Beaufort – Beaufort County Council defeated on second reading 5-5 the 2022 Streets, Roads, Bridges, and Greenbelts Sales Tax referendum. The Council voted 8-2 to advance to third reading 1 percent, 4-year, $300 million Greenspace Sales Tax referendum that would be presented to voters on the November 2022 ballot.
2022 Streets, Roads, Bridges, and Greenbelts Sales Tax
The defeated Streets, Roads, Bridges, and Greenbelts Sales Tax referendum was a ten-year, $770 million sales tax to address the county's need for street, road, bridge, and greenspace projects identified by the citizen committee.
The county staff will work with state officials and the state delegation to secure funding for the projects identified in the citizen committee's recommendations. The SC 2022 budget and the federal government have allocated $1 billion to fix South Carolina's roads this year. SC can expect $4.9 billion over five years from the federal infrastructure bill SC and numerous grants from Federal DOT.
Greenspace Sales Tax referendum
The County Council decided to advance to the third reading a1 percent, 4-year, $300 million Greenspace Sales Tax to purchase land, conservation easements, and buy down density to slow and prevent development. The money may also be used to pay off debt from past land purchases.
"I firmly believe in the Greenspace tax, and we must lead the way. It is a taxpayer win; we get to bond the money to preserve land now and pay back the debt on past purchases, saving the taxes payers money in the long run," said Beaufort County Chairman Joe Passiment.
Sen. Tom Davis and Rep. Shannon Erickson answered questions about the mechanics and implementation of the tax.
South Carolina is the tenth-fastest-growing State in the nation, and Beaufort County is the eighth-fastest growing county in the State and has continued to experience a high rate of growth during the last decade.
The Town of Bluffton in southern Beaufort County in 2001 consisted of one square mile; today, the town's footprint exceeds 54 square miles, with 92 percent of the area under PUD zoning, and in the past decade, its population increased by 156 percent.
The population of the City of Hardeeville in southern Beaufort and Jasper counties has increased by 212 percent in the past decade, and the city is processing applications for the development of a 231-acre tract adjacent to the Broad River known as Chelsea South and a 2,200-acre tract at the headwaters of the New River known as Karrh Tract.
A 2018 joint study of Lady's Island by the city of Beaufort and Beaufort County concluded new measures were needed to manage growth on the island, with the anticipated amount of growth exceeding the capacity of the island's infrastructure.
This rapid growth puts environmentally unsustainable pressures on our lands and waters, in that the development and the accompanying infrastructure result in the destruction of natural wetlands, marshes, headwaters, and other waterways, thereby hampering the functioning of these systems and eliminating valuable and effective natural storm protection and flood abatement, and fish and wildlife habitat.
Original source can be found here.
Alerts Sign-up