Lexington Co. moves to reinstate subdivision freeze, 1 day after judge struck it down
One day after a South Carolina judge told Lexington County Council it would have to vote again on a temporary moratorium on new subdivisions, council members announced plans to do exactly that.
Lexington County Council will hold a special called meeting at 10 a.m. Thursday, the county announced Wednesday morning. The only item on the agenda is a vote on the moratorium that blocks most big subdivisions from being constructed for 180 days.
On Tuesday, Judge Debra McCaslin struck down the previous moratorium the council passed on April 13, saying the county council didn’t follow state law when it held a closed-door executive session before the vote on the ordinance.
But McCaslin left the door open for the county to put a moratorium back in place. Lexington County has argued skyrocketing growth in the county is stressing public infrastructure and county services, and will use the pause to update its planning process for future applications.
McCaslin upheld a challenge brought by the Building Industry Association of Central South Carolina, telling county attorney Jeffrey Anderson, “You’re going to have to go back and do it again.”
“If that’s their only problem, we could do it again by Thursday,” Anderson told the court at the time.
The builders’ group raised other objections to the moratorium, but McCaslin did not address those on Tuesday, allowing the county to block any new subdivision applications once it passes a new moratorium. The county previously invoked a “pending ordinance” doctrine to put the pause in effect immediately after first reading.
There is no executive session scheduled for Thursday’s meeting.
Under the moratorium, the building of single family homes and subdivisions of less than 10 lots is still permitted during the 180-day freeze, but more massive housing developments — any application to develop 10 or more lots for new housing, subdivisions with lots of less than half an acre, or developments with some “attached land use activities” — had been postponed for 180 days.
