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More impact fees are on the table in York, Cherokee counties

Impact fees are all the rage in fast-growing South Carolina. While one county already has them, a neighbor is considering its first. By Scott Morgan, Managing EditorOct. 7, 2025 Wondering what ‘impact fees’ refers to? Check out What the heck are impact fees and why is everyone talking about them? for a primer. York On…

Scott Morgan
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Impact fees are all the rage in fast-growing South Carolina. While one county already has them, a neighbor is considering its first.

By Scott Morgan, Managing Editor
Oct. 7, 2025

Wondering what ‘impact fees’ refers to? Check out What the heck are impact fees and why is everyone talking about them? for a primer.

York

On Monday night, the York County Council took its first official step towards raising impact fees for the Clover School District.

In a first hearing, Clover Superintendent Sheila Quinn asked the council to raise the district’s impact fees to their maximum allowable levels, as they were set in 2021. That was the year the County Council approved impact fees for the Clover School District.

If the fees are approved upon an eventual third reading, they would increase existing impact fees for new homes built within the district by 3.76 times.

The numbers

In 2021, the County Council set impact fees for Clover School District at:

  • unchecked$4,000 for new single-family builds;
  • unchecked$1,976 for new multifamily builds;
  • unchecked$2,618 for manufactured homes.

According to the School Development Impact Fee Technical Report and Capital Improvement Plan for Clover, by consulting firm TischlerBise, the maximum allowable amounts under its 2020 report were:

  • unchecked$15,025 for single-family homes;
  • unchecked$7,430 for multifamily homes;
  • unchecked$9,842 for manufactured homes.

These are the values to which each set of fees would be raised, if ultimately approved. 

Quinn cited the amounts during her presentation Monday as $15,014, $7,419, and $9,828 for single-family, multi-family, and manufactured (mobile) homes, respectively.

Among the reasons cited by the County Council for setting impact fees is “rapid population growth and development for the past 50 years,” and projections that “growth will continue at a rapid rate into the future.”

TischlerBise projects that Clover School District will see its student population increase by 2,544 students by the year 2045.

While not specific to Clover, it is noteworthy that in 2024, the number of residential permits issued in York County was 2,513, according to the Federal Reserve. That’s almost 1,000 more permits applied for in York County than in Cherokee, Chester, Lancaster, and Fairfield counties combined – and about half the total number of permit applications in Cherokee County from 1990 to 2024.

So York County is a hot ticket, especially in Fort Mill/Tega Cay (where impact fees were raised earlier this year to $29,640 for new single-family homes, the highest impact fees in South Carolina), Rock Hill, and Clover.

The County Council meets again on Oct. 20.

Cherokee

While Cherokee County is not seeing near the growth in new residential construction as York County, its council is, nevertheless, also weighing impact fees.

The county issued its request for qualifications (RFQ) on an impact fee study in September, to figure what any potential impact fees might be.

“We are beginning the required study to determine the best path forward with Impact Fee requirements,” according to the County Council website.

The council expects to award a contract for the impact fee study by February.

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