Meet NIMBY; Not In My Backyard.

KGTrailThursday night Jennifer and I found ourselves at our eldest child’s elementary school cafeteria to learn more about the Gills Creek Greenway, Penny Tax, Palmetto Trail project. While I could type a long post about the project and meeting, I’m going to yield this post to a few glaring points, and update accordingly.

1) I understand the greater good and big picture of things, and I get that efforts like this have been awesome for other cities.

2) Why would anyone want to walk from Rosewood to Sumter, SC? I mean, I’m just sayin….

3) The timing is terrible for the PR of the project: water park, baseball stadium, flood victims, burst dams, broken bridges, crushed roads, lawsuits pending, and on and on. I realize “the penny” may have nothing do with any of this, but the PR is terrible.

4) Here’s the real rub for many of the residents that attended the meeting at Brennen: you own a house in Lake Katherine, The Hamptons, or King’s Grant – I’ll use KG as an example because of the map above – the homeowners on Airy Hall, Bolen Hall, Castle Hall Court, Fenwick Hall, King’s Grant Drive, and Foot Point all purchased their properties with the pretense that Fort Jackson was on the other side of their backyard. Is it the Atlantic Ocean? No. Did they purchase their property with the idea of never-to-be-built-on property, the fence, or the Patriot Act as a prerequisite of closing? The answer is very likely either “maybe so” or “yes.” That said, I know folks that paid $221/foot for a house and $230,00 for a lot just to back up to the Fort, and probably wouldn’t have paid such a fee if not for the location. That said, can you imagine living on one of these streets while hikers or campers look clearly through Fort Jackson’s chain link fence into your backyard or pool at your wife or kids? C’mon now…

It’s late so I’ll leave it at four thoughts to ponder.

Thank you!

Franklin Jones

Comments

  1. If it ticks off folks in KG then my Shandonite self is all for it!

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