Barberry Woods | Slab-on-Grade Ban

Johns Island had two wins in the last two weeks.

The first win was a $4.6M grant from the South Carolina Office of Resilience to the City of Charleston for the Barberry Woods Drainage Improvement Project located off Maybank Highway near True Value. You can view a storyboard of the project here. You can also read more about it here and here.

The second win was a vote by City Council to give initial approval to ban slab-on-grade foundations within the 100 year floodplain. As this article stated, slab-on-grade construction "is increasingly popular among Charleston developers building in low-lying areas, including islands where the city’s fastest growth is happening. Due to its rapid growth, Johns Island was cited as ground zero for this practice, as well as the reason it is so risky."

Finally, we hope you read this editorial which advocated to strengthen Charleston County’s Urban Growth Boundary (UGB) to protect rural areas. This would include an overlay zoning district for the rural portion of Johns Island and an intergovernmental agreement to make it more difficult to move the UGB. County Councilman Joe Boykin stated “I want to make it as strong as legally possible to dissuade any changes to [the UGB]”.

We'll provide details on these and other events, but first let's look at the calendar for upcoming events. There are two must-attend events the next few weeks. We hope to see you there.

Apr 3 (Mon) @ 9:30 am:  A rezoning workshop for 1095 Main Road (Main Road at Patton Road) will be held on-site. You can read more about it here.

Apr 3 (Mon) @ 4:30 pm: The City of Charleston Design Review Board will hear a request for the conceptual approval for a 72 unit townhome community located at 3030 Maybank Highway. See the Upcoming Events section of this newsletter for more details.

Apr 3 (Mon) @ 5:00 pm: The Charleston County Board of Zoning Appeals will hear three cases involving Johns Island. See the Upcoming Events section of this newsletter for more details.

Apr 5 (Weds) @ 10:00 am: The Charleston County Greenbelt Advisory Board will meet to hear applications, including for a property on Betsy Kerrison Parkway submitted by the Kiawah Conservancy. The meeting will be held at 4045 Bridge View Drive, North Charleston. The meeting will also be live streamed h ere.

Apr 6 (Thurs) @ 7:00 pm: The speaker at this month's Johns Island Council meeting will be County Councilman Joe Boykin.  He is expected to talk about getting up to speed in his new job, engaging with staff and departments, and key issues. The meeting will include a Q&A and will be held at the Berkeley Electric Coop building located at 1135 Main Road.

Apr 10 (Mon) @ 2:00 pm:  The Charleston County Planning Commision will meet to vote on recommendations for the 5-year update to the County's Comprehensive Plan. You can read more about the land use portion here on pages 18 to 48 and pages 170 to 176.  We will send out an action alert regarding this meeting later this week.  Please attend and speak up for Johns Island.

Apr 11 (Tues) @ 5:00 pm: Charleston City Council will take a final vote on the ordinance to ban slab-on-grade construction in the 100 year floodplain. The meeting will be held at City Hall, 80 Broad Street, and will also be live streamed here.

Apr 17 (Mon) @ 6:00 pm:  The SC Department of Health and Environmental Control (DEHC) will hold an in-person, public hearing for the proposed bridge over a tributary of Pennys Creek. The meeting will be held at James Island Town Hall, 1122 Dills Bluff Road. See here for information regarding the public hearing. Please attend and speak up for Johns Island.

Apr 20 (Thurs) @ 5:30 pm: The City of Charleston will hold a "Local Government 101" seminar. Topics include what services/programs the City provides, how the City interacts with other agencies to solve problems, decision-making in the City, how ordinances are passed, and how you can get involved. To attend you will need to preregister here. The meeting will be held at 2 George Street, Charleston.

Jun 5 to Jul 28: This is the summer application cycle for the Charleston County Greenbelt Program. If you desire to have your land put under a conservation easement, please contact the Lowcountry Land Trust here.

Andell West: On March 30th the Charleston County Planning and Public Works Committee approved a waiver request by the developer (see here on page 3) of the one year waiting period before submitting a new rezoning application for the property. This will come before County Council at their April 4th meeting for a final vote.

Kiawah Conservancy: On March 15th Greenbelt Advisory Board (GAB) subcommittee recommended funding the Kiawah Conservancy's "Betsy Kerrison Nature Trail" project. This project will come before the full GAB at their April 5th meeting.

Charleston County Finances: At the March 30th Finance Committee meeting staff reported that "Staff anticipates that General Fund revenues will exceed budget. The two largest areas exceeding budget are interest income and higher than anticipated growth in property taxes. These revenue improvements are being incorporated into the FY24 budget." In a related matter, this commentary stated "council may have to raise property taxes this year for the first time in more than a decade". Over the next few months we will have to see how this yin and yang of excess revenue and increased property taxes works out.

Planning Commissions: This article about the actions of the Mount Pleasant Planning Commission caught our eye. They recommended disapproval to add additional hotel rooms to a Planned Development. "The commission members who voted against it expressed concerns about ... the impact on traffic." Perhaps City and County Planning Commision members should take note and consider this in their decisions regarding rezonings. Developers will often point to their traffic studies that a rezoning will not increase traffic, but if that were really the case then we would not be experiencing traffic congestion on our Island.

Thank Goodness for Horry County

This article discussed the tremendous growth South Carolina is experiencing. For all our concerns regarding growth on Johns Island, it is interesting to note that from 2020 to 2022 Horry County (Myrtle Beach) had three times the growth in population of Charleston County. Even Berkeley County had 40% more growth than Charleston County.

The draw for developers in these areas is the availability of large tracts of relatively cheap highland that can be easily clear-cut, zoning that encourages suburban sprawl, and access to sewer systems. Fortunately, the area outside the Urban Growth Boundary on Johns Island, which is about 80% of the Island, does not currently have these attributes. To ensure it stays that way, your participation in the County's Comprehensive Plan update and the City's rewrite of their zoning ordinances is critical.

We encourage you to actively engage in the local political process by sending emails, attending meetings, and speaking up for Johns Island.

3030 Maybank Highway Before the DRB

The City of Charleston Design Review Board will hear a request for the conceptual approval for a 72 unit townhome community located at 3030 Maybank Highway (across from the Royal Tern, see image above). You can read more about it here.

The meeting will be held on April 3rd at 4:30 pm at 2 George Street, Charleston, and will be livestreamed here.

Charleston County Board of Zoning Appeals

The County BZA will meet to review three cases involving Johns Island:

CASE#: BZA-02-23-00650:  Variance request to encroach more than twenty-five percent of the protected area of five Grand Trees for a proposed driveway at 4230 River Road (south of Edenvale Rd).

CASE#: BZA-02-23-00653: Setback variance request for three existing detached accessory structures at 3321 Jesse Qualls Drive (off Bohicket Rd near Hebron Zion Presbyterian Church).

CASE#: BZA-02-23-00656: Setback variance request for two existing detached accessory structures at 2592 Bohicket Road (near Johns Island Presbyterian Church).

The meeting will be held on April 3rd at 5:00 pm at 4045 Bridge View Drive, North Charleston, and will be livestreamed here.

The Johns Island Advocate is a free biweekly email newsletter that seeks to inform Johns Islanders of significant meetings and events that will impact our Island today and in the future.

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If you have any comments about what you have read in The Johns Island Advocated or have an event you think should be included, contact us at JohnsIslandAdvocate@gmail.com.

You can learn more about Johns Island by going to our website JohnsIslandAdvocate.org.