Taking the Long (Savannah) View

For better or for worse, Long Savannah, the proposed 1,250-acre housing development recently approved by City Council, may represent the future of West Ashley.
Located between Bees Ferry Road, Savannah Highway, and Glenn McConnell Parkway, Long Savannah represents the intersection of several important issues that could affect the daily lives of just about everyone living in West Ashley over the next few decades.
Planners, conservationists, and city officials hope the design of the new development, which could include anywhere from 4,500 to 6,000 housing units, will only add to the area’s economy and quality of life.
Done right, Long Savannah could usher in the same benefits the rapidly developing Mt. Pleasant has enjoyed over the past few decades, like rising property values, great shopping, and better schools.
Done wrong, Long Savannah could only worsen the already existing crawling morning commutes with tens of thousands more daily car trips, create a sense of disconnectedness, or take on the “plastic” quality many criticize planned urban development-rich East Cooper of having.
And the added car trips may be the final straw that breaks the back of arguments against completing Interstate 526.
So, how does West Ashley get all the good while avoiding the bad?
Tim Kean, director of Planning, Preservation & Sustainability for the City of Charleston, said concerns that West Ashley could morph into “Mt. Plastic” are unfounded.
“First off, Mt. Pleasant is nothing like West Ashley,” said Keane, who has been spending much of time for the past year in West Ashley, crafting a redevelopment plan for the ailing Citadel Mall and Sam Rittenberg Boulevard commercial corridor.
The “culture” of West Ashley, Keane said, referring to it as if he were a sociologist, is completely different “in very positive ways, utterly different from Mt. Pleasant.”
From a city planning perspective, Keane said West Ashley’s diversity is “refreshing.”
Joe Kohl of Kohl, Dover and Partners, the design firm charged with laying out Long Savannah, said that one of the keys to preserving that diversity, in its many shapes and colors, is to design a community that appeals to more than one kind of homebuyer or store owner.
The key to this is creating “walkable” communities, where residents could bike or walk to their “daily needs,” said Kohl, in town last week from Miami for a series of planning meetings for improving Folly road.
Providing those daily needs – work, play, living – has been the Holy Grail of a school of design and planning called New Urbanism, of which Kohl’s firm aspires to be a member.
Additionally, the plan has to include a diversity of housing options, said Kohl: “We know some people like to live in big houses with big yards, while other people are happy in a smaller house with a little yard; or in an apartment or townhouse; some will have children, others not.”
“The point is to get a great neighborhood. it has to be all mixed up,” he said.
City Councilman Aubry Alexander, who represents another part of West Ashley, worried that Long Savannah won’t be able to engender that “small town feel” that so much this piece of town enjoys.
“I wonder if the same sense of community will exist out there the way it does in the older areas of West Ashley,” said Alexander, a real estate agent. “ And when I say ‘older,’ remember I’m really talking about neighborhoods that didn’t develop until the 1960s or 70s.”
Inside of I-526, Alexander sees a strong level of “engagement,” where civic clubs are active and neighborhood councils come together over specific issues and shared concerns.
A development like Long Savannah, that’s far removed, Aubry says, may not engender the same tight knit relations, as many residents may treat the development as a bedroom community to leave in the morning for work, only to return in the evening.
Lisa Turansky, a chief conservation officer at the S.C. Conservation League, said one of the reasons her organization supports the massive development is the way in which Kohl and his partners are laying it out for developers to fill as the years go by.
Instead of walling off the development and creating straight feeder roads to the main traffic arteries, Turansky said the grid format of roads being designed inside the project will make it so residents will be more likely to stay close to home for work and play.
The plan includes a mix of retail, commercial, and office space along with a “town center” design.
Additionally, the plan includes the sale of massive tracts of land for new city and county parks, and abuts the area’s Urban Growth Boundary, intended to separate the green from the paved.
City Councilman Keith Waring recently said that Long Savannah might become one of the largest “cities” in South Carolina.
Here’s his thinking: if the total number of housing units, including apartments, gets to 6,000, and the average number of occupants of those units hits four, then it becomes home to 24,000 people.
Here’s some more math. Kohl said a development industry study from a few years ago found that each house represents 14 “daily car trips,” as residents go to work, the store, take kids to school and soccer, and the like.
Multiplied out, again using the biggest number of housing units, that could result in 84,000 additional daily car trips in an already choked traffic corridor.
That, many interviewed for this story, minus conservationist Turansky, could necessitate the completion of 526, an enormously sticky political, fiscal, and planning issue.
Planning czar Keane, however, said the existence of Long Savannah is moot in the 526-completion debate.
Reiterating one of his boss’ positions, Keane said that “even if not a single unit is ever built there, 526 has to be built out” to solve already existing traffic problems that exist along Savannah Highway (one of the most congested roads in the state), Glenn McConnell, and beyond.
Bill Moody, who also represents a chunk of West Ashley on City Council, praised the understanding between local councils, developers, planners, and owners, hammered out over the past seven years.
One piece of that is understanding that Moody, friends with the original owners, really likes is the agreement that several acres will be set aside for affordable housing.
In past developments, the city has required a certain percentage or number of affordable or “work force” housing. This time, Moody said, the city will own and develop units onsite, virtually insuring a higher level of diversity than is present in some Mt. Pleasant developments.
One of the most heralded Mt. Pleasant developments has been the award-winning and high-priced I’On neighborhood, replete with a school, recreation, worship sites, and the like.
But even that supposed New Urbanist nirvana had opposition. City fathers there blocked some of the plans to include more commercial uses. Councilman Alexander points out that a development close by struggled to find tenants for its apartments-over-commercial space paradigm.
Alexander wondered if people will want to live in similar situations at Long Savannah, or if they will want a house and road leading to Charleston, or burgeoning job markets in North Charleston, Goose Creek, and beyond.
Regardless of concerns or praise, Long Savannah may represent a new paradigm for West Ashley.
Will that paradigm include better shopping, better schools, and better resale values?
Or will it usher in worse traffic, bigger development, and a new bedroom community?
Time will tell whether West Ashley enjoys the effects of Long Savannah, or merely endures it.