Town Council will consider a proposal to rezone two parcels of property on Dills Bluff Road at its regular meeting next Thursday at 7:00 at Town Hall. The two parcels are located immediately behind the Camp Center Shopping Center. One parcel is 1.27 acres and zoned community commercial. This is immediately behind the shopping center. The second parcel is 5.25 acres. It is zoned low density residential. This parcel is behind the smaller parcel and mostly is bounded by Whitehouse Plantation. The proposal combines the two properties and rezones it as a planned unit development called Marsh Walk Village.
The property is owned by the James Island Public Service District. The Commissioners, elected by the voters of the District, which includes the Town and the unincorporated area of James Island, voted to sell the property. The JIPSD procurement policy requires that they sell it by open bid. The highest bid was KT Properties, offering just under $2 million. The developer has a contract with the JIPSD. The JIPSD is bound by the contract. but the developer can refuse to make the purchase if the Town votes down the requested zoning change. If the contract falls through, the JIPSD will likely bid the property out again.
The reason the JIPSD is selling the property is to fund renovations to their facility at Signal Point Road. In 2014, the JIPSD considered moving their operations from Signal Point Road to the Dills Bluff property. This would involve parking their fleet of garbage and waste water vehicles there, along with their maintenance shop. They had also planned on moving their administrative offices to Dills Bluff. While their administrative offices could be placed on the smaller commercially zoned parcel without any rezoning, their other operations would require a rezoning to industrial. At the time, I told the JIPSD Commissioners that I would oppose that rezoning and that I was sure that the majority of Town Council would also vote against. I told the JIPSD Commissioners that I would support having the Town purchase the back part of the property with greenbelt funds for a park, and purchase a portion of the front part of the property for a Town Hall. The JIPSD could move its administrative offices to the remainder of the front of the property. My plan would have required a rezoning of the front part of the property to office or office residential.
The JIPSD Commissioners voted against the proposed move in 2014, largely due to the outcry by neighbors in Whitehouse Plantation. In 2019, former Chair of the JIPSD, Alan Laughlin, again proposed moving their Signal Point operations to Dills Bluff, and the JIPSD Commission voted it down 6 to 1. Since the Town is very unlikely to approve the rezoning necessary to move the JIPSD's industrial activities to the Dills Bluff site, they have decided to sell the property and use the money to fix up the Signal Point Road facility. None of the current Commissioners support moving their industrial operations from Signal Point Road, but the buildings there are nearly 50 years old and need to be protected from flooding.
The question before Town Council isn't whether the JIPSD should be allowed to sell the property--they can--but rather a rezoning. Again, over an acre of the property is currently zoned commercial. Under the Town's Zoning Ordinance, property zoned community commercial can include a variety of business and office uses as well as multifamily housing. The allowed housing density is quite low--4 units per acre. So, for example, a developer could put businesses on the ground floor with apartments on the second floor. Given the size of the parcel, that would be a total of 5.08 dwelling units, which rounds down to 5 apartments. Of course, they could dispense with the businesses and just put 5 single family homes on the site, with the quarter acre yards typical of much lowcountry suburban development. Or, they could just put one or more businesses on the site without any apartments.
The larger 5.25 acre parcel is zoned low density residential and is limited to single family development. The density allowed is 3 units per acre, so the total dwelling units that would be permitted is 15.75, which rounds up to 16. These would be single family detached housing units. Each home would be on an approximate 1/3 acre lot.
Considering the two parcels together, under current zoning, 21 housing units are allowed, as well a variety of businesses or offices.
The proposed rezoning has commercial uses in three buildings on 1.6 acres and then attached single family homes on the remainder. These are townhouses, but each townhouse is on a separate lot, so it is single family attached. The developer has proposed two different approaches to the townhouses. One approach would be 20 larger townhouses. The other would be 25 townhouses, with some being smaller and others larger. The first approach is consistent with the total number of housing units allowed by the current zoning, but the other approach increases the number of housing units by 4. The smaller units would be less costly and so would help provide affordable housing on James Island. (The smaller townhouses would be more affordable than the larger ones, though given current market conditions on James Island, even these small ones would be pretty expensive.)
The Town's Planning Commission considered the rezoning on Thursday, September 14th. They voted to recommend that Town Council approve the rezoning 4 to 1, with conditions. One condition is a 20 unit cap, in effect, mandating the larger townhouse option and limiting the overall density of the project to what is allowed with the current zoning. There were several other conditions recommended by the Town's Planning Director, that were adopted by the Commission. For example, any restaurants in the business section would require a BZA special exception to sell alcohol.
While the Planning Commission has already included what I consider the key condition--no increase in total number of dwelling units allowed, I cannot support the project unless further conditions are included.
I don't believe that the Town's zoning code should include a prohibition on gun shops at this location. The notion that a gun shop located here would increase crime in the area is absurd. Criminals don't get guns at neighborhood gun shops to commit crime in their neighborhoods. The reason for this provision is "symbolic" to show that the Town of James Island feels that guns are too available in our society. I don't believe this reflects the feelings of most residents of the Town.
More importantly, there is much interest by the residents of the area in using these parcels for a park. The Town has $760,000 in greenbelt funds. While this does not come close to purchasing property worth nearly $2 million, it will purchase a little less than 40%. I beleive that having a park in this location would be desirable.
Regardless, property should transition the uses from commercial to the single family residential that currently exist in the adjacent portion of Whitehouse Plantation.
I plan to propose these conditions for the rezoning to Town Council.
A. Up to 20 single family detached dwelling units, with the possibility of substituting up to 5 single family attached dwelling units (townhouses) on a one for one basis. The maximum allowed would be 5 single family attached dwelling units and 15 single family detached dwelling units.
B. The single-family attached dwelling units must be located in the southern portion of the property adjacent to Camp Center Villas and/or the Camp Center Shopping Center. The single-family detached dwelling units may be located adjacent to Whitehouse Plantation.
C. The commercial section of the property should be no more than 1.27 acres and located on the southwest portion of the properly adjacent to Dills Bluff Road and the Camp Center shopping center. (Roughly where the plan currently locates the businesses.)
D. The prohibition on gun shops on this property shall not be included in planned unit development..
E. The developer will agree to sell up to $750,000 worth of the property at the appraised value to the Town for a park, contingent on the Town obtaining a grant from Charleston County Greenbelt. The property to be sold will be on the west side, adjacent to Whitehouse Plantation. The number of dwelling units will be reduced in proportion to the amount of property to be included in the park
With these conditions, I think the rezoning would be in the best interests of the Town.
