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Is it time to act to end sprawl in the Lowcountry?

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As Bluffton considers growing by another 98 acres, some officials wonder if fundamental changes in laws governing development are needed to stop what many see as uncontrolled sprawl.

Owners of two parcels are asking to be annexed into Bluffton from Beaufort County. The town's Planning Commission is expected to recommend that the Town Council approve the request.

So why would being part of Bluffton be better than being part of Beaufort County?

Beaufort County has zoning rules designed to limit development of rural land, but over the years some developers have skirted the rules by asking towns -- where rules often are less restrictive -- to annex property.

"The reason for annexing them is the developers can get a higher density and a better deal than they can with the county," said Beaufort County Councilman Jerry Stewart. Basically, that means they could build more houses on less acreage.

The practice continues even as new students crowd county schools, cars strain roads and citizens ask for growth to be controlled.

While the legislature has taken tentative steps to encourage counties and municipalities to work together to manage growth, more needs to be done, Stewart said.

A bill passed by the legislature last session requires municipalities to discuss annexations with county officials. But the law doesn't say they must reach an agreement before an annexation moves forward.

Rep. Bill Herbkersman said that unless municipalities face consequences for not cooperating with counties to control growth, the system will continue to be abused by developers.

"It's the out-of-town and out-of-state developers," he said, who annex and rezone properties in order to cram as many houses onto them as possible.

"It's taxing all of us at the local level," he said.

Howard Duvall, executive director of the Municipal Association of South Carolina, acknowledged that the measure passed last year lacks teeth, but said it "was a good first step."

Herbkersman is working on a bill to put a five-year zoning freeze on properties after they're annexed. His last attempt to pass annexation reform, which stalled in the legislature last session, would also have made it harder for municipalities to annex properties not touching their boundaries.

IN THE TOWNS

Consider the following:

•Bluffton has ballooned from 640 acres in 1997 to more than 32,000 acres today.

•Hardeeville's population was 1,840 in 2005. While there's been little growth since then, the city projects that more than 30,000 homes will go up along U.S. 278 between Buckwalter Parkway and Interstate 95 in the next 20 years.

•The town of Port Royal, which is roughly eight times bigger than it was a decade ago, has even reached into southern Beaufort County, annexing more than 100 acres along the Chechessee River. That annexation, however, was challenged in court by the Coastal Conservation League. In a settlement, Port Royal agreed to stop annexations south of the Broad River for a decade.

Officials in these towns deny that their annexations will contribute to sprawl. In some cases, they say, they they've already put tough rules in place for the new developments on land they annexed.

Hardeeville Mayor Rodney Cannon said growth policies there are more restrictive than those of Beaufort or Jasper counties.

Port Royal administrator Van Willis said county officials overstate the role of the towns in causing sprawl.

"A lot of times the municipalities are labeled as the growth monsters in Beaufort County, but I'm not sure if that's the reality," he said. When Port Royal considers annexations it requires developers to pay the same infrastructure impact fees the county had in place, he said.

Even though Beaufort County loses control over how annexed land will be developed, municipalities often make good faith efforts to control growth, said Robert Merchant, the county's long-range planner.

Ginnie Kozak, planning director for the Lowcountry Council of Governments, agreed that municipalities seemed to be more attuned to preventing sprawl.

She added that the current downturn in the real estate market may be an antidote to annexations that result in more development: "In southern Beaufort County, not much development is going to be happening for a while because the housing market is such a disaster."

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