Chapin hopes to tighten up its rules to cope with new development on the north shore of Lake Murray.
At its December meeting, the Chapin Town Council gave initial approval to new impact fees for town water customers.
The fee will be assessed on any new use that will result in more water or wastewater entering Chapin’s system, whether from a residential or commercial development.
“Impact fees ... are to be specifically used for the upgrading and/or expansion or improvement of the transmission system and treatment facilities, to supply additional capacity to serve development of vacant property or redevelopment of properties served by the system,” the water fee ordinance reads.
Revenue from the new fees may not exceed the costs of any of the improvement projects. New residential units will pay a fee of $7.17 per gallon capacity.
The impact fees will be paid prior to any permits being issued to operate, and are payable to the town utility department in advance.
That was important for Chapin, Town Administrator Nicholle Burroughs said, because a majority of Chapin’s 6,000 water customers are outside the town limits, and Chapin depends on coordination with Lexington County for handling any new developments in the town’s surrounding neighborhood.
“It was important that we had something within our control, so the utility department can manage it,” Burroughs told the town’s elected officials.
An impact fee study conducted by Chapin estimates that an additional 2,900 homes will be built in the service area in the next 10 years, and the area’s population will grow by 6,670.
The Lake Murray area has seen some of the state’s fastest growth in recent years. Last summer, the town imposed water-use restrictions in order to upgrade its aging water and sewer infrastructure, primarily by restricting sprinkler usage between 4:30 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. due to “extremely high water-use demands” during the morning hours, the town said at the time. Similar restrictions were put in place in the late summer of 2023.
Chapin buys water from the city of Columbia in order to serve the Amicks Ferry Water System, with a 250,000-gallon tank and a wastewater treatment plant that processes 2.4 million gallons per day. The system has an estimated $47 million in needed improvements to the system, Burroughs previously told The State.
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Bristow Marchant covers local government, schools and community in Lexington County for The State. He graduated from the College of Charleston in 2007. He has almost 20 years of experience covering South Carolina at the Clinton Chronicle, Sumter Item and Rock Hill Herald. He joined The State in 2016. Bristow has won numerous awards, most recently the S.C. Press Association’s 2023 faith reporting award for his coverage of the breakup of the United Methodist Church.