Eminent Domain Attorneys Near Me Edgefield, SC

JOHNSTON — When data related to ship-to-home summer meals for rural-designated Edgefield County families arrived it stunned Edgefield County School District Child Nutrition Director Connie Cunningham. There were not just a few Merriwether-area families that had been denied access to the program due to their address not qualifying as “rural” according to U.S. Department of Agriculture’s rural designation maps — there were over 70 of them.

Undaunted, Cunningham and her staff jumped into action by quickly locking in a meal vendor, establishing a distribution location at Merriwether Middle School and communicating with families. Their hard work provided well over 5,000 breakfast and lunch meals to help sustain those families over the summer prior to the start of the new school year on July 28.

According to the S.C. Department of Public Health, South Carolina has the seventh-highest rate of food insecurity nationally, which includes a 14.4-percent food insecurity rate among Palmetto State families and a 13.8-percent food insecurity rate for Edgefield County families. According to SCDPH information, the six dimensions of food insecurity include Decision-Making Agency, Short-Term Stability, Long-Term Sustainability, Access, Availability, and Utilization. When one or more of these dimensions are not met it creates food insecurity.

“It was a blessing to hear from so many parents who expressed their appreciation and gratitude for the convenience of having nutritious meals delivered directly to their homes, helping ensure that our children continued to have access to healthy meals throughout the summer,” said ECSD Child Nutrition Director Connie Cunningham. “When we realized a portion of our community did not qualify as rural, we were determined to do everything we could to serve those families as well. That led us to establish a convenient meal pickup site, ensuring even more students had access to nutritious meals.”

ECSD Child Nutrition team members Jennifer Crump and Shannon Kirkland of Merriwether Elementary School were part of the extended effort at the MMS summer meal distribution site. ECSD Child Nutrition Administrative Assistant LaNor Browder was also instrumental in delivering meals within the community.

“It surprised me with the number of kids and families we’ve seen,” said Crump, who serves as the cafeteria manager at MMS and who is also known as “Aunty Jenn” to many of her school’s students, during a June distribution day at MMS. “It’s been really good. We’re excited to see how many families we’ll have come out today. They’ve been appreciative of what we’re doing, and the kids really need it so that makes us feel good.”

“It’s been exciting seeing everyone come in and being a part of the program,” added Kirkland.

For Cunningham and the ECSD Child Nutrition team, serving the community follows a very simple formula for success.

“We meet students and families where they are,” said Cunningham. “No matter where meals are served, we remain committed to doing our very best to provide healthy, nourishing meals that support our students’ growth, learning, and well-being. To every parent and guardian who signed up and trusted us to serve your family this summer — thank you. Your participation made this program a success, and we are grateful for the opportunity to serve our community. We look forward to continuing to care for and nourish our students throughout the new school year.”

“This was not a one-time thing,” she added. “This is something we would like to be able to offer each summer.”

NORTH AUGUSTA — The small section of North Augusta that lies within Edgefield County is about to hand developers a substantial added cost to build: about $1,600 per home, this on top of recent charges levied last fall on new development through all of North Augusta.

North Augusta City Council on Aug. 17 agreed to Edgefield County's request that it collect impact fees on the county's behalf, these fees then remitted to Edgefield County to help fund its Emergency Medical Services.

North Augusta's involvement as middleman was requested because impact fees are collected at the time a building permit is issued, something that's done at the city level for incorporated areas.

Edgefield County Council has already approved the impact fee ordinance across two readings. A final reading is scheduled for early next month, at which point, should this also be approved, the fees would take effect for Edgefield County's highest growth areas: North Augusta, and the nearby Merriwether and County Line fire districts.

But it's that one section, the section that lies within the North Augusta city limits, where builders would take the biggest hit: the city of North Augusta already has established its own impact fees on new development.

North Augusta's ordinance took effect on Nov. 1 and amount to more than $2,000 per home.

These impact fees, separate from Edgefield County's, are levied across the entirety of North Augusta, regardless of whether the land is part of Edgefield County or Aiken County. North Augusta's impact fees are helping fund the city's parks and recreation, water and wastewater, and sanitation needs.

Meant to help offset the strain new development can place on public resources, impact fees follow a strict set of rules, and standout among them is proportionality and that new growth only pays for what it uses.

Impact fees are calculated such that a project's anticipated impact to the resource for which there is an impact fee — such as EMS — is all that's being paid for. They also can only be used for capital projects, not operational costs, and only in the areas in which the fee is collected.

For Edgefield County, the new impact fees would fund an EMS substation in the Merriwether area.

Estimated at $1 million, plus costs of land acquisition and engineering, Edgefield County Administrator David Caddell has suggested it could be a three-year turnaround. At which point, impact fee collection would likely shift over to the county EMS' next ambulance.

At least one development, the potentially 500-home Carolina Lakes subdivision planned for Gregory Lake Road, would be subject to the double-layered impact fees.

North Augusta Planning Commission approved the first 110 homes in July. If this project eventually gets the OK on all phases and is built out in full, a total of $1.8 million in impact fees could be collected, with $1 million going to the city of North Augusta and $800,000 to Edgefield County.

Data collected as part of the supporting analysis for the new Edgefield County fees show that the three areas where the fee is to be applied — Merriwether and County Line fire district and the city of North Augusta — account for about 80% of Edgefield Count's growth in the past three years.

And the county itself, according to recent Census Bureau estimates, has grown by 16.2% since the 2020 Census, or nearly twice the growth rate for South Carolina, now the fastest growing state in the U.S. as of last year.

Edgefield County's actual population remains small, estimated at around 30,000 people; but that rate of growth is what's hitting hard, driving actions by the county council to manage the spurt of new development that is coming with it.

One of the largest of these actions was finalized last year when this county that remains largely un-zoned underwent a mass zoning that affected about 17% of the county's land and more than 1,500 individual properties.

That new zoning created a large-lot residential district, termed Residential Agriculture. Construction in these areas limits new home builds to lots of 2 acres or larger and new commercial development to smaller scale enterprise — no big box stores or industrial facilities.

EDGEFIELD COUNTY, S.C. (WJBF) — Dolly Parton’s impact is reaching children right here in the CSRA.

The Imagination Library sends children from birth to age five one free book every month. Edgefield County First Steps helps make that happen there. For a child enrolled from birth, that’s 60 books by kindergarten.

“If a child doesn’t have access to see the pictures, have a parent read to them, associated the love from the parent with the love of reading, they will struggle in school and they will be behind their peers from the beginning,” Executive Director, Edgefield County First Steps Candi Lalonde said.

The first is The Little Engine That Could. The fifth-year book is Look Out Kindergarten, Here I Come. Both include a personal letter from Dolly.

“Dolly was very, very adamant that this be accessible to every child who is age eligible,” she added.

305 Edgefield County children are enrolled. More than 43,000 books have been mailed since 2005. The Dollywood Foundation selects the books and covers overhead. For $30, donors can provide a child with 12 books for a year.

“The great thing is you don’t have to go anywhere. It’s mailed directly to the home. The child can go to the mailbox and get their own book out,” she shared.

Lalonde also got to hear Dolly speak at an Imagination Library conference in Tennessee.

“She was just as personable and just full of joy and radiated light that you see on TV. She just really was a really warm person. Just felt like I’d lost a friend or a family member.”

Dolly was known as the “book lady.” Lalonde says she’s been called the same in Edgefield County. And she’s seen the impact firsthand.

“I have actually left a facility and then gone back later that day and seen a child sitting down reading the book that I just brought. And it’s the best feeling ever,” she recalled.

And while Dolly is gone, her work continues.

“The program will go on. That was what Dolly always wanted,” she said.

Parents can sign their children up through Edgefield County First Steps at 803-275-0800, on Facebook, or at edgefieldfirststeps.org.

NORTH AUGUSTA — Tractor Supply is making its first investment in Edgefield County with a location planned for the corner of Columbia and Star roads, just outside the Town of Edgefield.

"I think they're going to be a great addition to the community here," Elliott McKenzie said. "I think it matches up perfectly with the outdoors and the agricultural heritage y'all have."

McKenzie is with Baseline CRE, the commercial real estate lending group partnering with Tractor Supply on the Edgefield County location. McKenzie was representing the company Aug. 13 when the county planning commission gave its approval to the preliminary platting.

Baseline CRE's Gavin Melia wrote in an Aug. 5 memo to the planning commission that the new store would give residents here more convenient access to this retailer that counts just five other locations in the CSRA, the closest being more than 20 miles away on Aiken's northside.

Tractor Supply's inventory helps support agricultural operations and rural property maintenance, plus everyday household needs, Melia wrote, going on to list livestock and pet feed, animal health products, fencing materials, tools, work apparel, trailers, lawn and garden supplies, power equipment and seasonal merchandise as all being stocked by Tractor Supply.

The Edgefield location will be about 20,000 square feet to 22,000 square feet with an outdoor display area of equal size. It's expected to count between five and 15 permanent staff.

The store would be serviced by septic, given the county's current inability to service new projects with wastewater, something Edgefield County Planning Director Hart "Doc" Clark confirmed for the planning commission that same evening.

Commission Chair James "Fab" Burt said it was an exciting new business for the county, and Melia affirmed that Tractor Supply's investment supports Edgefield County's "ongoing efforts to encourage responsible commercial development that serves the needs of its growing population while supporting its agricultural economy."

"Tractor Supply has an established history of successful operations in rural communities throughout South Carolina and across the United States and is committed to being a responsible long-term corporate citizen in the communities it serves," he wrote.

Tractor Supply operates more than 2,300 stores in 49 states. The company's most recent investments in the CSRA were its locations in Evans, Ga., opened this May; and on Aiken's southside, opened this January.

COLUMBIA — Edgefield County has secured the $3 million in state funding it requested for the construction of its new EMS headquarters, representing a windfall that is expected to cover at least half the total cost of this project and relieve taxpayers from a portion of last year’s big property tax increase.

Additionally, the $2 million in “seed money” promised to the city of Aiken this May for the Salvation Army’s vision of a full-service resource center, has also come down.

The South Carolina General Assembly on Aug. 25 passed a little more than $350 million in special projects funding, often called earmarks, including some $8.74 million for Aiken and Edgefield counties, the cities of Aiken and North Augusta, and Aiken County Public School District.

It was a separate action from the regular 2026-2027 state budget that was approved in mid-August.

It was also a surprise or, as Rep. Bill Taylor, R-Aiken, put it, “resurrected” after these appropriations had appeared “about as dead-dead as you can get” just two weeks ago.

“I am most gratified that the House and the Senate came to terms because community investment projects are very important, and particularly in rural areas of South Carolina where there’s not the tax base to be able to do major capital improvements that are essential and necessary or social services that extremely important to a community,” Taylor said.

After Edgefield County’s EMS headquarters, the next largest amount earmarked for this area, at $2 million, went to the city of Aiken to support the Salvation Army’s Center of Hope, the capital campaign for it expected to launch this fall.

“The homeless issue in Aiken County is very severe. Many folks don't want to acknowledge that, but it’s here,” Rep. Taylor said.

Taylor, along with other House members in Aiken County’s legislative delegation, had promised this same $2 million in “seed money” for the Center of Hope back in May when the Salvation Army hosted its Table of Hope gala.

Planned as a resource center, “it’s not only a temporary shelter, but it literally has state agencies and county agencies and nonprofits in the same facility to help people get back on their feet and into permanent housing,” Taylor said.

Included in the overall framework for the agreement on funding special projects was that all requests related to public safety or first responders would be funded in full — Edgefield County’s $3 million request for EMS headquarters among these.

As would all projects less than $300,000 that were requested by a House member. From there, other requests brought by a House member saw a 39% reduction from the requested amount.

Estimated at $5 million to $6 million, the new Edgefield County EMS headquarters would be built on land at the county's industrial park and that has only recently been disentangled from a more than 2.5-year property dispute.

The county council, in preparation for pushing the EMS headquarters forward in earnest, had in July finalized a $6.25 million bond issue for the project, coupling it with a property acquisition that will also support Piedmont Technical College’s own $10 million investment at the industrial park in the form of an Advanced Manufacturing Center.

The bond issue will also go toward improvements to existing county-owned buildings.

Still, the state funding that’s now come through could present opportunity to revisit the millage dedicated to the debt service on the new headquarters.

Edgefield County Council last summer approved the first property tax increase in 15 years, a large one at 16.25 mills, with 77% of it going toward EMS operations and the other 23% funding the debt service on the new EMS headquarters.

It’s that portion dedicated to the debt service — 3.75 mills — that could get a second look.

“With receipt of the $3 million and favorable bids on the station, we should have options for debt service millage reduction once all final costs are known,” Edgefield County Administrator David Caddell said.

Caddell said this could be revisited next summer if the anticipated timeline holds: “Our goal is to close on the property in September, ask Council to approve a design and engineering contract in October, and have the project out for bid early 2027,” he said.

This would allow for construction to begin next summer or fall.

Other projects to get funding in the appropriations bill were a waterline infrastructure replacement by the city of Aiken ($1 million); improvements to the Martintown Road-Knobcone Avenue intersection in North Augusta ($1 million); a new fire tanker ambulance for Aiken County ($750,000); Umoja Village community projects ($300,000 to be disbursed by Aiken County); an Aiken-Barnwell Mental Health property acquisition ($100,000); widening of Carey Hill Road in Edgefield County ($549,000); and Midland Valley Recreation Association under Aiken County Public School District ($70,000).