CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) – With the influx of people deciding to make Charleston their home, it’s a challenge for infrastructure to keep up but a new House bill aims to prioritize infrastructure over new development.
City of Charleston Chief Policy Officer Logan McVey said Charleston is already playing catch up when it comes to infrastructure.
You’ve probably seen the “we full” bumper stickers around on vehicles referring to the growth in the area.
“People don’t necessarily hate growth in Charleston, they hate traffic and they hate poorly planned growth,” McVey said.
District 115 Rep. Spencer Wetmore says the number one concern she hears from people is the infrastructure not being able to keep up.
Wetmore said infrastructure planning is spread out. Municipalities are in charge of permitting new houses and states build the roads. Much of the time, counties are in charge of the drainage.
“We’re really not swimming in the same direction and I think you see people’s frustration with that right now and feeling like we’re just building and building and building without first putting the infrastructure,” Wetmore said.
Infrastructure first is the key to a new bill in the House. It calls for defining concurrency programs and requiring a robust capital plan. Wetmore added it would spell out exactly what kinds of roads are going to be needed over the next 10 years assuming growth.
“Concurrency would allow for a municipality to say ‘Hey you also have to fix the traffic situation here. You can’t make traffic worse in this area, can the roads handle what you’re about to do here,‘” McVey said.
This bill would charge the developers to pay their share in the permitting process upfront. Wetmore said Mount Pleasant has done something similar.
“At first the home builders were upset about it, thinking that it was going to slow growth, but then once they saw how easy it was to sell homes when you had a good school district and roads to drive on, everyone seemed to be a lot more bored with it so that’s really my goal here is to rearrange the order not necessarily to stop anything,” Wetmore said.
Wetmore said Charleston is sort of the poster child for why she believes we need this law. She said Charleston is trying to catch up on infrastructure but there are so many other communities that are experiencing growth right now and she says this would allow them to build and grow in a smarter way.
McVey said the challenge in Charleston is that many of the homes being built now have gotten approval several years ago and it can’t be taken back.
The new House bill is early on in the process. It needs to be heard in the subcommittee and full committee before it moves to the state Senate. Wetmore said a companion bill has already been filed in the Senate and is gaining momentum. She says only one of the bills would potentially pass. You can read the bill here.
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