PROTECTING OUR QUALITY OF LIFE
From a distance it is easy to assume that economic growth and quality of life are competing interests, but in fact our decades long strategy of making Greenville great for Greenvillians is what is driving our successful growth. Quality of life for Greenvillians is where we need to keep our focus. It should remain at the center of every initiative.
Addressing the Affordable Housing Deficit
Nothing exemplifies the inter-related nature of quality of life and economic growth better than affordable housing. Affordable housing is both a socioeconomic issue and a workforce issue. For example, two of our largest employers in Greenville are the Greenville County School District and Prisma Health. In order to recruit and retain talented teachers, nurses and support personnel for these critical entities our city must ensure that our housing supply grows to serve all levels of income and a variety of types of housing selection, including rental and home ownership is accessible. In the next four years, we must accelerate our progress towards construction of affordable and workforce housing and explore multiple funding strategies at the local, state and federal level to achieve this priority.
Prioritizing Sustainability and Stewardship of Our Resources
Our City priority of Sustainability establishes the desire to foster a community that proactively accepts responsibility for environmentally sound practices that are resilient, economically viable, and inclusive of all Greenville stakeholders.
With the adoption of the City’s Sustainability Plan in early 2023, City Council endorsed the principles needed to expand our sustainability efforts. The plan, known as Sustainable GVL, provides a comprehensive list of recommendations for ways to advance Sustainability in Greenville. Acting on the list of recommendations requires that we intentionally focus on sustainability in our municipal operations, capital projects and the built environment. Additionally, our new Greenville Development Code and planning efforts must anticipate the State law requirement to incorporate a resilience element into Greenville’s next comprehensive plan update in 2025.
Preserving Our Green Spaces
With the adoption of a new Tree Ordinance in 2021, we are proactively working to stop the degradation of our tree canopy. Recognizing that 87% of our canopy is on private property, according to a 2020 tree mapping project done in partnership with TreesUpstate/SC Forestry Commission and the Green Infrastructure Center, we must prioritize our work to preserve greenspace through strategic land banking and ensuring our land management ordinance prioritizes greenspace preservation.
Creating a High Functioning Transit System
The Transit Development Plan (TDP) is our roadmap to enabling Greenlink to serve as a major part of the solution to getting Greenvillians where they need to be in the most efficient way possible. We are on track to open a new Greenlink Operations and Maintenance Facility in the next 18 months. This will allow us to increase our fleet of electric and other clean energy buses to advance our goal of increased service frequency, providing additional routes and service 7 days per week.
Investing in Infrastructure to Alleviate Traffic Congestion
Traffic flow must be a primary consideration as Greenville continues to move forward. Prioritizing funding to allow us to take advantage of available traffic technology will help us manage traffic flow to preserve quality of life. Additionally, providing the infrastructure to support multiple commuting options will help us limit the impact of increased traffic as Greenville continues to grow.
Ensuring Public Safety
We are over 70,000 people living together and we are planning for our population to grow to approximately 120,000 people choosing to live in our city by 2040. Advancing as a safe city is essential. To ensure this, we must invest in our police and fire departments, stay abreast of new standards of policing, and continue our work to foster trust and respect between our citizens and first responders.