of Greenville’s economy, economic output goals and workforce development. That strategy is to be completed by this summer.

“It doesn’t get paid for through the current income to the city, or by a tax increase, but it gets paid for by private investment and attracting that,” Dowe said. 

Councilman John DeWorken, who has a background in economic development, will have a hand in creating that strategy, he sai

DeWorken called the decision to include economic development “a no-brainer.”  

“Entrepreneurism and business have been the backbone of Greenville for decades, and will continue to do so,” he said. 

The plan also outlines a “must do” checklist for City Council that will guide its tasks in 2021-2022: 

Adopting GVL 2040 is a process that has spanned 20 months, multiple public surveys and four open house events, some of which were held virtually during the pandemic. Throughout the process, the city received more than 6,500 survey responses and 5,178 additional comments from Greenville residents.

Spearheading the GVL 2040 effort was a 42-member steering committee, a work group composed of Greenville residents, and business and nonprofit leaders. Members drive community outreach and provide input to the city, overseen by Greenville’s planning and development division. 

“From my viewpoint, and I trust each of you would agree, is that the community engagement  —  those who were actively involved and those who were cheering from the sidelines and wanted to —  is a wonderful thing that’s led us to this point,” councilman Wil Brasington told city council Monday night. 

“That’s the core of what we should be doing, with everything that we do,” DeWorken said. “Whether it’s a huge comp plan or a speed hump, community engagement is vital to all good decisions.” 

City Council most recently held a public hearing on the plan during its meeting Jan. 25 and will vote to adopt the plan this month, according to the city’s timeline posted online. 

City council extends Greenville mask ordinance 

The council also extended the city’s emergency mask ordinance on Monday until April 10, which requires retail customers to wear face coverings while inside businesses. All businesses in the city must require employees to wear face coverings while they have close contact with customers. 

Under Gov. Henry McMaster’s executive order, restaurant employees and customers must also wear masks unless they are eating or drinking. 

Greenville was the first city in South Carolina to mandate mask wearing in June 2020, and the city has now extended the ordinance four times due to the COVID-19 pandemic.