Residents seek to sink new recreation area on Lake Murray

Several nearby homeowners complained Monday that their rural neighborhood will be disrupted significantly by Richland County’s acquisition of a 4.2-acre tract on a Lake Murray cove for an unknown use.

Anything developed on the site along Bonuck Road will bring in more traffic, vandalism, noise and litter, they said at a gathering sponsored by the Ballentine-Dutch Fork Civic Association.

“It’s been a nice place to live all these years and we don’t want it to change,” longtime resident Jim Rice said.

Others were skeptical of County Councilman Bill Malinowski’s promise that residents will have a large say on a project yet to be determined even though the parcel was bought secretly.

“I don’t trust the people who represent me to do right,” homeowner Kendall Quinton said.

Suggestions that the site be sold instead of transformed into a new recreation area met with applause.

Anything developed will be a good fit for the area probably limited to daytime use, Malinowski said.

It won’t be a marina or aquatic playground but could become a park with a boat ramp, he said.

Malinowski took heat for keeping the $2 million purchase hidden.

“This was a secret situation until the deal was done,” homeowner Algie Grubbs said. “We’ve been told ‘here it is, take it’.”

Malinowski defended the secrecy as necessary.

“The county does not advertise when it’s looking to buy pieces of property,” he said. “Contractual matters are held in confidence until the deal is final.”

County officials bought the site in June after boaters and sports groups pressed for more recreation sites along the 650-mile shoreline.

Officials didn’t reveal it until The State newspaper pressed for details.

The tract was one of the few available and affordable on the county’s 38-mile share of lakefront, Malinowski said.

This area was not among sites lakefront groups recommended to federal officials for new public facilities in 2010.

The nearest sites open to the public are short drives to a boat ramp and beach at the dam, both in adjoining Lexington County.

It probably will take up to two years to settle on what will rise on the site, Malinowski said

Association leaders urged residents to help shape a plan for the site as a precaution against inclusion of any objectionable feature.

“We should work on things that would have approval of people living in the area,” association vice president Les Tweed told the 100 residents at the session at Ballentine County Park.