Horry County Council is looking into what it would take to charge impact fees for news homes and businesses.
Impact fees are one-time fees collected on new construction and are meant to keep up with Horry County’s growing population.
Council is trying to change state law to make impact fees happen. Members voted Wednesday afternoon to formally start building their case to state lawmakers as to why the state’s impact fee law should be changed.
The county says right now it’s hard to move forward with establishing such fees, because the state’s impact fee statute is unusable.
Council said the state law is outdated and has too many restrictions.
Right now under state law, impact fees can only pay for capital projects, like facilities and infrastructure, and cannot be used for operations, like hiring more police.
Council members want to update state law to allow spending the collected fees county-wide instead of in the specific communities where they’re collected.
They also want lawmakers to allow for a ten-year spending timeframe instead of the current three-year limit.
“It’s a pretty complicated and convoluted process that you have to go through,” Chairman Mark Lazarus said. “We’re trying to un-complicate that to where the dollars are more useable for the needs that we have in the county.”
Council voted to have the planning commission start drafting a county impact fee ordinance. They also voted to present their suggested edits to state law to the South Carolina Association of Counties and state lawmakers. Council members talked about hiring a lobbyist to help push their plans forward in Columbia.
Earlier this month, more than 72% of county voters said they want impact fees.
There hasn’t been any set rate proposed for an impact fee yet.
