SUMMERVILLE, S.C. (WCSC) – The Town of Summerville is considering annexation and rezoning a section of land to support a potential townhome development.
The town’s planning commission is meeting on Monday for a public hearing and to vote on a request from the landowner and developer to annex and rezone a property, which is currently part of Dorchester County and zoned for single-family residential use.
This nearly five-acre property is located off Bacons Bridge Road at Crestwood Drive.
If the town moves forward with the request, the annexation would bring the property under the Town of Summerville’s jurisdiction and rezone it for multi-family residential use, allowing for more housing units to be built.
Town officials say that about an acre of the property is wetlands, so only about four acres of the property is developable land.
The Town of Summerville’s Director of Planning, Jessi Shuler, says that the development is still in its early stages, but current plans suggest it will include 20 to 30 townhomes.
“It can vary depending on meeting our other requirements because we do have obviously stormwater requirements and parks and open space requirements that they will have to meet. Then they will have to build a road and so it just kind of varies as to how many they will actually be able to fit, but right now it looks like it will be somewhere between 20 and 30 units,” Shuler says.
She says the development plans so far have gone to the town’s technical review committee, but they haven’t submitted their plans yet to the design review board which is the next step.
Shuler says that the landowner and applicant haven’t discussed their reasons as to why they are seeking annexation into the town rather than remaining in Dorchester County.
Summerville resident and Board Member of the Bike and Walk Summerville advocacy group, Chris McClure, says he sees this potential development as a positive opportunity for his community.
“The lack of housing is very apparent to anybody who pays rent within the local area. I recently was looking for an apartment and there was nothing that I could find that was under thirteen or fourteen hundred,” McClure says. “The fact of the matter is we do need to build more housing. People want to live here, they’re going to find a way to live here even if it’s like renting for a little bit then finding a unit.”
This property is located near the Sawmill Branch Trail and McClure says the development could help create a more connected community, providing more opportunities to bike and walk the trail.
“When we don’t allow townhouses and apartments to be in the walking, biking, downtown kind of connected areas what ends up happening is that we push them out and we push them farther. We push them in areas where there are two-lane roads and ditches on the sides and guess what happens? Well, they have to have jobs, they have to work, they have to live in Summerville still and now 100 percent of those people are now dependent on a vehicle for all of their trips,” McClure says.
Shuler says whether the planning commission denies or approves the annexation and zoning request at Monday’s meeting the proposal will still move forward to the planning and development committee of council in April. That committee will then make a recommendation to the town council who will have final approval.
The planning commission ended up recommending that this request be denied.
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