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Please send a quick note to last night’s TIF heroes! Here are their email addresses:
jqualey@charlestoncounty.org,
dickieschweers@tds.net,
colleen@colleencondon.com
The majority of proposed changes to the UGB discussed at Charleston County’s Planning Commission meeting (4/8/13) are logical adjustments to clean up sloppy mapping and/or encompass incorporated properties that are already developed (or are slated for urban level development, e.g. Long Savannah). Most adjustments are retractions that add rural area.
Two proposed expansions of the UGB on Johns Island, however, are extremely ill-conceived and defeat the entire purpose of an urban growth boundary. We oppose both of these proposed expansions on Johns Island:
1. Brownswood Road:
(Map of current and proposed UGB at Brownswood Road)
The UGB currently runs down the center of Brownswood Rd, making everything to the east (right) urban/suburban and everything to the west (left) rural.
County staff proposes to move the line west to accommodate some existing suburban-level development, allow properties west of the road to connect to the sewer/water in Brownswood Rd, and to follow a water feature that runs along the path of the proposed UGB location. Staff also mentioned that moving it west of Brownswood would allow for the implementation of a rural-to-urban transition on the west side of Brownswood.
None of these reasons are adequate to support moving the line. Brownswood Rd is a bright line; land to the east is zoned and/or designated for suburban growth and land to the west is zoned/designated for rural growth.
Additionally, in the Land Use section of the City’s Century V Plan Update (page 59 of the update) it is stated that there is already more than adequate developable land within the UGB to accommodate growth into the next century:
“Within the urban and suburban areas of West Ashley, James Island, and Johns Island as defined by the 2008 Charleston County Comprehensive Plan there are about ten square miles of undeveloped land. This is more land than the entire Charleston peninsula. In addition, about twenty square miles of vacant land is available in Berkeley
County south of the Francis Marion Forest and Flag Creek. So within the proposed urban and suburban areas of the City there is sufficient land available for development to meet increased demand, consumer preferences and demographic changes that will occur well into the next century.
One Planning Commissioner indicated last night that moving the line to encompass 539 acres of rural land west of Brownswood Rd is necessary to accommodate the growth this region is experiencing. However, the above excerpt from the City’s Comp Plan Update debunks this myth.
2. Kiawah River Plantation
Refer to page 85 of the attached. The UGB currently is ill-defined in the vicinity of KRP. Staff seeks to clarify the location by adjusting the UGB to follow the site boundary of KRP.
Problem: The approved Development Agreement (DA) and Planned Development (PD) layout are informed by the current location of the UGB. The proposed density and location of density are also informed by the UGB. The proposed development can proceed as planned/approved without adjusting the UGB.
Adjusting the UGB will only serve to remove a substantial obstacle to amending the DA/PD to allow more density. That is, when the site is bisected by the UGB as it currently is, reducing the density to account for the substantial rural portion produces an appropriate level of development intensity; if the entire site is within the UGB as proposed, a future amendment to the DA/PD will undoubtedly call for urban/suburban development across the entire site.
We are also looking at how this adjustment may benefit the TIF and PSD proposals pending for KRP.
(This overview was written by our friend Jake Libaire, who works at the Coastal Conservation League.)
This week, Representative Brown asked Attorney General Alan Wilson some tough questions about the legality of 526. Read his letter here (it’s amazing!) and then share to spread the word.
Also, please take a moment to thank Representative Brown! This is so important. Send him a message at http://www.scstatehouse.gov/email.php?T=M&C=220454519 or, even better, post on his Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/robert.l.brown.526.
We don’t know how Diane Knich managed to pull this confession out of Chip Limehouse at last, but here is some damn fine journalism:
http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20121129/PC16/121129332/1005/are-there-other-options-for-i-526
This article is so important, we may have to post it twice. Please read and share.
Note, however, that $136 million of the SIB’s $556 million pledge have never been approved by the Joint Bond Review Committee. If we extended I-526, Charleston would be on the hook for that amount too!
http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/charleston/i-526-could-be-rileys-biggest-mistake
We are deeply grateful for the many donations we have received over the past two weeks, and we have used them to purchase an ad which will appear in tomorrow’s edition of The Chronicle (http://www.
We would also like to send a very special thank you to Mr. Isaac Godfrey for welcoming us into his home and sharing his beautiful story. Mr. Godfrey lives on a dirt road immediately adjacent to the proposed path of I-526. He is a widower, but he is surrounded by members of his family who love and watch over him, including his niece, his grand-niece, his nephew, and his 93-year-old sister.
Mr. Godfrey and his family opened their arms to us and showed us a glimpse of their lives. Before Jenny and I met them, we knew we were opposed to I-526. Now this fight has come to mean so much more.
Please help us fight for Mr. Godfrey and his family by writing and calling County Council. They have written County Council, but they are not being heard. Their family is just of hundreds of families that would be hurt by I-526. If they matter to you, please support them. Please use your voice to ask County Council to vote NO!
Robin and Jenny
Email addresses: colleen@colleencondon.com, tpryor@charlestoncounty.org, jqualey@charlestoncounty.org, vrawl@charlestoncounty.org, hsass@charlestoncounty.org, dickieschweers@tds.net, esummey@charlestoncounty.org,
With all due respect, Mayor Riley, that’s no “slice.”
Today’s lead editorial is superb!
Some of our favorite parts of the Editorial:
Mayor Riley continues to be dismissive of the I-526 plan’s critics, describing the five public hearings in 2010 as being “hijacked” by a “well-funded and well-orchestrated” effort aimed at derailing the project. He cited a DOT mail-in survey and anecdotal evidence of public support as reasons to persist.
We’d prefer to think that the hundreds of opponents who turned out at those hearings recognized the flaws of Alternative G, which fundamentally changes the existing 60 mph elevated expressway into a 45 mph at-grade highway with additional intersections that will encourage new development on both James and Johns islands.
As former state transportation secretary H.B. “Buck” Limehouse told us when Alternative G was first presented: “What’s the point of building a road to relieve congestion when you are encouraging development?”
…
County Council has thoroughly vetted this project and heard the pros and cons. As the original sponsor, County Council has the responsibility to vote the project up or down, not pass it off to the city like a hot potato.
And the SIB threat to force repayment of the $11.6 million should not be central to that decision. A lawyer with the Southern Environmental Law Center has persuasively argued in a brief that the county cannot be held responsible for project costs when its “no” decision followed the requisite federal process of public review.
…
While there are mixed views about the I-526 extension among County Council, it’s worth noting that council rejected Alternative G unanimously. It is reasonable to ask why it would agree to a request that could ultimately reverse that long-considered decision.
…
The SIB has approved that amount. The mayor says if the costs exceed that figure, the SIB would pay them.
Yet SIB board member Eddie Adams, who’s also chairman of the state highway commission, told our reporter that he thinks the city would have to pay any extra expense.
» Would the project live up to its billing as a major solution for wide-ranging problems of intense local traffic congestion?
The number of interchanges will encourage more development, and more traffic. And it’s reasonable to worry that the James Island Connector, which would join the I-526 extension at Folly Road, would dump much more traffic onto the Charleston peninsula where the connector ends at Calhoun Street. That location is already highly congested during morning rush hour.
(Please go read the article in its entirety. It truly is wonderful!)
