Beaufort Co. likely to pass $89M in school fees to developers. Some towns aren’t on board
Beaufort County School District is poised to see the first local government approve fees that will raise the cost of building new housing units south of the Broad River by thousands to pay for school construction needed to keep up with the area’s explosive growth.
Beaufort County Council approved (9-2) the fee on second reading Monday night. It will go into effect in the unincorporated parts of Beaufort County if it passes the third and final reading. But council members warned that Bluffton, Hardeeville and Hilton Head Island had not yet signed on to the fee.
If the ordinance is approved without agreements from municipalities south of the Broad River, Beaufort County would be the sole agency in charge of collecting the fees. County Administrator Eric Greenway said Monday that the county will approve the fees and hope municipalities do the same.
The fee, which will add several thousand dollars to the costs of building housing south of the Broad River, was approved unanimously by the school board in June 2020. But since then, it’s been on hold because local governments must adopt it as well.
The district will use money from the fee — which could net an estimated $89 million over the next decade, analysts said in 2019 — to offset the cost of school construction South of the Broad.
It comes as southern Beaufort County is facing immense growth and development pressures. Stretches along S.C. 170 and U.S. 278 are expected to see hundreds of building permits approved in the next year for residential projects such as Pepper Hall, Malind Bluff and River Oaks.
The district has warned that schools South of the Broad have been overcrowded for years — and the problem will get worse if development goes unchecked.
In 2020, the district’s chief operations officer, Robert Oetting, warned that officials “should be building a new school every two to three years” to keep up with growth in Bluffton. Otherwise, the district will need between 108 and 152 new mobile classrooms just to house students in the next five years, he said.
In 2020-21, the district reported that nine of its 32 campuses were above 90% capacity, with all but one located South of the Broad. That’s taking into account ongoing construction from 2019’s $345 million school bond referendum and the district’s first enrollment decrease in the better part of a decade.
Between 2019-20 and 2020-21, the district lost 1,173 students — about 5.7% of its total enrollment. District officials have said the loss is mainly attributable to parents opting out of pre-kindergarten and kindergarten enrollment during the pandemic, and are expecting a return to normal enrollment next school year.
If the fee is approved, builders would pay a $9,535 fee on single-family dwellings and $4,508 fee per unit in multi-family dwellings. The fee takes into account projects from the 2019 referendum that were designed to raise capacity.
The fees will net the school district an estimated $89 million over the next decade, analysts told the school board in 2019.
But some on Beaufort County Council say municipalities south of the Broad River are leaving them “high and dry.” Officials hope they sign on before the fees are approved on final reading.
Blufton earlier this month voted to negotiate the impact fees with the county instead of approving an intergovernmental agreement. Officials were worried the fees would hurt smaller homeowners and questioned why the fees would be imposed only in southern Beaufort County.
Newly appointed County Administrator Eric Greenway on Monday said he was “frustrated” that Bluffton, Hilton Head Island and Hardeeville have not signed agreements accepting the new fees.
Council Vice Chair Paul Sommerville, who has pushed for the impact fees for years, said they should be approved with or without the support of the municipalities. If the agreements aren’t signed, he said, the county will just collect the fees in unincorporated Beaufort County.
“To continue to allow this to be kicked down the road is a malfeasance against the school district,” he said.
Christina Gwozdz, who chairs Beaufort County’s school board, said the county has been leading negotiations with the towns, but she got the sense they were “dragging their feet.”
“If we’re going to attract development here that’s beneficial to our citizens and maintain a quality school district, we have to have these school impact fees as part of our funding equation,” she said. “It’s not the whole equation, but it’s part of it.”
This story was originally published May 25, 2021 at 3:33 PM.
