Hartsville’s planning department to be restructured

Hartsville will be restructuring its office of planning and development following the recent resignation of planning and development director Rodney Tucker.

Tucker, who came to Hartsville from Spartanburg in September 2007, also worked for the city of Greenville.

He was one of the leaders involved in the city’s Butler High School renovation project with Clemson University. The project is meant to renovate and develop the school’s campus and the surrounding area.

Tucker has said the Butler Renovation Project is part of a vision to preserve and celebrate the culture and heritage of the Butler/Sixth Street area and thinks it can play a huge part in beautifying and developing downtown Hartsville.

The city will not fill Tucker’s position, but the existing structure will remain in place.

Brenda Kelly, planning and zoning administration, will continue to handle the duties of the office. Hartsville City Manager Jim Pennington said the city might look for a student intern in the future to assist the office.

The planning and zoning office now will be moved into the city’s department of environmental engineering and planning services, Pennington said.

“So you will have a whole series of people who can bounce ideas off of each other,” he said.

The he public works office would eventually move into department of environmental engineering and planning services, as well, after the retirement of current public works director Mike Welch, Pennington said. Hartsville Assistant Public Works Director James Clemons then will serve as the director of the department.

“In the beginning, we will have a division of planning services,” Pennington said. “We are starting to work on the office of stormwater, and then we have engineering in there, so the director would be responsible for construction and coordinating our engineers.”