BLUFFTON, S.C - Eight years ago the borders of this moss-draped town on the May River took in just one square mile of land, the same territory it had in 1852. It had just 700 residents, no town manager, planning department or building inspections department and earned much of its revenue from speeding tickets.

Today, Bluffton's twisted live oaks are still hung with moss, but after an aggressive campaign of annexations aimed at fending off low-quality development, the town has swelled to more than 50 times its original size, its population has grown tenfold and it is quietly gaining fame as home to one of the nation's fanciest new housing developments, Palmetto Bluff.

Like North Carolina's mainland coastal towns, Bluffton sits on a picturesque shoreline behind a barrier island celebrated for its beaches. But growth on the Lowcountry mainland near Hilton Head has been booming for years; the Bluffton experience offers lessons, and warnings, for North Carolina.

Beaufort County has become the fastest-growing county in South Carolina, as retirees flock in, along with workers to build their homes, mow their lawns and cook their meals. The population of the county, which includes Bluffton and Hilton Head, jumped about 40 percent from 1990 to 2000 (86,425 to 120,937), and has grown more since.

Residents of North Carolina's mainland coast face a similar explosion of growth. As they drive past billboards for the new subdivisions and condominium projects that will add about 35,000 new homes, they are beginning to wonder what their future will look like.

If that future is Bluffton, it will look like this: a historic town center that has kept its unique character, overflowing schools, thousands of new jobs in service and construction work, an influx of immigrant laborers and commuters who clog a road system that suddenly looks small.

Bluffton has responded by wringing impact fees and other money out of developers to try to shield existing residents from the costs of growth and with significant environmental regulations to protect the May River, still so clean that pods of dolphins make it their home.

The key move, local leaders say, was the annexation, which swelled the town's size but allowed stricter zoning than the eight or more homes per acre Beaufort County would have permitted.

"This growth was coming, no matter what," said Cece Caldwell, who as a town board member in 1998 helped lead the movement to annex vast tracts. "The question was who was going to control it.''

Birth of a boom

Bluffton's boom started in 1994, when the Del Webb Corp. opened one of its trademark Sun City retirement communities a few miles inland of town. Many locals thought that several thousand senior citizens wouldn't add many kids to the school system or crowd the roads at commuting hours.

More developers followed Webb, though, and thousands of workers came to build houses, mow lawns, clean pools, staff the new banks that were financing homes and work in restaurants and the other service businesses that the newcomers needed.

It was a new world for the town, which had to act quickly or be overrun by growth.

Lesson one, said nearly a dozen town officials and local residents: Get as much money from developers as you can, as early as you can, to pay for roads, schools, utilities, emergency services, even additional planners.

Even the biggest developer in town agreed.

"It should be built into the developers' [financial plan], and if it's not, you've got to ask yourself why they should be allowed to build," said James W. Mozley, president of Palmetto Bluff, which is being built by a Duke Power subsidiary. "A development should pay its own way. It shouldn't fall on the shoulders of someone whose family has lived in a place for generations."

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