Should York County charge more than $20,000 for new Lake Wylie and Clover homes?
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Clover School District favors up to $15,035 fee per new home, despite $21,387 study rate
- York County Council to decide fee hike, with rising construction costs in focus
- New fees would offset growth from 3,300 homes approved, 74% not yet permitted
Clover school officials believe they can justify charging more than $20,000 fee for each new home built in their district, but they’re willing to take less.
The district should be able to charge $21,387 for each new home, according to a new consultant study required to update school impact fees. But the district isn’t asking for that much.
They’ll accept the smaller impact fee amount that they asked York County to charge five years ago, if the county will allow it. That decision, expected this fall from York County Council, would still nearly quadruple the new home fee in place now, from $4,000 to more than $15,000.
“This five-year review, in our view, was to validate that original fee,” said Mark Hopkins, COO for the Clover School District. “Not to raise a fee beyond what that was.”
Clover school impact fees
Impact fees are one-time charges on new construction. They provide revenue to offset growth costs. Typically, communities charge them when a builder or developer gets a building permit. School impact fees are charged on new homes and apartments.
Five years ago, the Clover district contracted consultant TischlerBise to study impact fees. That study, required by state law to begin charging fees, found the district could charge up to $15,035 per home, $7,430 per apartment unit and $9,842 per mobile home.
The maximum charges are based on student enrollment projections, district facilities, costs to build new schools and similar variables related to growth.
The district relies on York County, though, to charge and collect the fee. York County Council voted to approve much lower fees in 2020 than what the study allowed. The district got $4,000 per home, $1,976 per apartment and $2,618 per mobile home.
Now another state requirement hits, a five-year review of the impact fee. Continued student enrollment growth and higher construction costs raised the maximum fees, according to a new TischlerBise study. York County could charge up to $21,387 per home, $10,239 per apartment and $16,125 per mobile home on the school district’s behalf, the study found.
Impact on Lake Wylie and Clover homes
District officials brought their new impact fee study to the York County Planning Commission on Monday night. The commission will review it and send questions ahead of a recommendation for or against, likely next month. York County Council will have the final decision on whether to keep fees where they are, raise them or lower them.
The highest allowable fee in the new study would cost a homeowner an additional $84.50 per month in a 30-year mortgage at a 2.5% interest rate, said TischlerBise President Carson Bise. That amount would increase up to $156.93 per month for the same term, at 8% interest.
Planning commissioners Monday offered some concern about those accumulated costs over the full term of a mortgage.
“I certainly agree with that,” Bise said, “but you could also say the same for all the building permit fees and everything else that gets passed on as part of the cost of the house.”
Through July, the median home sale price in Clover is $425,000 this year, according to Canopy Realtor Association. There’s no exact figure for Lake Wylie, an unincorporated part of York County that makes up the high-growth eastern half of the school district. Lake Wylie homes on both sides of the state line, combined, have a $569,000 median sale price. That’s compared to $413,000 for York County as a whole.
Mobile homes and Fort Mill fees
York County approved the existing Clover district fees after setting up new fees for the Fort Mill School District. Fort Mill got more than $18,000 per home and $12,000 per apartment in 2018. Those figures were the highest amounts allowed in that district’s study, also performed by TischlerBise.
“You can say that Clover School District was shortchanged quite a bit in 2020,” Bise said.
The difference, York County Council members said at the time, was demographics. Fort Mill, Tega Cay and unincorporated parts of that district were financially similar. The Clover district had a noticeable difference between affluent Lake Wylie and lower-growth Clover. Allowing the highest fees, council members said, could make housing unaffordable on the west side of the district.
Of note, one of seven York County Council seats in 2020 covered the Clover and Lake Wylie areas. Three seats included at least some part of the Fort Mill School District.
Mobile homes came up in debate five years ago, and came up again Monday. The Fort Mill fee doesn’t have a separate line item for mobile homes. Council members pointed to the mobile home fee in Clover five years ago as a reason to reduce fees.
While pulling mobile homes out as a separate fee amount draws attention to them, Bise said, it also can help with affordability. In places like Fort Mill, mobile homes are lumped in with single-family homes. Some communities may not have enough mobile homes to impact the math, or demographics don’t show much difference.
The new study in Clover drops the maximum impact fee more than $5,000 on mobile homes, compared to leaving them in at the single-family home rate.
Clover school growth
Since enrollment growth in Clover prompted a 2018 capital-needs study, the district learned more than 3,300 new homes were approved for development by York County or the town of Clover. About 74% of those homes have yet to be permitted for construction. More than 90% of that growth comes from the county, not the town.
The Clover district has about 9,000 students now. The district expects to surpass 10,000 students within 10 years.
The district added 10 classrooms at Oakridge Middle School, and two at Clover Middle School. Voters turned down a $196 million bond four years ago for a new high school and elementary school. Voters passed a $156 million bond in 2022 to build Lake Wylie High School. The district added $17 million to furnish it, and borrowed money to build Liberty Hill Elementary School.
Lake Wylie High is now a $189.6 million project. Liberty Hill Elementary will cost $56.3 million. They’ll open next school year, along with Roosevelt Middle School in former high school space. Lake Wylie High will cost $356 per square foot just for construction, compared to $343 at Liberty Hill Elementary. Initial district projections were $250 per square foot.
“The construction costs have risen significantly since we began this process, and even since we began construction,” Hopkins said.
York County impact fee decision
This spring, Fort Mill asked for its own impact fee review. York County approved fees of almost $30,000 per home. It was, again, the highest amount allowed in Fort Mill’s impact fee study. York County approved the increase by a 4-3 vote.
Along with demographic shifts, there have been political ones caused by growth in the past five years. Now only two of seven York County Council seats represent the Fort Mill district, but those two seats are entirely in Fort Mill and Tega Cay. Two of seven seats now represent at least some part of the Clover district.
Council members can change school impact fees at any time. Members could vote to give Clover the full amount at more than $20,000 or cut the fee altogether. It seems fair, school district officials say, to recognize the growth projections and costs evaluated in 2020 have come to fruition, and then some.
“We felt like the original fee would certainly be validated by this report,” Hopkins said.
