Steady growth has been a hallmark for the past several years for the Laurens County Water and Sewer Commission, which now bills 18,167 water customers, up by 870 from this time last year.

Most of the growth has come through subdivisions in Northern Laurens County, although there have been signs recently of significant “in-fill” growth in the southern and western regions (Hickory Tavern and Lake Greenwood). However, what’s on the horizon is less certain.

At its regular monthly meeting Tuesday, which primarily had 3 closed, executive-session items for contracts and legal advice on the agenda, board members heard a discussion about what might happen now that Laurens County has adopted a modified “open-space” land-use designation for subdivisions.

Developers were put-off by the county’s requirement that 40% of the land in an open-space subdivision be designated for development, and 60% be reserved for non-built-on space (including buffers and amenities like walking trails).

After weeks of discussion, the county council majority settled on a plan that calls for the opposite — 60% of the land can be built-on, 40% must be “open-space.”

What will that mean for continued housing development in Laurens County?

“It’s too early to tell,” said LCWSC Executive Director Jeff Field, who has been intensely involved in the process of advising the council about open-space development.

“We need 380 (water) taps a year to maintain our system. One subdivision every couple of years puts us in a sweet spot.”

The problem, as Field saw it, is the fact that most large, developable tracts already have been built on. These include the limited places where LCWSC has public sewer. The county already has developed the “low-hanging fruit,” he said.

“Some of these projects going on now were permitted 4 years ago. We’ve seen no new subdivisions in our system in 2 years – there have been some smaller ones, but they are not sewer-related.”

A balanced growth of water and sewer is the commission’s best bet – in January LCWSC installed 62 water taps and 64 sewer taps. It’s unclear now if that balance can be sustained far into the future, however.

“Public sewer is good for the environment,” Field said; but without other lot-size changes, septic-tank development could be making a comeback.

“If they don’t change lot size in conventional developments, you could have a proliferation of septic tank developments (even) where public sewer is available. We need a little bit of growth to keep doing what we’re doing.”