Estate Jewelry in West Ashley, SC

CHARLESTON — A flash flood warning from the National Weather Service is in effect for Charleston County the morning of Oct. 10.

At 7:23 a.m., NWS issued an alert, as Charleston’s Emergency Management Division reported heavy rain downtown, resulting in flash flooding which has closed several roads across the city, according to the warning.

Traffic moved freely through most of downtown Charleston the morning of Oct. 10, despite the number of streets being closed with flooding. The majority, including Washington Street near Union Pier, are among the usual suspects that locals know to avoid during King Tides and heavy rains.

The flash flood warning was in effect until 9:30 a.m.

Locations that will experience flash flooding include North Charleston, Mount Pleasant, James Island, Johns Island, West Ashley, downtown Charleston, Fort Sumter, Daniel Island, Folly Beach and Kiawah Island, the warning said.

“An area of intense rainfall moved through the Folly Beach, James Island, Johns Island, West Ashley and downtown Charleston areas and produced 1 to 2 inches of rain,” the warning stated. “The heaviest rain has now lifted northward but light to occasionally moderate rain will continue. Additional rounds of heavy rain could develop through mid morning.”

Hurricane Isaias made landfall in Florida as a Category 2 hurricane the night of Oct. 9. Moisture associated with the storm could bring significant rainfall along the South Carolina coast through Oct. 10 and into Oct. 11.

Charleston Harbor’s tide peaked at 7.76 feet at 8:42 a.m. on Oct. 10, according to NWS. Later, around 8 p.m., the high tide is forecasted to reach 7.1 feet, according to Charleston County’s Geographical Information System’s TIDEeye.

Cancellations

Ahead of the weather, several events have been canceled or rescheduled.

Free garage parking available

Five parking garages on the Charleston peninsula are currently free of charge “so city residents can move their vehicles out of flood-prone areas,” according to a news release from the city.

The parking initiative began Oct. 9 at 6 p.m. and expires Oct. 11 at 4 p.m., the news release said.

Residents interested in moving their vehicles under a cover amid expected heavy rain must pull a ticket at the entrance of any of the five parking garages listed below and keep it. Once they leave, they should insert the ticket into the exit machine and scan the city’s “storm parking QR code” to exit free of charge, according to the news release.

The five parking garages participating in the city’s storm parking initiative are:

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) — Another piece of the Long Savanna development moved closer to construction on Thursday.

But as the process continues, Charleston leaders and the developer are working on changes intended to address the impact of thousands of new homes on West Ashley.

The development is planned to bring 4,500 units to Bear Swamp Road, just off Bees Ferry Road and Savannah Highway, two major arteries that already carry heavy traffic.

Parts of the project appeared before the city’s Technical Review Committee on Thursday morning. The phases and early site plan reviewed by the committee still need revisions before returning back to the committee for another review.

Stephen Bowden, the Charleston City Council member who represents the area, said the city is trying to make changes before the development is fully built out rather than responding to problems afterward.

“All we can do at that point is be reactive, and so that really limits what we’re able to do,” Bowden said. “So now what we’ve done with Long Savannah prior to it actually starting to get built out is make sure that the plan makes as much sense as it possibly can.”

The city has already worked with the developer to reduce the number of planned units by 1,900.

“You hear 4,500 units, and that’s a lot, and it’s going to be a big adjustment,” Bowden said. “But 1,900 less than it would have been, and that’s all through just slow, steady, hard work that the city’s doing to make this plan better for residents.”

A new elementary school is now planned in place of another apartment building. The goal is to reduce the need for parents in the community to use major roads such as Bees Ferry Road and Glenn McConnell Parkway for school drop-off and pickup.

The city and developer are also working on neighborhood mobility and stormwater infrastructure. City leaders also want businesses included in the Long Savanna community so residents can access everyday services without having to leave the area and add to traffic on West Ashley roads. Beyond that, they’re working to ensure public safety resources, like a fire station, are nearby.

Bowden said the city is looking at transportation solutions beyond simply adding more lanes and roads.

“Everybody thinks the solution to traffic is more infrastructure, and that’s got to be part of it,” Bowden said. “But the reality is it’s got to be things that we’re going to be able to maintain without pricing everybody out through massive tax increases. And so sometimes pouring that new concrete isn’t the best solution. It’s giving people options.”

City leaders are also looking at longer-term planning tools, including enforcing the urban growth boundary and continuing work on a rewrite of the city’s zoning code.

Bowden said where new development is concentrated can also affect how much people have to commute.

“If we’re not utilizing those opportunities to kind of center the density and where building is happening, then people are just going to take the opportunity to move further and further out and just commute to the same place that they were going to anyway,” Bowden said. “And that’s the nightmare scenario. So, we’ve got to balance it all.”

Some West Ashley residents say the changes are a step forward but do not address the larger impact of continued development in the area.

“Less townhomes is a start, but it doesn’t really solve the problem. It’s a nice gesture,” Liz Munn, a West Ashley resident, said.

Munn said the Charleston of today is different from the community that existed when many of these developments were first planned.

“I feel like whenever they planned all of this, it was a very different Charleston,” she said.

She also questioned whether adding an elementary school within the development will address the broader transportation demands created by thousands of new residents.

“Whether or not their schools are in the neighborhood or not, they still have to go to work,” Munn said. “They still are going to the grocery store. They still are going to take their kids to sports activities and enjoy Charleston. And I just don’t think that many cars on the road is safe for anyone.”

Munn said the discussion also needs to consider people who already live in West Ashley.

“What about everyone who already lives here? What about our quality of life? We need to be at home in our home,” she said.

She said she does not believe development itself is necessarily the problem, but rather the pace and concentration of new construction.

“The quality of life of long-time residents has changed, but everything changes,” Munn said. “It’s not that development is terrible. It’s that it’s coming too fast and in too much concentration into the West Ashley area.”

Munn said she understands the challenges facing city leaders, but questions how quickly infrastructure can catch up with development.

“I think that the sins of yesterday are coming home today,” Munn said. “And I feel for all the folks that work in the city planning and that are elected. They’re trying to make a difference, but change has always come slow and development moves fast.”

She said developers may have received approvals years ago for projects that are just now moving forward.

“And by way of developers getting permission to do this 20 years ago or 40 years ago and now they’re doing it, how long is it going to take to make a change? I don’t know,” she said.

The city is also pursuing a grant to retime traffic signals across West Ashley, which Bowden said could provide improvements before funding from a proposed transportation sales tax referendum would become available for construction.

“That could make a really big difference before any money from a referendum passing would be available for construction,” Bowden said. “But we compound that signal timing with hopefully passing the referendum in November. And that means fixing the biggest bottleneck right now in West Ashley, which is the intersection of Magwood and Glenn McConnell.”

Construction for the Long Savanna community will take place in phases, with the full development expected to take years to complete.

CHARLESTON COUNTY, S.C. (WCSC) — A vacant piece of property in West Ashley could soon become a one-stop location for several Charleston County services.

Charleston County has purchased about 1.5 acres at the corner of Old Parsonage Road and Highway 61, where it plans to build a new magistrate court.

The new court would replace the county’s current West Ashley magistrate location, which Councilman Brantley Moody said is in leased space and is old, small and outdated.

“This is bringing county services closer to a growing area of West Ashley,” Moody said.

But the magistrate court will be just one part of a larger county-services complex planned for the property.

The site sits next to the new St. Andrews Public Service District fire facility and Charleston County EMS building. A passive park also surrounds the new public-safety facility.

Moody said the county’s goal is to bring those services together in one area.

“It’s a whole county municipal complex,” Moody said. “We’ve got the St. Andrews PSD and the EMS, the Charleston County EMS new building right there. We’ve got a passive park that surrounds that new facility, and then we’re going to be putting a beautiful county complex there to sort of complete that parcel.”

The new magistrate court is expected to be large enough to include a Sheriff’s Office presence.

The county also plans to eventually have space for the Treasurer’s Office and Auditor’s Office.

Moody said the development is intended to make it easier for people in West Ashley to access county services without having to travel farther through the area.

The property has a history of its own. Moody said it was once a thriving shopping center about 30 years ago but has sat largely underused in recent years.

The county purchased the property for a little more than $1.5 million.

The full buildout is expected to cost between $8 million and $10 million. A $7 million federal grant will go toward the construction costs.

The project is still in its early stages. The property is currently undergoing an environmental review. County officials hope to begin design work before the end of the year. Once design begins, officials estimate construction will take about two years.

The current target for completion is 2030.

One can only imagine what the first English colonists saw as the Carolina sailed up the peaceful waterway now known as the Ashley River to the site of the early settlement. But maybe the modern residents of Charleston can get close.

With the opening of Charleston County’s Old Towne Creek County Park, a large section of the west bank of the Ashley River is now either under protection with the Lowcountry Land Trust or in the public realm secured by three governmental groups: the new county park, the city of Charleston’s Higgins Pier and Carr-Richardson Park and the state's park at Charles Towne Landing.

These are places for the public to learn of our beginnings and follow our progresses to a modern suburb.

This feat amplifies what is becoming a rising importance in West Ashley: protecting our character. Residents, particularly of Inner West Ashley, have great pride in their neighborhoods, many more than 75 years old.

Save Historic West Ashley with the Preservation AND Progress Initiative have been diligently working for the past three years to bring education, understanding and data together to encourage our city, one that prides itself in its beauty, history and humanity, to bring a new level of protection across the river.

West Ashley is worthy. The buildings, thoroughfares, landscapes and scenic views that give West Ashley its character and tangible history are worthy of protecting. The Ashley River Memorial Bridge turns 100 years old this year, as will the neighborhood of Old Windermere. Maryville-Ashleyville, Wappoo Heights, The Crescent, Stono Park, Avondale and Byrnes Downs have also either celebrated their 100th birthday, or soon will.

Despite the significant age of these important character-filled neighborhoods, they have virtually no protections from demolition, incompatible alterations or infill development, save for the few offered to commercial structures through the increasingly threatened Design Review Board process. The city can change this.

Since, 1997, several studies of the historic built environment have laid out the need for historic designation and protection, most recently new area character appraisals that the city created for Byrnes Downs and Old Windermere.

There are now five additional area character appraisals in Inner West Ashley: Avondale, Ashley Forest, Magnolia, Stono Park and Washington Park. This summer the Preservation Society of Charleston conducted historic inventories of Byrnes Downs and Old Windermere, two neighborhoods deemed eligible for designation on the National Register for Historic Places.

We would be remiss not to list a few historic gems: 1) the early African American town of Maryville; 2) the West Ashley Bikeway and Greenway where interpretive signs outline the history, natural/cultural resources and infrastructure of the community; 3) the state historic marker in Byrnes Downs; 4) an early cemetery on Sycamore Road on land owned by the city. All witness our beginnings and our lives today. In addition, this fall the Preservation Society of Charleston will offer walking tours in Byrnes Downs and Old Windermere.

West Ashley is worthy. We call on the city to offer all of its residents something that is available to residents of many other cities across this country: a pathway toward local ordinance protections that can save our important historic neighborhoods from the demolition of their character and their tangible history.

While peninsula residents benefit from local protections that require public notice and comment when a historic building is proposed for demolition, historic West Ashley neighborhoods are not afforded the same opportunities. Similarly, many downtown residents have access to valuable tax credits for residential renovations through National Register designation, incentives that are available to very few off the peninsula. The city can fix this.

Not every neighborhood will want to be designated a local historic district, neither will every neighborhood embrace new protections against demolitions. But neighborhoods should be allowed to decide. Charleston County and cities such as Savannah have easy-to-understand applications for such designation available to all citizens. There is no reason Charleston, a leader in historic preservation, cannot offer its citizens the same.

CHARLESTON — A city board approved a request to remove more than two dozen trees for an affordable housing project off a highly trafficked road in West Ashley.

Charleston’s board of zoning appeals unanimously approved applicant SeamonWhiteside’s request to remove 25 grand trees to make room for approximately 100 for-sale housing units near the corner of Ashley River Road and Dogwood Road at their Oct. 7 meeting.

The land is zoned D1-RF, which allows for high-density residential, according to Eric Schultz, the city’s Technical Review Committee administrator.

Of the housing units — four multi-family buildings and 16 townhomes — being developed by Palmetto Homes, 75 percent will be designated affordable housing, Schultz said. The rest will be offered at market rate.

Spencer Plowden, a senior civil engineering project manager at SeamonWhiteside, said at the meeting that the development will include a stormwater pond to accommodate flooding and drainage.

This project has been in the works for years, with Homes for Hope originally leading the charge. The Greenville-based nonprofit has owned the property since 2019 when it purchased the 9 acres for $1.5 million, according to county records.

Nobody spoke against the request, but two spoke in favor, including Plowden.

The other supporter was Radia Baxter, representing Charleston Redevelopment Corporation — the nonprofit partner for the affordable housing project.

She said she understands the importance of protecting Charleston’s natural landscaping and preserving the character of the community. But the city has an urgent need for affordable housing, Baxter said.

“Today, we have an opportunity to move forward with a renewed vision that supports affordable housing while incorporating thoughtful design, green space and respect for the surrounding community,” she said.

The board unanimously approved the request with staff-recommended conditions, including installing a chain-link fence to protect the trees, implementing a protection plan and planting new trees in replacement of those being removed.