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Mt. Pleasant may suspend building permit programs
By Kathleen Dayton
Staff Writer
A short time ago, the town of Mount Pleasant had more than double the number of residential building permit applications as the actual number the town would approve.
Now, it’s come-and-get-’em. At the end of 2007, there were 435 surplus permits waiting to be carried over into the New Year and no builders beating the pavement to snatch them up.
Mount Pleasant’s permit allocation program, implemented in 2001 as a way to check runaway growth, could be suspended pending discussion at the town’s Planning Commission meeting Jan. 23. Christiane Farrell, division chief for the town’s planning and development department, said building permits would still be monitored and the program could be reinstated if the town’s growth rate exceeds 3%.
“The program is set to end in the year 2010, so this is a proposed suspension from now until when the program is set to end,” Farrell said.
In 2001, the town implemented an allocation program that limited the total number of permits to 620 annually. The town issued 1,731 residential permits in 1999 and 1,557 permits in 2000, the year the permit program was approved.
High growth rate
At the time the program was being considered, in the late 1990s, the town was experiencing growth rates of 8% and 9% annually, Farrell said.
Cheryl Woods Flowers, who was mayor when the restrictions were implemented, said Mount Peasant’s growth rate now is not as excessive and infrastructure has begun to catch up to development.
“Our growth rate had become much higher than what we could take care of with infrastructure, which gave us the basis for putting that legislation in place,” Flowers said.
“You have to have pretty good reasons for putting that kind of restriction in place. Now, we’re not even giving out as many building permits as we have, probably a third of what’s available. Since the legislation was passed in 2000, there’s been a lot of road construction and schools built … We really don’t have the same reason for the restrictions to be in place.”
Home builders reacted with outrage when the permit limitations went into effect in 2001.
“We never supported it. We thought it was bad for the people in Mount Pleasant, and we thought it would come back to haunt them,” said Philip Ford, vice president of the Trident Home Builders Association. “Right now, it doesn’t matter if they do away with it. Nobody’s building over there any more. The market took care of that.”
Ford said the permit limitations caused the price of available homes to escalate.
“What happens is, people can’t afford their property taxes and have to move somewhere (else), which is what happened in Mount Pleasant,” Ford said. “They moved to Summerville.”
Other regions’ ordinances
If the actions of Summerville Town Council and Dorchester County Council are any indication, Ford is right. Both governments enacted their own growth ordinances in late 2007 as a reaction to the rapid growth in the southern part of Dorchester County.
In October, Summerville put a 90-day moratorium on any new developments. Council members said they needed to pause and consider the implications of the number of developments up for approval, and the three-month suspension would give them a chance to make more informed decisions.
In December, Dorchester County passed a six-month suspension on residential development in the part of the county that encompasses Dorchester County School District 2 in the Summerville area.
Part of the underlying reason was that, like Summerville, the county wanted to slow growth while it considered how to deal issues relating to rapid residential influx, but a hotly debated ordinance up before council that would require residential developers to invest in county-provided services to help cover the cost of incoming families was the major reason for the halt on development.
Steve Brock, Mount Pleasant’s Planning Commission chairman, said he thinks the permit allocation program served a good purpose, but is no longer relevant given the current economic climate.
“Real estate would have to make a stunning comeback, quickly, to use all the permits that are available,” Brock said. “They spread them evenly over the remaining years of the ordinance. We’ve got two years to use all those permits. That’s a lot of permits.”
Kathleen Dayton is a staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail her at kdayton@setcommedia.com. Business Journal editorial assistant Lindsay Street contributed to this story.
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