A Briars Creek Homesite Comes With a Share of a Sewer Plant

On June 10, 2021, the developer of Briars Creek sold its wastewater treatment plant to The Golf Club at Briar's Creek Property Owners Association. The sale included a 13-acre spray field and every sewer line and pump station inside the gate. Since then, the purchase contract on any homesite here also makes the buyer a voting member of a small utility. The golf club gets the attention in listing descriptions, but membership in it is optional. Membership in the association that owns the sewer plant comes with the lot.

What every lot owner signed

The transfer went through the South Carolina Public Service Commission. In Order No. 2021-471, dated July 8, 2021, the Commission exempted the association's sewer service from its own regulation of terms, rates, and charges. As a result, the owners set their own sewer rates through their association, not a state rate case.

To qualify for that exemption, the association had to file a signed statement from every lot owner. The order lists them lot by lot, from Lot 1 through Lot 89, as of March 17, 2021. The Commission summarized what those owners had been told:

"sewer service will be provided by a non-profit corporation owned solely by the homeowner's association of which the lot owner is a member"

The order adds that each owner "will be subject to an appropriate assessment to meet operating expenses of the sewer facilities which must be paid along with the other assessments due to the Association." No dollar figure appears anywhere in the order.

The developer, Briar's Creek Holdings, LLC, handed the system over at no cost and covered the legal and filing fees. Under the DHEC terms, it also had to put about $125,754 into a reserve account so the association could run the plant for at least three years. Three years from the June 2021 sale was June 2024. A buyer in October 2026 is joining an association past the period that seed money was meant to cover, so the current reserve balance is a figure to request, not assume.

The Commission's docket 2020-276-S still shows "Open," and the latest matter in it is dated July 15, 2021. Because the system is exempt, little about it will turn up in the state's files. The real records are the association's budget and minutes.

Why there is no public line to tie into

This arrangement follows from the geography of the island's southern end. A preliminary engineering report for the nearby Orange Hill development, revised in April 2026, maps out the options. The nearest Charleston Water System sewer service area is on Bohicket Road at Berryhill Road, about 4.4 miles northeast of Orange Hill.

The report names the two approved treatment plants close to Orange Hill, the Kiawah River WWTP and the Briar's Creek Golf Development WWTP. It concludes that neither one "ha[s] the treatment or effluent disposal capacity to process Orange Hill wastewater flows." That finding is about taking on a whole new development. It says nothing about whether a vacant homesite inside Briars Creek can connect. Still, it confirms that the plant was built for this community and nothing more, and that no regional system nearby could take over if the plant needed help.

Orange Hill's planners chose to build their own plant, which their POA will eventually own and operate. On this part of Johns Island, owner-run wastewater is common.

Once sewer is accounted for, frontage explains the lot prices

Because every lot shares the same utility, sewer does nothing to separate one lot's price from another's. The Briar's Creek Land Company's homesite page, as it stood in early October 2026, shows that acreage doesn't separate them either. Its image timestamps run from November 2025 through April 2026, so read these as posted asking prices to confirm, not live market values.

The smallest offered lot is asking the most, at about three times the per-acre figure of the largest. The index page doesn't say what sets Lot 50 apart. The lot pages that do describe a setting suggest the answer. Lot 29 at 4297 Wild Turkey Way is the largest lot in the community at 7.77 acres. It has 450 feet of shoreline on Lake Sharon and sits next to the tee boxes for holes 7 and 8, and its own page offers it at $989,000. The index page shows it under contract at a different figure that appears to be a typo, so the asking price is unsettled. An undated page for Lot 46 lists 320 feet of Lake Sharon frontage on 2.11 acres at $550,000.

Frontage still doesn't give a clean formula. Another Land Company page, at 3935 Gnarled Oaks Lane, describes 200 feet of lake frontage and possible dock access for a canoe, kayak, or rowboat on 3.66 acres, offered at $299,000. Lot 39 sold for the lowest price in the table, but it came as a marsh-view homesite with pre-approved house plans and HOA approval already in hand. Those approvals have their own value, because they remove a step in an architectural process that isn't publicly documented.

In a community the Land Company describes as 85 lots on more than 800 acres, scarcity comes from frontage and views. When a buyer compares two homesites here, the useful starting point is what each one looks out on and what has already been approved for it.

The club is the optional layer

The Land Company's listing for 30 Wild Turkey Way states it directly. "Golf Club Membership is not required to live in Briars Creek and there is now a social membership available to property owners." Another Land Company page says that owners who don't golf commonly hold social memberships. It describes a clubhouse with dining, social events, and wine and book clubs. The club opened in 2001. Its public site sends membership questions to an inquiry form and publishes no fee schedule.

The Land Company also states that the community "is owned by longstanding members." So a buyer deals with two governing bodies. The POA is mandatory, and its assessments include the cost of running the sewer plant. The club is elective, and its pricing is disclosed only on request. A budget for a Briars Creek lot should treat them as separate line items, because only one of them can be skipped.

What to get in writing before the inspection period ends

The last public figures on building terms date from May 2018. That year the Land Company announced no build-time requirement, a 2,500-square-foot minimum home size, and HOA dues of $2,400 a year, as part of an effort to restart sales after the recession. Eight years later, none of those numbers is safe to underwrite. Ask for current versions of the following:

1. The POA's current operating budget, showing the sewer assessment as its own line, plus the most recent reserve balance for the wastewater system.
2. Written confirmation from the association that your specific lot can connect, along with any connection, tap, or impact charge for a new home.
3. The current status of land application permit ND0080977, which was held in the developer's name in 2021 and was to be transferred to the association. DHEC's environmental work now sits with SCDES, which posts environmental public notices for permits like this one.
4. The recorded Declaration of Covenants and Restrictions, any amendments, and the current architectural review standards, including minimum square footage and whether a build deadline now applies.
5. Any approvals already granted for the lot, such as the pre-approved plans that came with Lot 39.
6. The club's current terms for both golf and social membership, if either one matters to you.
7. Board minutes from the past year or two, to see whether plant maintenance or capital projects have come up.

A short FAQ

Does every Briars Creek owner pay toward the sewer plant? Yes. The 2021 PSC order describes the association as made up of lot owners, with each owner subject to an operating assessment for the sewer facilities, paid along with other association assessments.

Can the Commission review a sewer rate increase? The order exempts the association's sewer service from Commission regulation, and it stays in effect until the Commission orders otherwise. Owners act through their association as voting members.

Is the 2,500-square-foot minimum still the rule? It was the published minimum in May 2018. No current public source confirms it, so request the governing documents before you design a house around it.

At Briars Creek, the contract terms that matter most usually sit in the association's documents, not the lot survey. Anthony Barrasso reviews those documents for land buyers before the inspection period ends, including the sewer assessment, connection terms, and the covenants a custom home will have to meet. If you are weighing a homesite inside the gate, Anthony Barrasso can help you get the right paperwork in hand before you commit. Let's Connect.