Lady’s Island Mapping Session Monday Morning
The second of four mapping sessions exploring the development future of Lady’s Island is set for Monday morning at 10 a.m. in the Conference Room of the Beaufort County Airport on Lady’s Island. Groups will have an opportunity to weigh in on where commercial, residential and institutional development should occur, and how transportation and other infrastructure need to grow to support it. Two additional sessions have been scheduled, one on Tuesday, March 21, from 4-6 p.m. at the Airport; and a final session on Thursday, March 23, at the Beaufort County Association of Realtors, 22 Kemmerlin Lane, off Lady’s Island Drive just south of Sea Island Presbyterian Church. Nearly 100 have registered for the four sessions. If interested, the registration form is here.
City Considers More Annexation
A City Council Workshop is scheduled for Tuesday, March 21, at 5 p.m. at Beaufort City Hall. to discuss five requests for annexation into the City. The applications have been filed by five landowners immediately east of the new Walmart. The City has repeatedly said it has no intention of further annexation easts of Airport Junction, but will discuss the matter in detail at the Tuesday workshop. The workshop, scheduled for the Planning Conference Room on the 1st floor of Beaufort City Hall, is open to the public.
Two-Year Building Moratorium Approved In Mount Pleasant
The Mount Pleasant Town Council this week, by a 7-1 vote, approved a two-year moratorium on construction of new apartments. The Council had earlier agreed to a six-month delay, but a final vote on Tuesday extended the moratorium by 18 months to “give time for developments now under way to be completed and give the town a better sense of where things stand.” Click here to read more about this Mount Pleasant decision.
Impact Fees Too Low?
Related to the Mount Pleasant moratorium, Town Councilors are asking whether impact fees – fees collected from developers to pay for the impacts of new development – should be increased. A study commissioned by the Mount Pleasant Town Council suggested that the full cost impact of an additional single-family home was $7,722, while impact fees of just $1,858 were being collected. A 100,000 square foot shopping center would generate just $328,000 in impact fees, an amount more than $1 million less than the costs of the actual impacts. (The new Lady’s Island Walmart, a store with 149,000 s.f. of retail space, generated impact fees of $297,000; there has been no estimate made of actual costs generated by the development). Read more about Mount Pleasant’s plan to raise development impact fees here.
