Building Greenways and Preserving Historic Resources in Greenville County

From the Swamp Rabbit Trail to Campbell's Covered Bridge, Greenville's parks and trails are central to our community's identity. But how do these cherished spaces come to be, and what does it take to protect them for future generations? This episode delves into the incredible strategy, planning, and public-private efforts behind the Greenville County greenways and historic resources that define our landscape. We uncover the complex work of balancing growth with conservation, ensuring these natural assets are treated as essential infrastructure, just like water and roads.

Join Kelly Byers as she sits down with Ty Houck, Manager of Greenways, Natural, and Historic Resources for Greenville County, to explore the full story. Ty provides a masterclass on how the system works, from its origins as a Special Purpose District to its current role as a county department focused on large, regional parks. A major focus of the conversation is the deliberate work of historic preservation in Greenville County, with Ty detailing the meticulous restoration of iconic sites like the Slater Hall Community Center and Campbell's Covered Bridge, where the goal is to honor the original 1930s design and materials. We also break down the specifics of Greenville County park funding, exploring how a combination of property taxes, user fees, grants, and contract work with small businesses keeps these resources accessible to everyone without high entry fees.

The discussion highlights the incredible growth and success of the Swamp Rabbit Trail, a project Ty has spearheaded for years. He explains the strategy behind the Swamp Rabbit Trail expansion, which has grown the network from nine miles to over 32, extending into Laurens County and functioning as a vital transportation corridor that revitalizes communities like Travelers Rest and Fountain Inn. Looking to the future, Ty shares innovative plans, including the use of repurposed railroad flat cars as bridges, funded in part by a federal RAISE grant. To address the pressures of a growing population, the episode concludes with an inside look at the newly formed Greenville County Historic and Natural Resources Trust. This county-level land trust provides a dedicated funding mechanism to acquire and protect critical open spaces, working alongside partners like Upstate Forever and Naturaland Trust to ensure Greenville’s natural beauty remains for decades to come. This is the definitive look at the past, present, and future of Greenville County greenways and historic resources.

Episode Resources:

• Learn more about Greenville County Parks, Recreation, & Tourism

• Explore the Swamp Rabbit Trail Network

• Discover Upstate Forever's conservation work

• Learn about Bike Walk Greenville

• Listen to Ty Houck's previous episodes

Transcript

Katy Smith:

Some of the most beloved of Greenville County's many assets are its parks, trails, green spaces, and historic sites. And while it's hard to imagine this community without the Swamp Rabbit Trail Network or Campbell's Covered Bridge, for example, these places exist because of intentional planning, execution, and innovation, and a concerted public-private effort. I'm Katy Smith with Greater Good Greenville, and on this episode of Simple Civics Greenville County, we will hear about the roots of these treasured spaces and resources that our local government makes possible, and how they are part of our community's infrastructure, just like water, sewer, and roads. Kelly Byers, a member of Travelers Rest City Council and a local government nerd, talks to Ty Houck, manager of Greenways, Natural, and Historic Resources for Greenville County. Ty has been on the podcast before, and we'll put links in the show notes to his previous episodes, as well as other park-related resources.

Kelly Byers:

Today, we are here with Ty Houck, the manager of County Greenways Historic and Natural Resources. Can you tell us what all your job entails?

Ty Houck:

It's a broad one because with County Parks and Rec, there's more of a team standpoint than just individual property management. I say I'm in charge of the non-programmed elements of parks. So bike trails, blueways, paddling paths or paddling trails, as well as opportunities to remember the history of our parks. When we make changes and updates to those, we make sure we respect the historical elements of those parks.

The History of Greenville County's Park System

Kelly Byers:

I love that. Can you tell us about the history of the park system in Greenville County then?

Ty Houck:

Greenville County Parks and Rec was originally Greenville County Recreation District. We were a special purpose district, like fire departments, as I tell people. A couple of years ago, probably a decade ago now, with the growth of the municipalities, we realized it was better suited for us to continue to provide the services that the community was needing and growing to need by becoming a department of the county. So now we're just a department of the county, just like there's roads and bridges, the planning department; we're a department now under Greenville County.

While we have assets throughout the county, and some of them are actually in the city's jurisdictions in different cities, we primarily focus on providing open space, parks and recreation opportunities in the unincorporated areas of the county. And then more specifically, we're taking a focus on making sure those regional scale parks, destination parks or parks that have major tournament facilities, large acres, 40 acres plus. And we're trying to focus on making those parks be the best they can be.

Kelly Byers:

Well, I live within a stone's throw of several Greenville County parks, and I'm so grateful for those resources and take advantage of them frequently. So thank you for what you're doing.

Historic Preservation in Action: Restoring Slater Hall and Campbell's Covered Bridge

Kelly Byers:

So, Ty, you're known as the Swamp Rabbit Trail guy, and you have been instrumental in bringing the trail to Greenville County. And there is a whole podcast episode about that. Can you elaborate on other aspects of your job, other resources and parks and how those develop over time?

Ty Houck:

So one of the projects we're wrapping up by the end of this year, 2025, is the restoration of Slater Hall, Slater Hall Community Center. It was one of those properties that was built in 1937. It was the icon of the community. It was where everything happened in the Slater community area. And over time, it just needed a facelift. Because of my title, we really took the effort to focus on not replacing the windows, but restoring the original glass windows.

To get this building more functional while going to meet code, the correct answer is going to be, what was the design element in the 1930s? It's been a very fun project. For at least 20 years the upstairs was not usable; it just didn't meet code. And we're restoring all these small and large meeting rooms on the second floor, beautiful hardwood floors. They restored the outside, found the old flagpole, going to put the flagpole on top of the building, really restoring it back to what it looked like when it was new back in the 30s. That's a really fun project for us. We partner with consultants to help guide us through the process and help us do that deep research. So that's one of the projects that beyond the Swamp Rabbit that I'm involved with.

And also last year, we did a similar approach with Campbell's Covered Bridge. We said, let's put the effort in to put the shake shingle roofs back in. Let's put the more period-specific railings in. It just kind of sets that tone, that image of that time period. It's a fun project because you remember back in the day that was the thing, that was the place, and we're restoring it back to that, as opposed to just a park that people go look at. And throughout the whole process, one of our deep focuses is stabilization. We always start with stabilization so these facilities that generations have enjoyed will continue to be around.

How Greenville's Parks and Trails Are Funded

Kelly Byers:

I have some involvement with the Slater Marietta community, and I know that will be a really huge project for that community and bring a lot of vitality back to the area. So, the public benefits from these great free resources, can you talk a little bit about how they're funded since it's not based on an entry fee or something like that?

Ty Houck:

A lot of our funding comes from a portion of the property tax and also fees and charges for things like shelters and when we have tournaments and things like that. But it is very important because you want to eliminate the barrier to entry for anybody to have an opportunity to go to outdoor space, have their kids grow up learning how to play baseball or football, or just getting out into open space with your dog.

Those things do cost money. We always want to be as efficient as possible. So a couple of things we've been doing recently is we do a lot more contract work for these facilities, which is, in my opinion, a way to put the taxpayer's money back into the small businesses. The funding that we get through the fees and charges, as we call it, and also the property tax revenue, is the way we continue to expand our parks.

And then we always chase grants and stuff like that. But a lot of times the grants are complicated and we sometimes get a little frustrated on how the process and how long the process takes to complete. So we really try to, it's a cliched term, but we try to right-size when we look at our decision-making. We work with our jurisdictions, our municipalities and say, "Okay, this park made sense back then, but now it's inside the jurisdiction of a city. Let's have that conversation."

Ty Houck:

Obviously, from a population density kind of thing, you're going to tend to have more density around the cities. So these small walkable parks are more city-oriented. We say, let's do our large regional parks.

Navigating the 'Marble Cake': Collaboration Across Jurisdictions

Kelly Byers:

Well, being on the City Council of Travelers Rest, we have recently gone through a process of purchasing or annexing parks from Greenville County. And a lot of times citizens don't know who's in charge of the public resource that they have, whether it's parks or utilities or who to call for the pothole on that specific road. So I look at government as a marble cake, not a layer cake. So there's lots of interactions with different areas of government. Can you elaborate on that at all with your role with the county and the parks?

Ty Houck:

Yeah, I think one of the really good examples is when I took the role before the Swamp Rabbit Trail was built, because I grew up in South Florida using bikes to get around to my jobs and things like that. It's a network that I want to be able to have to enjoy. And to your marble cake analogy, it needs to go into different jurisdictions. If we acted like this is our project, this is how we're going to design it, it wouldn't have that community connectivity and that interaction. And with the parks, it's the same thing. To your point, when something's wrong, you want to know who to call.

But because the municipalities work so well together with the county, if someone makes the wrong phone call, it's, "Oh, here's somebody else's number. Let's make it happen." And I think that surprises a lot of people when they move into Greenville County. There's a lot of cross-jurisdictional, "Hey, we're all trying to make the same thing happen for people." So that's always been fun.

There are so many things involved with property acquisition. And we don't want to have a duplicity of services. So if there's a sports league that can run a sports league instead of us taking it on, we're like, let's have those conversations. If certain cities are like, we want to focus on these open space opportunities, we're like, all right, let's make sure those conversations are happening. So it just seems fluid, even though there have to be jurisdictions. It just seems like one big group working together.

The Power of Public-Private Partnerships

Kelly Byers:

Which I think is the best for the citizens. It's easy to engage. So another thing that makes Greenville great is our public-private partnerships. Can you talk about some that have made either the trail or other parks successful?

Ty Houck:

I've always encouraged people with opinions to join a group of other people with opinions, because then it sounds more than just a single person's want. Those private organizations create a consensus, and then it just helps everybody work through the processes. Because a lot of times, private entities have a certain tree, and we have the whole forest. And so we're like, okay, if we work together, we can get in this direction if you understand the realities of how our process works. There are a lot of fantastic organizations that help us make the parks vibrant, make sure we're meeting the current and growing needs of the community.

The ones that I work with very frequently is Upstate Forever. Upstate Forever has been around for a very, very long time. They have a number of conservation easements on properties. They've helped us get property and then allowed us to expand the footprints of our parks for people to enjoy, but they come with conservation easements. So we continue to work with them on making sure the conservation easements are met.

And then other more specific organizations like Bike Walk Greenville, obviously people want to be able to get to a park. They don't want to always have to get into a car. So Bike Walk Greenville's focused on safe biking and walking for everyone. And so those opportunities come up. Sometimes they're definitely outside the realm of what our parks are, but we work with them and say, what do you have working on with regards to kids getting safely to school? Do we have a park somewhere that makes sense to incorporate in your longer outside-the-box-of-parks thing?

Planning for Growth: The Future of Parks and Recreation

Kelly Byers:

So talking about growing areas and growing population, what can we look forward to in the future of Parks and Recreation in Greenville County?

Ty Houck:

Yeah. We're constantly keeping our eye on large tracts of properties, typically 40 acres or more. So if you look at our signature parks, like the Pavilion, Southside, Lakeside, those scale parks are where we're trying to say, where is the population growth happening that is not already in a municipality? So obviously, Southern Greenville County, a lot of development going on there. So that's a growth area for us, for sure.

We've been around and we have enough partners that developers are like, "Hey, we have a subdivision coming in, but the developer doesn't actually want 40 acres of it. Do you want to talk about it?" And they come to us. So it's always fantastic when we do that. The Five Forks area is obviously a very densely growing area. So we have Oakland Plantation, which we recently purchased, and it's over 40 acres. We're in the master planning process of that. So people will see that develop into a site that that community can now use and not have to go farther away than they had to before to just enjoy open space for public pleasure.

The Swamp Rabbit Trail: From a Local Path to a Regional Transportation Corridor

Kelly Byers:

So I know that trail is often considered what led to a lot of growth in certain areas, that the trail access can revitalize areas like Travelers Rest. So it sounds like you're both a trailblazer and following where the population goes. Is that right?

Ty Houck:

Yeah. When development happens, especially commercial development or large neighborhood development, there are opportunities for spaces. As many people already know, the Swamp Rabbit Trail, the idea was easy to launch because we had control of a rail corridor that went from Traveler's Rest to downtown Greenville. And so it was easy to put something on the ground right away. I wouldn't have left my job with the State Park Service if I didn't think it was going to be successful. But people were like, "Oh, we don't think this is going to work. It's not going to be that big of a deal."

That nine miles in 2009 has now grown to 32 miles of a network, including a section in Laurens County. It is, people who know me, you hear me say it all the time, a transportation corridor. It is a way to connect to places. Furman did it. Traveler's Rest, obviously, is a great example, but they're like, we'd rather have people coming into our properties and enjoying our facilities and our resources via bike and walking than having to put a bunch of parking in. You still have to have that good mix. It sounds like Fountain Inn, for a while, we really partnered with them really well, but their growth has allowed them to start to take the lead on the trail development things. It's just really fun when it's a very easy conversation or someone knocks on your door like, "Hey, we're doing this development. We want to be part of the network."

It was intentional. We've got the green line, the blue line, the gold line, and the orange line, reflecting the metro system concepts that communities use elsewhere in the world. And the idea is, let's just connect everywhere. Don't worry if you're not right next to TR. If you got something going on in Mauldin, let's start building that piece. We'll eventually work to connect. It's just a great asset for Greenville County.

Innovation on the Trail: The RAISE Grant and Railroad Car Bridges

Kelly Byers:

So as it relates to your role, what are you excited about for the future of Greenville County?

Ty Houck:

We got the RAISE grant. We're still working through the paperwork process, which is typical. The RAISE grant is a federal grant that funds transportation infrastructure. And obviously the trail itself is a component. I think when you have communities that are growing like this, you want to have plenty of options on the table to give people choices. Each administration has a different acronym for it, but it's a transportation infrastructure funding mechanism. Past projects in South Carolina have been deepening the Charleston Harbor.

It gets me excited because it's a feather in the cap. It's like, you're not just a trip. You're not just a park. We believe at the federal level, this is a transportation element. And it's just obvious to us because people use the trail to go downtown, Travelers Rest to eat. They use it to go where they live, they work, so on and so forth.

What gets me excited is currently the innovation that the feds are letting us do with some of the design stuff. I think there are opportunities to take these trails and just make them a really cool and specific feature. And I guess the biggest one that gets me excited is we are intending to repurpose railroad flat cars as bridge pieces. It's the reduce, reuse, recycle thing. They're always like, well, recycle is the last one you want to do, but if you can reuse something. It's been done out west, it's been studied, so it's not just a crazy Ty Houck idea that every scientist would be like, no, that's not going to work. It's been done on a scale so we have the data saying it can work.

A positive that came out of Helene was, in order to put temporary bridges in, North Carolina and South Carolina started using these as bridges. So they got more comfortable with the reality. So the permitting for this should be easier than in prior time. That gets me really excited because we might be using 37 railroad flat cars and we're talking you'd still be able to see the profile of and realize what it was as you're riding the trail or driving underneath it as you're crossing points at highway.

A New Tool for Conservation: The Greenville County Historic and Natural Resources Trust

Kelly Byers:

That's really cool. I look forward to seeing that. Anything else you'd like us to know?

Ty Houck:

One of the things that's recently evolved out of the need to work holistically on protecting open space—and obviously to protect open space, you have to be able to get that space into public ownership—is the recent creation of the Greenville County Historic and Natural Resources Trust. It's a county-scaled land trust where Council has made a commitment to support the effort of giving the opportunity. We need the resources to be able to pull these things in. I mentioned earlier, we work with Upstate Forever and Naturaland Trust and all those. But this is also an internal organization with an ad hoc appointed committee. We accept applications for properties. Some of them are very specifically related to our facilities, like Southside Park. We grabbed a couple acres just to have that protection and have that in the public realm.

But also sometimes there's opportunities to fund just certain environmental features, especially in Northern Greenville County, that just need to be protected if you're given the opportunity. And so organizations like Naturaland Trust will apply to this county trust. Whereas in the past, that funding was either coming from a nonprofit, which obviously has their mission and vision, or you were applying at the state level, like to the South Carolina Conservation Bank. And that's obviously just more competition.

It's nice to have Greenville County, Greenville County Council, and the leadership there going, "All right, let's put some funds towards this thing." And we're excited to see the support and we are excited to see the growth of those opportunities to continue to keep these open spaces for Greenville County. You hear a lot of people moving to Greenville County because of the weather or something else going on in another part of the country that are like, "We just want to move away." And while those of us that have been here more than 12 minutes are worried, "Oh, we're losing all our open space and there's all this stuff going on," when people come from other parts of the country, they say you do have a lot of open space access through all the different partnerships. And that's also including, obviously, going up into the National Forest Protections and stuff like that we have. So having the land trust, having the other organizations working so hard with us to provide opportunities for active recreation like ball fields, and then just corridors and protecting spaces is really exciting for me.

Kelly Byers:

That's great. I'm sure people will be glad to hear that there's a concentrated focus on keeping natural space. And as we balance growth, it all provides for a great community experience. Thanks so much for joining us today, Ty.

Ty Houck:

It's always really enjoyable. Thank you guys for what you do and hope people will enjoy it.