The latest property owner looking to sell land for new homes? The town of Fort Mill.

The latest new home project eying Fort Mill isn’t some out-of-town property owner looking to sell high. It’s the town itself.

Eight properties adding up to nearly 90 acres are up for annexation, with a plan in place for 133 homes between the Springfield and Foxwood communities. Almost two-thirds of the land belongs to the town.

“That’s land we’ve had for a long time,” said Fort Mill Town Councilman Larry Huntley, the town’s mayor pro tem. “We just figured it was a lost cause. Somebody came in wanting to buy it.”

JBH Development, LLC has a development agreement ready should the town and a half dozen other property owners get the annexation. That agreement, along with the annexation, is up for town planning commission review Tuesday before it heads to Fort Mill Town Council for final say. A public hearing could come when council meets Nov. 13.

The town’s portion of what would be known as Hopper Communities is a former landfill. About 25 acres lie within a 100-year floodplain. The property has two streams and access to Merritt Road, from Kennel Road. Because much of the property is unusable, town leaders felt the impact of development wouldn’t be too severe despite concerns on how fast the town is growing.

“We did have second thoughts about more houses,” Huntley said.

The property has come up in town conversations for years. When town leaders look for land for various reasons — fire stations, public works sites and others over time — the site comes up as an asset. Yet, road access is so limited, it wasn’t even able to remain a landfill.

“The way we had to get to it, you almost had to go through a man’s driveway in Foxwood,” Huntley said. “So we just shut it down.”

The land hasn’t been used for years, but there has been concern about illegal dumping since the landfill closed. Huntley said while new homes may not be an ideal use of town property, there is value in having someone redevelop it.

“There's two ways of looking at it,” he said. “Since it was a landfill, that can mean just about anything. And the guy that buys it will have to clean it up.”

Huntley said the plan today could be vastly different from any plan council would receive for a final vote in November. His or other opinions on the proposal to date, he said, shouldn’t be an influence on town planning staff or the planning commission in its decision.

Current county zoning is rural residential, at no more than one residence per acre. The new, in-town zoning would allow up to five per acre with a development agreement, though the agreement also could — and as-written, would — cap the number of homes at a much lower number.

A traffic study will be required. The part of Springfield Parkway between Steele Street and Old Nation Road is over capacity already, according to South Carolina Department of Transportation counts. The part between S.C. 160 and Steele Street is at 70 percent capacity.

The subdivision would generate an estimated 96 new students for the Fort Mill school district, which this week is talking to county officials about drastically raising the per-rooftop fee developers pay to the district to help offset the cost of new schools.

In the development agreement, the applicant is looking to reduce its buffer along the Springfield property line from a minimum 35-foot requirement to 20 feet.

Because the town owns so much of the property, town planning staff isn’t offering a recommendation for or against the project. Instead it will be a council decision whether to proceed.

This story was originally published October 16, 2017 at 4:38 PM with the headline "The latest property owner looking to sell land for new homes? The town of Fort Mill.."