GREENVILLE — In the northeast reaches of Greenville County, bordered by the Blue Ridge Mountains and Appalachian foothills, is a swath of land known for almost two centuries as the Dark Corner. The area, home to a storied history of moonshining, has long been associated with a fierce sense of independence. So when longtime resident Virginia Maclure set out in late 2022 to convince many of the landowners in the Dark Corner's Gowensville community to zone their property, she faced an uphill battle.
Email Sign Up! It's an effort that balanced the area's natural distrust of government overreach against a growing concern that development, left unchecked, will tarnish the pristine beauty of the mountainous region. As Greenville County experiences unprecedented growth, with more than 152,000 people projected to move here by 2042 , the rural, largely unzoned area has become a draw for developers. "The high density developers are everywhere, knocking down doors, going to people's houses and asking them to sell their land," Maclure said.
"We've got a Chinese contingent, a Russian contingent, local people, all kinds of people trying their best to snap up every single piece of our land. So we're just very, very worried." On July 15, the initiative Maclure is leading to zone roughly 3.
5-square miles in the Gowensville area cleared its first procedural hurdle when the Greenville County Planning and Development Committee unanimously approved a petition from landowners. The request will st.
