The secret is out: South Carolina is a great place to live. Our state’s natural beauty is what makes us special, and others want to share in that. We welcome newcomers who feel the love and appreciation for all South Carolina has to offer, but with growth comes responsibility.

We must direct that growth to appropriate areas that have — or will have — the public infrastructure and services to accommodate it while simultaneously stewarding protection of our rural communities and the natural resources that make South Carolina such a desirable state in the first place.

Now is the time to capitalize on the momentum of this growth management revolution and move concurrency legislation across the finish line.

As development pressure continues to grow in all corners of the state, the Conservation Voters of South Carolina has stood in solidarity with our conservation partners and overwhelmed communities clamoring for a release mechanism to alleviate the strain on public infrastructure.

We continue to advocate for state-level legislation that empowers local communities to adopt concurrency, ensuring that public infrastructure can keep pace with growth and protecting taxpayer investment. With the 2026 legislative session halfway through, the sense of urgency to pass this legislation is growing. The decisions we make today will affect the state for decades to come — for better or for worse.

Concurrency has been intentionally mischaracterized by its opponents as a backdoor moratorium, a duplicative impact fee and even extortion. These claims make for dramatic talking points, but they’re wrong.

Concurrency is a commonsense timing tool. Growth should not occur until the public infrastructure and services are in place to accommodate it. If that infrastructure or service is unavailable or insufficient, the cost of improving it should shift from the taxpayer to the developer who stands to profit from the project. The taxpayers should not be responsible for reactionary infrastructure projects that sacrifice the character of their communities.

Concurrency is an opportunity for communities to define where and how they want to grow. It is an opportunity to embrace a more holistic and sustainable approach to community planning that facilitates mixed-use neighborhoods where people can live, work and shop close to home, reducing car-dependency, alleviating congestion and stimulating local economies.

Concurrency can expand critical public transit options and incentivize higher-density infill development in urban centers, all while protecting green space and reducing sprawl. Exemptions from concurrency requirements can exist for affordable housing, urban and job centers or community-supported development that prioritizes walking, biking or transit over traditional car-centric development patterns. This is not a one-size-fits-all tool; it can be tailored to work for your community’s specific needs. 

Today, South Carolina finds itself at a crossroads, and we must adapt to protect what we love. Concurrency is the tool we need to better inform long-range planning efforts, strategically invest in infrastructure, and preserve the character of our state. Without this sustainable planning tool in our toolbox, conditions will worsen, and our cherished natural resources, our lands and waters and our quality of life in South Carolina will remain in jeopardy.

The General Assembly is doing the right thing by taking up this issue and having these thoughtful discussions. We applaud lawmakers for listening to their constituents’ pleas for relief, and we are grateful to those legislators who have signed on as co-sponsors of these bills.

The time to act on growth-management legislation is now: Once you pave paradise, there’s no turning back. In a make-or-break moment for South Carolina, we urge the General Assembly to pass concurrency legislation this session so our communities can implement this tool as soon as possible and protect this paradise we call home. 

It is high time for a new era of prosperity and preservation in South Carolina where we prioritize the protection of our quality of life, our irreplaceable natural resources and our taxpayer investment in public infrastructure over the developer’s bottom line.

 Meagan Diedolf is the president of Conservation Voters of South Carolina.