Home Care In Clover, SC

New homes built in the Clover School District are likely to cost more, but only if they fall within a certain area.

York County Council unanimously approved an increase on impact fees from $4,000 to $15,035 per home, pending one more vote that could come as soon as Dec 1. Those increases would only apply, though, within a designated area that spans all of Lake Wylie and most of Clover.

The decision hailed by council members as a compromise comes after more than a month of contentious debate between groups that want new home growth to pay more for school construction, and others concerned about home affordability.

“While it’s not what everyone one of us wants, this is how government should work,” said Councilman Andy Litten.

Impact fee changes for Clover schools

Impact fees are charges on new construction. York County charges one for homes built within Clover School District boundaries, with revenue going toward capital improvements like new schools.

The county set those fees five years ago at $4,000 per home, $1,976 per apartment unit and $2,618 per mobile home.

A study commissioned by the district in creating those fees found state law would allow up to $15,035 per home, $7,430 per apartment and $9,842 per mobile home.

A new study this year found the fees could be even higher, at more than $21,000 per home. But the district asked York County to bump fees up to the full amounts from the 2020 study.

Public pressure, including a nearly two-hour public hearing Monday, has largely been in favor of increased fees. Council has been deliberate working through a decision, weighing home construction costs against tax impacts, school needs and possible exemptions for landowners.

Issues on how fee revenue would be spent are a concern. They can be spent on new school construction, for instance, but not to pay debt service on school construction.

“We could come back and be impacted by making the wrong decision up-front on these things,” said Councilman Tom Audette.

Fee increases in urban services boundary

After debating and even voting on fees at different amounts in the past month, Council’s latest option would increase fees to their amounts from the 2020 study.

But that’s only for properties within both the school district and the urban services boundary, a planning area used for zoning and growth decision. The urban services boundary designates parts of the county primed for growth due to available utilities and proximity to other urbanized places.

The urban services boundary begins just south of S.C. 55, which runs from Clover to the Five Points intersection area of Lake Wylie. The boundary includes downtown Clover but stops to the west along Arabian Farms, Faulkner, Hines and Lawrence roads.

Countywide, properties within the urban services boundary are more likely to develop with large planned subdivisions while rural areas outside the boundary are more likely to add parceled-off homes from family property.

“This is the closest way that I can see ... where anything would come close to actually putting the impact where the impact is,” said Councilman Tommy Adkins, who represents a small part of the school district west of Clover.

Issues left to resolve with impact fees

Before a final decision is made, the county wants information from the consulting firm that performed both impact fee studies for the school district. TischlerBise also performed two studies for the Fort Mill School District, which the county approved at their full amounts.

TischlerBise uses items like school enrollment, current costs, projected growth and expected costs to maintain service levels as variables that generate how much the county could charge in impact fees. Changing the fee area from the full school district boundary to the urban services one could change the math.

One argument that's often been used in recent months is that Fort Mill got the full amount that school district asked for twice, while the Clover district took a steep discount five years ago.

“Everybody keeps saying there is no difference between what Fort Mill and Clovers is,” Adkins said. “I’ve been here my whole life. There is a big difference. But I also can remember when Fort Mill was no bigger than York.”

It’s up to property owners to do what they want with land, Adkins said, but the Clover district will look a lot more like the Fort Mill one if people keep selling to developers.

“I just hope that they’re not headed into being the next Fort Mill of York County,” Adkins said.

County defends slow compromise

Several plans for fee increases have come to Council, but the unanimous vote after a long public hearing and closed-door discussions indicates the latest plan may be the final one. Without surprises, the third and final vote on county decisions often comes as a formality once the negotiations are complete.

In his 14 years serving, only the failed Carolina Panthers headquarters project in Rock Hill generated more intense public rhetoric than the impact fee discussion has, said Councilman William “Bump” Roddey.

Litten, who represents most of the school district including all of Lake Wylie, sees all the input as a community willing to speak for what it wants.

“This is what government is about,” he said. “It’s about the people having a voice and being able to make sure that what the majority wants, gets accomplished.”

YORK COUNTY — The projected rate of growth in Clover led York County leaders to agree on the need for new housing construction to pay for school expansion.

But for several weeks, the County Council was divided on what amount should be assessed through impact fees on those properties.

They reached a potential solution during the Nov. 17 council meeting, settling on the $15,000 fee for each new single family home the Clover School District Board had requested, though imposing the fees on a smaller area than originally proposed.

Implementing impact fees requires readings at three County Council public hearings. The third could happen Dec. 1, though the agenda for that meeting has not been finalized.

“This is the closest way that I can see where anything would come close to actually putting the impact where the impact is,” said County Councilman Tommy Adkins, whose District 3 property owners will be exempt from the Clover impact fees thanks to the revision of the proposal this week.

“I ended up with 42% of the Clover School District in my district,” Adkins said on November 19. “The county districts are different than the school districts.”

District 3 is predominately farmland and rural areas, Adkins said, which is seeing less of the housing growth than other areas of the Clover School District. Thus, Adkins and the council agreed to limit the impact fees to the urban services boundary, which is an area established by the county where the need for more utility and public services is anticipated.

Adkins believes limiting the impact fees to such an area makes more sense that putting fees where there’s less growth.

“You can plainly see that Lake Wylie is the impact to the school system,” Adkins said of the unincorporated area at the state line where families send their children to Clover schools. “There’s a vast difference between the salaries and the money that’s in Lake Wylie compared to District 3.”

Prior to Monday’s meeting, the county wanted to assess just half of the amount for each home that the Clover School District was requesting, which became a sticking point. The district wanted $15,000 per single-family home built, while the county proposed $7,868 per home.

Debate over the amount comprised most of the discussion at the last few county council meetings, which included school district officials vouching for the $15,000-per-home amount.

Officials said they were pleased with the outcome of the Nov. 17 vote, and they look forward to the final vote.

“We appreciate the grit the council demonstrated to keep working toward a compromise that would meet the district’s needs while addressing their concerns,” the district said in a Nov. 19 statement.

CLOVER — With debates raging nationwide about the influx of data center construction and the impact on utility services from the behemoth structures, a company building a $1 billion data center in York County assured the public that its water and electric usage won’t burden the area.

QTS Data Centers, which was previously headquartered in Kansas before relocating to Virginia, is building its campus on 170 acres of land bought from York County. It will be located near Hands Mill Highway and Campbell Road, north of Rock Hill city limits.

The center will digitally house e-commerce, streaming media, social media, electronic records and many other forms of data.

Company representatives met with residents at Field Day Park in Clover — just a few miles from the building site — on Nov. 4 for a casual question-and-answer period.

It was the first of several planned meet-and-greet events.

Karen DiMaggio, vice president of community engagement for QTS, said the company will return for future sessions at other locations, which will be announced soon.

“We want to hear from residents and to address their concerns,” she said.

The data industry is under scrutiny for how much water and electricity its facilities drain, as they typically require high-voltage transmission lines and need significant amounts of water to stay cool.

But QTS said its model for York County will not use much water to cool its apparatus. Instead, it has a low-pressure pumped refrigerant system that removes heat without using water.

The data company has been coordinating with its future energy provider, York Electric Cooperative, for its opening.

The utility company said anytime a data center or a comparable power user seeks to join its service territory, it performs impact and facility studies to determine what updates are needed and how much that will cost. QTS paid for the studies, York Electric officials said, and will pay for the system updates.

“QTS is a good community partner and co-op partner because they are contractually liable to pay their own way with system upgrades and necessary facilities while providing a significant revenue stream to help offset rising costs for power generation,” York Electric spokeswoman Porter Gable said in a statement.

Adding a large-use customer such as a data center helps York Electric by stabilizing demand, which means the utility can purchase wholesale power more efficiently, officials said.

Electric power was the conflict that halted QTS’ plans for a data center in Union Township, Indiana, this year.

DiMaggio said the company had proposed to purchase land there, but announced in September it could not come to an agreement for power usage.

The proposal for Indiana ignited resident protests in the spring, though those weren’t spurred by utility concerns alone, according to reports. Residents there cited other issues, such as building height, noise and proximity to schools, during a contentious meeting in May which attracted 1,000 people.

By contrast, the meet-and-greet in Clover was cordial and casual, with a few dozen residents showing up.

The York County Council in 2023 approved tax incentives for QTS, and the South Carolina Coordinating Council for Economic Development gave QTS a $200,000 site preparation grant.

The current impact fee is $4,000 per new home, a rate set years ago. The Clover School District is now asking to raise that fee to $15,035.

CLOVER, S.C. — Building a new home in parts of York County could soon become far more expensive.

County leaders are considering a proposal that would significantly raise impact fees within the Clover School District, a move supporters say is necessary to keep up with rapid growth, while critics warn it could price out local families.

The current impact fee is $4,000 per new home, a rate set years ago. The Clover School District is now asking to raise that fee to $15,035: nearly four times higher.

County Councilmember William "Bump" Roddey says the increase is too steep and could come with real consequences for homebuyers.

“Some people feel as though impact fees will slow development. Some people put that in their particular toolbox to slow development, but I don’t think that’s a good barometer to slow development," Roddey said. "That didn't happen in Fort Mill and it continues to grow. I just think adding to the cost of a new home pushes a lot of people out of the market. It definitely makes it a lot tougher to afford a new home.”

But Councilmember Andy Litten argues the growth happening in the area is exactly why the fee is needed.

“I’m a huge supporter, we’ve got a ton of growth in our area and that is driving the need for additional schools,” Litten said. “It’s only fair for the people that are causing the impact to pay for the impact or to help offset it as much as possible and not put all of the burden of it on the existing residents who didn’t cause it to begin with.”

District officials say classroom space has become increasingly strained.

“Especially at the high school and middle school level, we’re seeing tight spaces," Mark Hopkins, the chief operations officer for the district, said. "We've got 2,700-2,800 students at Clover High School."

A county map presented to the council shows the proposed fee would apply to all of Lake Wylie and most of Clover.

County Council is expected to take up the proposal for a third reading in December.