Our friends in the residential development business aren’t going to be happy with Lexington County Council.

Almost 10 years ago, the council shortened setbacks on residential lots. They may have done it would good intentions.

Smaller lots with less setbacks from streets and neighbors meant developers could add more houses to new developments for greater profits.

The developers may have argued that they were trying to accommodate more young families in affordable stick-built houses than mobile homes with far shorter lifetimes as homeowners’ investments.

But decisions have consequences. While the developers and builders profited, the county’s consequences were costly: Crowded classrooms, more expensive new schools, crumbling roads, traffic congestion, increased demand on county services including EMTs, fire fighters and law enforcement.

Then the gas tax hike promised help at least with roads, didn’t it? Actually not. The gas tax money was only for state roads, much of it interstates.

Faced with roads, services and other problems, county leaders are ready to require:

• More space between homes.

• Wider roads and a 25-foot buffer for rights-of-way.

• More parking in driveways.

Before 2001, new houses were required to be set back from roads 20 feet with a minimum lot size. The change gave developers less setbacks, zero lot lines and houses built only 10 feet from roads.

If a new ordinance is passed, that will change.

The Council is also considering requiring overflow parking areas within subdivisions, 25-foot setbacks from the rights-of-way and 10-foot setbacks.

Greenville, Lancaster and Aiken counties require 30-foot setbacks from the rights-of-way.

A public hearing on the ordinance will be announced later.

What do you think? Will this help with our exploding growth or just penalize the developers?

Please share with me your thoughts on this at JerryBellune@yahoo.com

New county ordinance may help ease problems of our exploding growth.