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S. 88
STATUS INFORMATION
General Bill
Sponsors: Senators McConnell, Campsen and Grooms
Document Path: l:\s-jud\bills\mcconnell\jud0025.gfm.doc
Companion/Similar bill(s): 317, 3425
Introduced in the Senate on January 11, 2005
Currently residing in the Senate Committee on Judiciary
Summary: Prerequisites for the issuance of a corporate certificate for a proposed municipality
HISTORY OF LEGISLATIVE ACTIONS
Date Body Action Description with journal page number ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 12/15/2004 Senate Prefiled 12/15/2004 Senate Referred to Committee on Judiciary 1/11/2005 Senate Introduced and read first time SJ-126 1/11/2005 Senate Referred to Committee on Judiciary SJ-126
View the latest legislative information at the LPITS web site
VERSIONS OF THIS BILL
TO AMEND SECTION 5-1-30, CODE OF LAWS OF SOUTH CAROLINA, 1976, RELATING TO PREREQUISITES FOR THE ISSUANCE OF A CORPORATE CERTIFICATE FOR A PROPOSED MUNICIPALITY, SO AS TO DELETE THE REQUIREMENT THAT NO PART OF THE PROPOSED MUNICIPALITY IS WITHIN FIVE MILES OF THE BOUNDARY OF AN ACTIVE INCORPORATED MUNICIPALITY AND TO PROVIDE A DEFINITION FOR CONTIGUITY.
Whereas, the state's municipal incorporation laws should encourage the development of new municipalities in areas that would benefit from local self-government; and
Whereas, the requirement that no part of a proposed municipality be within five miles of an active incorporated municipality is an arbitrary classification that inhibits home rule and deprives areas not eligible for municipal annexation the ability to establish local self-government; and
Whereas, Act No. 250 of 2000 provided a definition of contiguity for municipal annexations that prohibits strip, corridor, or shoestring annexations; and
Whereas, the practices of strip, corridor, or shoestring annexation occurring prior to 2000 created artificial and unnecessary barriers that have prevented areas seeking to establish local self-government from incorporating as municipalities; and
Whereas, the rational reason to allow areas to use territory annexed by a neighboring municipality to enable incorporation is to reverse the detrimental effects of strip, corridor, or shoestring annexation that have prevented incorporation; and
Whereas, the General Assembly's intent in defining "contiguous" in the incorporation statue is to provide a uniform process for municipal incorporation laws, consistent with the definition of "contiguous" in municipal annexation laws, to facilitate incorporation in areas that have been prevented from establishing local self-government by strip, corridor, or shoestring annexation, which is now prohibited. Now, therefore,
Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of South Carolina:
SECTION 1. Section 5-1-30 of the 1976 Code is amended to read:
"Section 5-1-30. (A) Before issuing a corporate certificate to a proposed municipality, the Secretary of State shall must first determine:
(1) that the area seeking to be incorporated has a population density of at least three hundred persons a per square mile according to the latest official United States Census;
(2) that no part of the area is within five miles of the boundary of an active incorporated municipality;
(3) that an approved service feasibility study for the proposed municipality has been filed with and approved by the Secretary of State; and
(4)(3) that the area proposed to be incorporated is contiguous. Contiguity is not destroyed by an intervening marshland located in the tidal flow or an intervening publicly-owned waterway, whether or not the marshland located in the tidal flow or the publicly-owned waterway has been previously incorporated or annexed by another municipality. The incorporation of a marshland located in the tidal flow or a publicly-owned waterway does not preclude the marshland located in the tidal flow or the publicly-owned waterway from subsequently being used by any other municipality to establish contiguity for purposes of an incorporation if the distance from highland to highland of the area being incorporated is not greater than three-fourths of a mile. 'Contiguous' means adjacent properties that share a continuous border. If a road, highway, waterway, easement, railroad track, marshland, tidal marsh, freshwater marsh, utility line, park, or other geographic area (a) has been previously incorporated or annexed by another municipality, and (b) intervenes between two properties proposed to be incorporated together, which but for the intervening road, highway, waterway, easement, railroad track, marshland, tidal marsh, freshwater marsh, utility line, park, or other geographic area would be adjacent and share a continuous border, the intervening road, highway, waterway, easement, railroad track, marshland, tidal marsh, freshwater marsh, utility line, park, or other geographic area does not destroy contiguity.
(B) When an area seeking incorporation has petitioned pursuant to Chapter 17 the nearest incorporated municipality to be annexed to the municipality, and has been refused annexation by the municipality for six months, or when the population of the area seeking incorporation exceeds fifteen thousand persons, then the provision of the five-mile limitation of this section does not apply to the area.
(C) The five-mile limit does not apply when the boundaries of the area seeking incorporation are within five miles of the boundaries of two different incorporated municipalities in two separate counties other than the county within which the area seeking incorporation lies, and when the boundaries of the proposed municipality are more than five miles from the boundaries of the nearest incorporated municipality that lies within the same county within which the proposed municipality lies, and when the land area of the territory seeking incorporation exceeds one-fourth of the land area of the nearest incorporated municipality.
(D) The population requirements do not apply to areas bordering on and being within two miles of the Atlantic Ocean and to all sea islands bounded on at least one side by the Atlantic Ocean, both of which have a minimum of one hundred-fifty dwelling units and at least an average of one dwelling unit for each three acres of land within the area and for which petitions for incorporation contain the signatures of at least fifteen percent of the qualified electors of the respective areas seeking incorporation.
(E)(C) This section does not apply to those areas which have petitioned to the Secretary of State before June 25, 1975, or which may be under adjudication in the courts of this State. The five-mile limit does not apply to counties with a population according to the latest official United States Census of less than fifty-one thousand."
SECTION 2. This act takes effect upon approval by the Governor.
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