Don’t let Lake Wylie become the next Fort Mill; York Co. leaders urge plan for growth

Moments after York County leaders made one of the biggest growth decisions to date for Fort Mill, attention turned to preventing the next Fort Mill. If it isn’t too late, already.

“The greatest problem we have, our greatest gift and our greatest curse, is growth,” said York County Councilman Michael Johnson, who represents Tega Cay and much of the Fort Mill area. “It is. The fact that people want to live here.”

Council voted July 16 to increase fees on new homes and apartments for the Fort Mill School District more than sixfold, upping the cost of new housing in Fort Mill, Tega Cay and the unincorporated parts of York County within school district boundaries.

The school district can use the money to build schools and cover capital costs.

Councilwoman Allison Love, who serves the Lake Wylie and Clover areas, said she can “totally support” the fees, which she voted for, but she has concerns. Love said the fees could drive more growth to nearby Lake Wylie, where schools are strong and there are no fees on new development.

“The Fort Mill impact fee, in my opinion, does create a little bit of a liability for our district, because I do think people are going to look to our area,” she said.

Council agrees the Lake Wylie area isn’t ready to handle more growth.

“I think we do need to discuss growth in Lake Wylie,” said Councilman Chad Williams. “I think this has been something we’ve needed to address for quite some time.”

There was a land-use plan decades ago, with transferred land-use rights and other proposals for growth management, but it never took effect. A decade ago, the county held a public meeting in Lake Wylie to form a new area plan. Hundreds showed up to offer input. But the county planning commission voted it down before Council could decide on it.

“We never fully implemented that or the land-use plan,” Williams said. “I think that’s the first opportunity we had to help Lake Wylie.”

The county spent more than a year on a unified development ordinance rewrite. It, too, was never approved.

“It wasn’t perfect, but it wasn’t halfway finished,” Williams said. “We gave up on it before it was halfway finished.”

The county currently is working on another zoning code rewrite.

“It’s not like we’ve never tried to do anything,” Johnson said, “but we’ve never done it.”

Love has held her own surveys and polls. She showed up at the recent Council meeting with a petition of 2,100 signatures.

“I look at Fort Mill and I look at what Lake Wylie could possibly become,” Love said. “And I know that at least 2,100 people and myself, don’t want Lake Wylie to look like Fort Mill.”

People are fed up, she said, with growth in Lake Wylie and no county action to steer it.

“Those things didn’t come to fruition,” Love said of past plans. “And here we are today basically sitting in traffic in Lake Wylie.”

Lake Wylie land-use decisions are being made by developers, Love said. She said the only approved document dealing specifically with Lake Wylie is an overlay dealing with “landscaping and signage, and that’s it.” Most of Lake Wylie’s infrastructure is still under construction, and building has exceeded it, she said.

Residents want answers, Love said, in a district where 54 percent of all county environmental compliance complaints and 41 percent of all stop work orders on builders — environmental issues encountered during building is a top cause of stop work orders — originate.

“They expect me to find a solution,” Love said.

She wants 60 days to work with county staff, using the existing overlay and adding requirements that could include green space rules and architectural requirements.

Even the impact fee in the Fort Mill area only accomplishes so much, she said, because it doesn’t address public infrastructure that isn’t ready to handle growth. People who supported the Fort Mill impact fee increase largely moved in from all over the country, and Love said $18,000 on a new home isn’t going to deter them.

“I think we’ve created a fundraiser for the Fort Mill School District,” Love said. “Because we have not stopped what’s causing the impact.”

Councilwoman Christi Cox, whose district represents part of the Fort Mill area, agrees the impact fee is limited.

“Council tonight made a decision that was almost too late in Fort Mill,” Cox said on Monday.

When Fort Mill is full, or if impact fees there push growth elsewhere, the county needs to be ready.

“It’s now going to come south, and we have to prepare for that,” Cox said.

Whether in Lake Wylie or elsewhere, Cox said she supports finding ways to get a grip on growth now.

“I am fully committed to finding ways for us to prevent what happened in Fort Mill,” she said.

Councilman Robert Winkler represents York and the western parts of the county. He sees all the new homes in Lake Wylie.

“We need to get a handle on what’s going on up there, because I do think it’s coming — Clover first, but it’s coming down (S.C.) 49 toward me, too,” Winkler said.

Timing is a concern for county staff, where a dozen or more major priorities await planners. A new Lake Wylie study would mean taking something — stormwater fee study, the county’s own impact fee study — off the table. Johnson suggests the county find ways to help Lake Wylie immediately.

“One of our problems is time,” Johnson said. “If it takes you a year to study something and come up with a solution, for a year you did nothing and you allowed it to get away from you. I don’t think Lake Wylie has a year. I don’t think large parts of this county have a year to wait anymore.”

Williams sees an option in the area plan from a decade ago. It was so contentious then that a planning commissioner from his district resigned after the decision not to bring a recommendation to Council.

“Citizens were involved in it. There’s somewhere to start,” he said.

As one of the longest-serving council members, Williams attended that public meeting with hundreds of residents a decade ago at Crowders Creek Elementary School.

“If you want to talk about an issue, go to Lake Wylie to talk about an issue, because they’ll show up,” Williams said.

The county has done “a pretty decent job” of serving Lake Wylie with police, fire and other services through the years, he said. But more can be done on growth management. As the past shows, talking about growth issues alone isn’t enough to put rules in place.

“Not making a decision is a decision on its own,” Williams said. “You just end up with what you get.”