06/03/2026
Larry Brigham Ain’t Been Sitting on the Porch Watching Growth Happen
If you’ve lived around Batesburg-Leesville, Gilbert, Summit, West Lake Murray, or Fairview very long, you probably don’t want to wake up one morning wondering if you accidentally moved to Charlotte.
Larry Brigham sure doesn’t.
Truth is, Larry has spent years trying to make growth make sense , not just letting developers roll in, throw up houses like they’re playing Monopoly, and call it “community planning.”
Larry’s been serving the people of District 2 the way a public servant ought to: listening to neighbors, showing up, voting for zoning changes that better manage growth and working to protect the communities folks call home.
And his voting record shows it.
Larry supported efforts to:
🏡 Reduce the number of homes per acre a development can have because stacking houses on top of each other like sardines ain’t exactly the country life most folks signed up for.
🌲 Protect farmland, rural areas, and Lake Murray with stronger buffers, overlays, and watershed protections.
🚒 Require roads, schools, EMS, fire protection, and services to keep up FIRST, because if traffic is already backed up and classrooms are full, maybe adding hundreds more rooftops deserves another look.
🚧 Increase setbacks and spacing between homes so neighbors can still wave from the porch instead of sharing Wi-Fi passwords through the kitchen window.
🏘️ Limit oversized apartment complexes and overdevelopment especially where roads weren’t built to handle city-style traffic.
🌳 Protect trees, open space, and rural character —because clear-cutting every acre and replacing it with copy-and-paste neighborhoods isn’t exactly what folks love about Lexington County.
He even supported slowing things down with a temporary moratorium during zoning updates in 2021 so the county could stop, catch its breath, and improve the rules.
“But if Larry passed all these changes… why are we still seeing so much development?”
Fair question.
Government moves slower than molasses in January.
A lot of what folks are seeing right now ,especially around Gilbert near the Strawberry Patch and other fast-growing areas ,was already approved or already in the pipeline before many of these new rules got passed.
And once projects are approved under the old rules, counties usually can’t just hit the brakes and say, “Never mind.”
So while people see houses going up and think, “Nothing changed,” the reality is:
The rules DID change but many neighborhoods being built today are still playing by yesterday’s rules.
That’s frustrating. Larry knows it. Neighbors know it too.
But over time, as new projects come through under updated ordinances, folks will start seeing more of the changes Larry and others on County Council worked hard to put in place.
And Larry will tell you himself:
He still isn’t happy with a lot of what’s happening.
Too many national developers are coming in building the same ol’ cookie-cutter neighborhoods where every house looks copied and pasted and the only tree left standing is the one they forgot to bulldoze.
That’s exactly why Larry is still working on more changes, including:
✅ Further reducing density
✅ Increasing lot sizes so folks still have room to breathe
✅ Stronger architectural design standards so neighborhoods actually fit our communities
✅ Better exterior finishes and building quality instead of cheap-looking developments that age badly
✅ Even stronger protections for Lake Murray and the watershed
✅ Preserving the rural way of life that makes this area special
Because growth should fit Batesburg-Leesville, Gilbert, Summit, West Lake Murray, Fairview, and rural Lexington County not turn them into somewhere folks were trying to escape in the first place.
And here’s something important to know:
Larry Brigham isn’t a developer nor does he have ties to the building industry or real estate industry.
He’s not trying to profit off growth.
And he doesn’t take campaign money from anyone, especially from developers, because he believes his job is to work for the people and communities he represents not special interests.
His challenger for the June primary is a developer and so is his son. Nice guy and nothing personal but seems a bit scary to roll the dice when Larry has worked so hard and continues to work hard.
That means working for:
Batesburg-Leesville. Gilbert. Summit. West Lake Murray. Parts of Fairview. And Lexington County as a whole.
Protecting communities doesn’t happen overnight.
Sometimes it means saying:
“Hold on now… we can do better than this.”
And Larry’s been willing to do just that.
Facts matter. Voting records matter. And country common sense still matters too
