At their most recent meeting on March 4, the Cayce City Council discussed several topics including the establishment of new district ward lines—which impact local elections and more—and new zoning and land ordinance changes.

The city had previously postponed the new ordinance until after the November 2024 election and again at the Feb. 4 council meeting to allow for additional changes.

At the Feb. 19 meeting, the council voted to give approval on first reading to the changed lines but there were questions left unanswered about changes to population and areas that would be affected.

At the latest meeting, it was recommended by the South Carolina Revenue and Fiscal Affairs Office to go with the originally proposed draft after changes were found to go above the 10% population deviation that the lines are required to adhere to.

The Revenue and Fiscal Affairs Office mailed out letters to the approximately 900 residents who would be affected. Because the letters were recently mailed out, the council made the decision to postpone the second reading of the proposed ward line changes until the March 19 meeting to make sure the letters had been received by all residents.

“Staff has done a great job of looking into the different iterations,” Mayor Elise Partin said. “There are letters going out to our citizens so if you get them and you have questions, feel free to call us.”

In other news, the council also heard a presentation from Stewart Engineering about the rewriting of the city’s zoning ordinances and current land development regulations.

The presentation was given by Carroll Williamson, who previously served as Cayce’s city planning director. The presentation aimed to provide an update to the council about the goals outlined in the 2021 comprehensive plan and how the engineering firm will work with the council and the city to achieve these goals.

“This land development and zoning ordinance kind of dovetails right off the comprehensive plan that you approved back in 2021,” Williamson said. “In essence, this zoning ordinance update is fulfilling the goals that you approved in the comprehensive plan.”

Some of the goals mentioned were to “strengthen and grow the economy, meet the future housing needs of the community and plan for future growth and development.”

Williamson said the planning commission along with Stewart Engineering would be doing most of the work dealing with topics such as roads, subdivision design and land use among other things.

The firm plans to hold three meetings with the council throughout the process with this one being the first. The other two will be to provide an update about halfway through the project and then a final presentation to present the firm’s recommendations for the council to pass.

The overall goal of this project is to update and modify existing zoning and land use regulations in the city’s four overlay districts to better meet the current needs of Cayce.

“We will take a look at all the standards in those overlay district guidelines… and see whether we need to create new zoning districts or we need to beef up the overlay districts or make modifications,” Williamson said.

The council also entered into a contract with Raftelis Financial Consulting to seek help for the city’s finances and entered into executive session for discussion pertaining to Lexington County's economic development programs and potential contracts for the Avenues Drainage Project and the SCDOT agreement relating to said drainage project.

The next Cayce City Council meeting is March 19 starting at 6 p.m. at Cayce City Hall.