A sprawling 544-acre tract in southern Spartanburg County, covering stretches of the Tyger River and segments of Cane Creek, Motley Branch and smaller streams, is now permanently off-limits to developers. The land, owned by Wiley Fork Legacy LLC and managed by Johnson Management LLC, is protected by a conservation easement that bans residential and commercial development, subdividing the property, farming and clearing trees.
A Voluntary, Permanent Deal
The easement, finalized this past August, is held by the Spartanburg Area Conservancy, known locally as SPACE, according to Post and Courier. SPACE executive director Sam Parrott said the easement is permanent, and the arrangement marks the nonprofit's first conservation partnership with Johnson Development Associates. “We’re excited to work with Johnson Development. It’s been in discussion for a long time, but we’re very happy to have this,” Parrott said, per the same report.
Under the deal, the land stays in private hands while the owner permanently gives up development rights. The property's owner may still hunt, fish and hike there, but the public does not have a right of entry to the tract, the station's report notes. SPACE will monitor the land going forward and enforce the easement's restrictions.
What the Easement Actually Protects
The easement covers roughly 13.5 miles of stream and about 12 acres of wetland and surrounding buffers, according to the same account. Parrott said SPACE works with willing private landowners to place easements protecting their property, and the organization writes easement terms with landowners to specify exactly what activities are permitted and prohibited on each tract.
SPACE, a nonprofit land trust founded in 1989, now protects more than 7,000 acres across Spartanburg County through a combination of easements and land it owns outright, per the outlet's reporting. The group notes that several of its properties are open to the public, even though this particular tract is not. On its website, the Spartanburg Area Conservancy describes conservation easements broadly as voluntary legal agreements that permanently protect land from subdivision and intensive development, and clarifies that land under easement can still be bought, sold or inherited, so long as future owners follow the terms.
Other Examples Across the County
SPACE's portfolio includes a range of similar deals. On the South Tyger River Blueways Tract, a 52.85-acre property in Duncan described as the town's last large undeveloped tract, SPACE holds the conservation rights while the landowner continues operating a cattle farm and maintaining the land, according to the Spartanburg Area Conservancy. That easement protects nearly 3,200 feet of river frontage and allows passive recreation for paddlers.
Elsewhere, the Edwin M. Griffin Preserve covers 110 acres around a 1.5-mile stretch of Lawson's Fork Creek and several feeder streams, while the Chinquapin Creek greenway spans 107 acres with a 2-mile natural-surface trail, per SPACE's conservation easement page. Spartanburg County's 945-acre Glendale Nature Park, where SPACE also holds the conservation easement protecting it from development in perpetuity, contains more than three miles of hiking trails and protects over five miles along Lawson's Fork Creek and its tributaries, Post and Courier has reported. That park connects with nearby protected parcels to form around 1,200 acres of protected forest.
Growth Pressure Behind the Push
The new easement arrives as Spartanburg County contends with rapid growth. Spartanburg County attracted $3.5 billion in new investment and more than 1,000 jobs in 2025, according to OneSpartanburg, as cited in the original report. The seed reporting also states that the Spartanburg metro area ranked 10th nationally for population growth between July 2024 and July 2025, attributing that figure to U.S. Census Bureau data.
Other reporting offers a different picture of the same growth surge. WSPA reported that the Spartanburg metropolitan area, which includes Spartanburg and Union counties, was the third-fastest-growing metro area in the country in 2025, with a 2.8% growth rate, and that Spartanburg County added almost 11,000 residents that year, making it the fastest-growing county in the Upstate and the fourth-fastest-growing in South Carolina. A 2022 piece from the Tyger River Foundation had already flagged the trend, noting that a short supply of land paired with high housing demand had inflated prices, shortened listing times and driven some of the fastest development growth the county had seen.
