Growth management is a huge issue in Beaufort County, and it will become a bigger issue across the state as the population grows.

For that reason, South Carolinians should pay attention to two bills that could attract a conference committee's attention when lawmakers return to Columbia next week after Tuesday's primaries.

The bills that may get legislative attention deal with property rights. The House and the Senate convened in January with ideas to strengthen state laws limiting the ability of local governments to take property for a public use.

Americans were outraged over the 2005 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Kelo v. New London, which basically said that local governments could take a person's property if its use could be turned into a higher tax base -- a public benefit as opposed to a public use.

The S.C. House bill runs counter to a well-thought-out public policy approved in the Senate that would allow voters to constitutionally restrict the taking of property to a public use.

The upshot is that the House proposal could hamstring the ability of local governments, utilities, colleges and state agencies to use eminent domain. It would severely limit local governments' ability to use any kind of zoning or effective land-use management.

Such a policy would not be in the best interest of people who don't want an industrial plant smack in the middle of their residential area. Municipal and county governments already have a difficult time planning their futures, and the House plan would hamper than even further. Each time land was subject to restriction, the owner could claim that the plan was to use it for commercial development and demand more than just compensation.

As Beaufort County develops even more, the demand for a balance in growth management will increase. Fast-paced growth is here and increasing. The 2000 census shows that Beaufort was the fastest-growing S.C. county. The county grew by almost 40 percent in the 1990s. A letter to the editor this week indicates that the growth rate dipped for a period but is accelerating again.

The Strom Thurmond Institute at Clemson University a few years ago projected that over the next two decades the coastal population will swell by another 500,000 people. Two-thirds of the growth in South Carolina over the next 20 years is expected in five areas of the state; two of those are Beaufort and Horry counties.

House leaders have been in a clash with Gov. Mark Sanford for more than a week about finishing the state's business before the primary. They cite a traditional time of reflection to decide appropriate votes on some bills before wrapping up legislative business for the year. The hope is that they will use this time to decide to take the Senate version of the bill, which gives communities more leeway to manage growth.