Attendees at the North Augusta Chamber of Commerce’s March Good Morning, North Augusta breakfast got an overview of how and where North Augusta is growing.
City Administrator, Jim Clifford used a series of slides to give a virtual tour of the city, highlighting residential and commercial development underway along with projects still on the drawing board.
North Augusta is booming with new housing construction, particularly apartments and multifamily housing. Developments, both new and expansions of existing developments, dot the area around Highway 25/Edgefield Road at exit 5 off Interstate 20.
At exit one, in addition to the housing units planned for The Hive’s multi-purpose development, plans have been submitted for tracts along Martintown Road, both east and west of The Hive.
Recently, North Augusta residents have expressed concerns about the amount of multifamily housing coming to the city. Residents have appeared before the council and posted on social media.
Council members listened and have taken steps to ameliorate some of the concerns, including delaying a certificate of occupancy for phase two of the Parker Apartments, previously called River Falls, until a traffic light is installed.
“Sometimes traffic lights go in because SCDOT says we need a light. Sometimes traffic lights go in because the city will tell us, and sometimes you can tie it to development and say, ‘Hey, your development is going to generate more trips, more road hazards, more whatever. And so, the cost of putting traffic light now is yours,’ and that’s exactly what happened in this particular case,” Clifford said.
The city also recently passed a two-and-a-half-year moratorium on new apartment construction. It will give the city time to review areas currently zoned general commercial.
“There was an apartment complex that was approved for the general commercial area over at exit five, and that wasn’t on anybody’s radar. But the way that the zoning works in certain zoning districts, general commercial being among them, you can build an apartment building,” Clifford explained. “Ultimately, you want to have a little better control over the number of apartments we have coming in the city, because we want to have a certain ratio of owner-occupied to rentals here in town. And we’re looking at getting skewed on that.”
However, Clifford said residential housing does not pay for itself in taxes collected for services such as public safety, water and sewer utilities, and recreational offerings. That’s where commercial developments come into play, generating higher tax revenue to offset the costs.
North Augusta is looking at a way to collect additional revenue at the front end of new developments. Council members are considering creating an impact fee to be applied to certain areas. Such fees must adhere to strict South Carolina guidelines.
“Ultimately, when new development comes in, those expenses that we know are going to be coming down the road, not necessarily tied directly to that development, but across 5 or ten years, those costs could be born across all the citizens through millage and property tax, or they could be born up front by the developers putting that development,” Clifford said. “That’s a debate that the council has not yet had. They’ve had some initial dialog about impact fees, but they’re going to look at it this summer.”
Realizing the growth that was on its way, Clifford said the city began taking steps to deal with the increase in commercial and residential development. Projects included upgrades to control stormwater and improving city-owned streets.
Money was also committed to public safety to upgrade equipment and physical structures, including a new Fire Station 1 on Martintown Road at Observatory Avenue. The city also built a new public safety headquarters on Georgia Avenue at Observatory. Clifford said the grand opening of the new building will be held March 25 at 2 p.m.
