Lexington County may save trees as more neighborhoods bloom

Lexington County leaders are looking at a limited effort to save more trees as neighborhoods sprout in steadily-growing areas.

County Council members ruled out a countywide approach on the idea Tuesday but agreed to consider restrictions on home builders removing all landscape in selected areas.

“It’s the way we should go,” Councilwoman Erin Long Bergeson of Chapin said.

Areas around Chapin and Lexington as well as west of Irmo are initial candidates for the buffer requirements.

The decision came as the nine council members started shaping a plan for a small landscape buffer around new subdivisions.

A piecemeal approach is similar to the limited start of blight controls that now apply to many more neighborhoods across the 758-square-mile county.

“The ones that want it get it,” Councilman Scott Whetstone of Swansea said. “The ones that don’t won’t.”

The plan taking shape would ban clear-cutting tracts for homes, a practice that stirs complaints about lost foliage in the steadily growing county.

The push to save more greenery comes amid predictions that the county’s estimated population of 290,000 residents will double by 2050.

Council members didn’t settle on a buffer size, although some suggested a 10-foot width per parcel seems sufficient without inconveniencing builders.

A buffer plan should include “some flexibility” for builders to adapt to terrain and shouldn’t require adding landscape to open fields, said Kevin Steelman, a leader of the Building Industry Association of Central South Carolina.

This story was originally published September 26, 2017 at 4:13 PM with the headline "Lexington County may save trees as more neighborhoods bloom."