Carolinas Border Redrawn: 19 Homes Will Have To Change Addresses When Bills Pass
The Carolinas’ border lines are being redrawn and will involve the reassignment of destination for 19 homes. According to reports, this change is to reflect a more accurate boundary through GPS technology. MSN writes that it’s allowing South Carolina and North Carolina to “confirm the boundary lines established under an English king in the 18th century down to the centimeter.” This essentially means that the Carolinas’ border lines drawn decades ago through a less precise process are several hundred feet off.
South Carolina and North Carolina redraw the border between the two states with GPS technology. https://t.co/1E49uXx11n
— The Associated Press (@AP) May 29, 2016
The Carolinas’ border being redrawn means 19 homes will have to change their address — with three North Carolina homes becoming South Carolina addresses, and vice versa for 15 other homes that will become North Carolina addresses.
Bills finalizing the boundary change are in the North Carolina and South Carolina legislatures at this time. North Carolina’s Senate passed its bill, and is now being sent to the House. The bill also passed South Carolina’s Senate, but it’s unclear if the bill has time to pass the state’s House with three days left in South Carolina’s annual session.
South Carolina Speaker Pro Tem Tommy Pope represents Martin and others in her plight. He hopes to do more to help the constituents he’s close to losing, but that hinges on North Carolina.
“Maybe it’s a good message for South Carolina, but people are fighting a lot harder to stay in South Carolina than they are in North Carolina,” Pope said.
A potential problem lies in North Carolina passing its bill and South Carolina not. Lawmakers there say they have no choice but to pass their own proposal or put the people leaving South Carolina in an uncertain predicament.
Both bills have added several terms meant to make it easier for people switching states. For instance, North Carolina is allowing soon-to-be former residents and their dependents to remain at in-state tuition at schools in the University of North Carolina system for the next 10 years, as long as they live on the same property. Children who attend a North Carolina K-12 public school, but become South Carolina residents, may continue attending that school for free.
“We’ve done everything we can to accommodate folks,” said North Carolina Sen. Tommy Tucker, a Republican from Union County, along the border.
South Carolina and North Carolina have redrawn the border between the two states with GPS technology: https://t.co/OV6T7Rfyld
— FOX 46 Charlotte (@FOX46News) May 30, 2016
One challenging aspect to this address change is Lake Wylie Minimart, a convenience store. It sits in South Carolina, where it’s permitted to sell fireworks, beer, and gas that’s at least 19 cents less because of lower gas taxes. The more accurate boundary survey says it’s actually based in North Carolina. As the report states, North Carolina’s bill would allow the store to keep selling beer and wine without approval by voters in North Carolina’s Gaston County, and keep on selling gasoline with South Carolina’s lower gas rate until the store is sold.
Twenty years ago, the Carolinas agreed to redraw border lines that extend 335 miles from the mountains to the Atlantic Ocean. Altering the borders in any fashion would involve an act of Congress.
The problem can be attributed back to 1735, when the king of England sent surveyors to his then-colonies to draw boundaries between the Carolina with in-depth instructions. At the time, surveyors relied on poles and measured chains to determine what direction to follow from the sun and the stars. They calculated math in their heads and put hatchet blows on trees to mark the boundary. Over the course of several hundred years, the trees disappeared, and future surveyors might have lacked precision in the re-establishing the boundary after that.
[Image via Google Maps]
