Less septic, more sewer: Greenville Co. seeks new rules to manage rural growth | Greenville Business

The comprehensive plan developed by Greenville County in 2020 asked the county to restrict new private sewage treatment plants due to environmental concerns and to encourage development around existing or proposed sewage systems.

Now that several recently approved housing developments in rural areas of the county are planning to use septic tanks, county officials are beginning to discuss ways to limit the large-scale use of septic tanks in the future.

The district intends to implement the goals proposed in its land use plans. As a by-product, it would limit growth in rural areas where costly sewers still don’t reach, and placate a growing group of rural dwellers unhappy with the tentacles of development stretching into their communities.

The Greenville County Council Planning and Development Committee has previously discussed possible limitations on developments that plan to use septic tanks. The committee plans to discuss the issue again during its May 15 meeting at 5 p.m. in Conference Room D in County Square.

“We’re going to be talking about future growth and how we’re going to manage growth in rural areas as it relates to septic tanks,” said Councilman Ennis Fant, chair of the planning and development committee.

Greenville County spent $5 million on affordable housing.  More is required.

Fant said the committee plans to work with officials, staff and prosecutors to develop a strategy to limit the use of septic tanks. At its May 1 meeting, the issue was publicly debated.

During this session, committee members suggested numerous ways to limit septic tanks in future developments, but did not finalize a single solution.

The county’s comprehensive plan calls for the county to address the issue of allowing a developer to opt for sewage treatment when sewers aren’t available “without having to consider future sewer hookup in the event of a treatment plant failure.”

It also said there are no county requirements to test the functionality and effectiveness of wastewater treatment plants to “ensure the safety of the environment and communities.”

Failure of the sewage system can result in untreated sewage spilling to the surface or into nearby bodies of water and contaminating groundwater.

Fant said the county wants to encourage development in areas where growth is planned with sewage systems, rather than a haphazard approach based on available, cheaper land in rural areas.

“It’s a huge problem that we have to deal with,” Fant said. “I think we’ve all come to realize that we’re not living in the early 1960s. We can’t just keep the same formula that we used 60 years ago. We need to modernize our approach to growth and development.”

The problem boils down to growth management and water quality, and how the county is developing policies for those issues in two-thirds of the county, which is unzoned and mostly undeveloped, said Rashida Jeffers-Campbell, subdivision administrator for the Greenville County Planning Department.

Greenville County spent $5 million on affordable housing.  More is required.

By 2040, the county is expected to add 222,000 new residents and 108,000 jobs, she said.

“This growth will increase demand for transportation facilities, central sewerage and municipal services that are largely unavailable in the undesignated areas,” she said.

Current development patterns are not in line with the comprehensive plan’s preferred growth scenario, she said.

That desired growth pattern would involve judicious use of available space and efficient infrastructure investments, she said.

To get there, the Council may amend its land development regulations before finalizing a unified development regulation, which is currently in the works.

The staff presented some options to the Committee for consideration. These included:

  • Limiting septic tank use to smaller subdivisions with six homes or fewer;
  • banning sewage treatment plants within 100 feet of a body of water;
  • Settlements considering a septic tank require three acres of land, which would result in the development of most of these types of settlements becoming prohibitively expensive.
  • Creation and update of an urban growth boundary for the county.

The county could also introduce a one percent sales tax on green spaces, which could be used to purchase land to protect against development. The tax was enacted by the state last year and made available to counties for use. Beaufort County has already introduced a green space sales tax.

“Something needs to be done,” Councilman Chris Harrison said. “It’s just the balance between the good of the community and balancing private property rights, this never-ending struggle.”

Whatever change is passed must go through the full City Council approval process, including three readings by the Borough Council and a public hearing.

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Follow Nathaniel Cary on Twitter at @nathanielcary

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