Put better controls on growth explosion

Beaufort County and its municipalities should learn a lesson from their sister up the coast, Mount Pleasant.

That once-tiny town above Charleston on U.S. 17 is strangling with growth.

“The town has gained about 10,000 residents in the past five years and was the fastest-growing city east of the Mississippi River in 2015, according to the Census Bureau,” The (Charleston) Post and Courier reports. “Traffic problems and crowded schools, including the largest high school in South Carolina, have prompted calls to put the brakes on development.”

Earlier this month, the Town Council narrowly voted down a 120-day moratorium on new residential construction permits.

As Hilton Head Island exploded in the 1980s and 1990s, the dreaded “M” word — moratorium — was suggested, or threatened, from time to time. Some in Mount Pleasant and locally refer to it as the “nuclear option.”

But if not that, what will be done to prevent Bluffton, Lady’s Island and other portions of Beaufort County from squandering the birthright of the Lowcountry — natural beauty, clean natural resources and an envied way of life?

The Hilton Head Island, Bluffton and Beaufort metro area was the 12th fastest-growing community in the nation from 2014 to 2015, according the U.S. Census Bureau.

We see the results every day. Two new Walmart Supercenters are under construction in the county. One is going up at one of Bluffton’s biggest intersections. Another on Lady’s Island required 20,000 truckloads of fill dirt to make the site useable.

A new flyover just opened on the Bluffton Parkway at U.S. 278, and nearby property owners say it is part of the reason they want land-uses changed to a much higher density of commercial and residential construction.

Large tracts of land are clear-cut for new construction.

Both Beaufort County and the Beaufort County School District want sales tax increases to fund hundreds of millions of dollars worth of schools and roads.

Controlling the rate of growth has long been a problem in Beaufort County.

But the only thing that has truly slowed development over the years has been national economic downturns, whether it was the oil embargo of the 1970s or the real estate bust of the mid-2000s.

And now that construction and population growth is back in high gear, local governments need to use all their tools to protect our way of life. We do not need to become Atlanta By the Sea.

That can mean sticking to zoning and land-use restrictions already on the books. It can mean tightening laws meant to protect trees and prevent clear-cutting. It can mean working cooperatively across municipal and county lines to control stormwater runoff and traffic flow. It can mean renegotiating old development agreements. It can mean doubling down on protecting wetlands, which in turn could stop development on many tracts. It can mean the public purchase of development rights. It can mean adding public transportation, encouraging bicycling and walking.

We know by now that there must be much more to the equation than widening roads and adding flyovers.

Local governments must strictly adhere to growth controls, such as the May River Community Preservation Plan, which was painstakingly developed in cooperation between residents and Beaufort County “to preserve the unique character of the May River/Highway 46 corridor by articulating a direction for future development of this community.”

A moratorium is at best a Band-Aid for “planning” run amok.

Beaufort County needs betters solutions, and they are needed now.

This story was originally published July 30, 2016 at 2:56 PM with the headline "Put better controls on growth explosion."