Florence County Planning Blog: Looking for information on Florence? Try the Comprehensive Plan.

A few days ago, I got a request for the GIS information on all of the public and private schools in Florence County. The GIS department has all of this information stored in a “Major Points File” but it hadn’t been updated in a while and also includes the location of the historic schools in the county, many of which are no longer open. I was wondering where to begin, when it hit me that probably the planning department at some point had put a list of schools together. I went and asked Debi, and she excitedly handed me the Comprehensive Plan.

The Comprehensive Plan not only has a complete list of all the schools (public and private), parks, and museums in Florence, but also a lot of other cool information. For instance, did you know that an Atomic Bomb (unarmed, thankfully) was accidently dropped in Mars Bluff (Cultural Resources Element, pg. 16)? If you are wondering what the soil type for your property is (there are over 50 in Florence County), or where to put your boat in along Lynches River, check out the comprehensive plan (Natural Resources Element, pgs. 10 & 40). If you want to know the median income, the Plan has that too (Population Element, pg. 20). Want to know what Florence County is doing to create bicycle and pedestrian networks? Check out the Transportation Element (pg. 37). The Comprehensive Plan also includes some really cool maps and pictures, some of which are shown below.

So the next time you catch yourself wondering about something in Florence, and aren't sure where to look, try here: http://florenceco.org/offices/planning/#comprehensive-plan. I went looking for a list of schools, and found out so much more.

Interested in the soil type of where you live? You can use this map, and the table that goes with it to find out soil type and what type of crops, if any, are grown there. (Natural Resource Element, pg. 9-10)