Green Today, Gone Tomorrow.
Protecting What Matters, Part 3: Protection Equals Permanence
Those beautiful woods behind your house may feel like a park. But is it protected? If the answer is no, the view you enjoy today could become someone's neighborhood, shopping center, or parking lot tomorrow.
There is an important difference between land that happens to be currently undeveloped and land that has been permanently protected.
The Woods Behind Your House
They may provide wildlife habitat, shade, cleaner air, stormwater protection ... and a beautiful view. But if they are not owned by the public (e.g. a park) or permanently protected via a conservation easement, they aren't permanently protected:
They can be sold.
They can be rezoned.
They can be developed.
This is NOT a "development = bad; protection = good" story. Rather, it's about ensuring that as we grow and develop more land, which we surely will, we must also plan for and invest in green spaces to protect the character of our community for all the benefits nature provides, both for the environment and for human health. That's what the Greenville County Historic and Natural Resources Trust is all about!
Pebble Creek: A Green View Can Disappear
For decades, residents around Greenville County's Pebble Creek community looked out on the open green landscape of a golf course. Then part of the course closed.
By 2022, subdivisions were proposed on portions of the closed course, including proposals for 62 lots on 21.72 acres, 86 lots on 24.18 acres and 84 lots on 25.16 acres.
This year another proposal sought to convert three acres of former recreational property to residential development. Greenville County planning staff noted that preservation of recreational amenities and open space had been an original principle of the Pebble Creek planned development and recommended denying reduction of that open space.
The lesson isn't about golf. It's about permanence. People can live beside beautiful open land for decades. That doesn't necessarily mean the land will remain open.
When land is purchased and dedicated as a public park or natural area, or when a landowner decides to place their land in a perpetual conservation easement, the public gains. With a park the place is intentionally secured for public use rather than simply undeveloped land that happens to be there today. A conservation easement provides many of the same benefits at a much lower cost but rarely provides public access.
Don't Confuse a Green View With a Guarantee
Greenville County is growing. That's not a bad thing. Every year, undeveloped land becomes more valuable and the economic pressure to develop it grows. That's why conservation can't simply mean appreciating the woods, fields, streams, and open spaces we have today.
If we want some of them to still be here 50 or 100 years from now, we have to protect them. The woods behind your house aren't really protected just because they're green today. Protection means permanence.
