The Post and Courier published a public notice on March 4th about two separate requests to the town of Awendaw for subdivisions. Subdivisions requests at a Town Hall meeting are nothing new, but ones of this size have enormous ramifications for the growth of Awendaw. The public notice is very unclear and indicates that both subdivisions will result in neighborhoods with 204 lots each, a coincidence I find hard to believe and must be a misprint. Here is what we do know though.
The first subdivision is a 184-acre parcel is located at the White Doar Mine Tract and will be known as “Romain Bay Preserve”. It will be developed in several phases and this application represents the first Phase with 85 new parcels. So the total number of homes is unknown.
You may recall in 2016, this same property was identified by Charleston County School District as a potential site for a new high school. The site was generally lauded by local residents but required an agreement between the Town of Awendaw, CCSD, and an unnamed developer (unknown if it is the same one seeking this new subdivision) which was to provide sewage disposal for the school and its own development that had the wastewater being disposed of at the Town’s public park.
The second subdivision involves two of the four tracts which make up what is commonly called the “White Tract”. These two parcels are total approximately 148 acres and are bisected by Bulls Island Rd. The first phase will consist of 81 lots and the second phase will be 123 lots for a total of 204. Plans of the second phase indicate that the average lot size will be 0.43 acres and that the homes will be served by individual private septic systems. The quantity of septic systems in such close proximity to wetlands is causing some concern for fear that run-off could contaminate local water including the Cape Romain Wildlife Refuge. Pulte Homes is making this application. The Pultegroup is the 3rd largest home construction company in the US and builds under the Pulte Homes name but has also purchased or builds under the names Centex, Del Webb, and John Wieland.
It is worth noting that adjacent to this subdivision looms the 1000-acre King Tract which could create three times as many homes as these two subdivisions combined.
I warned about high-density housing in a previous post from 2019 saying, “If any of these [discussed in that article] tracts were allowed to be developed at close to 1/4 acre-sized home sites it could double the population of the town and forever transform the rural face of Awendaw.” In the three years since Awendaw’s zoning ordinance remains unchanged and allows for single-family home sites to be as small as 12,500 sq.ft. (~0.29 acres) where public water is present. Awendaw has its own public water system installed in the vicinity of both of these locations.
All concerned citizens should attend this important meeting and let your council members know how you feel about the issue.
The public hearing will take place:
6:00 PM on Monday, March 21, 2022
Awendaw Town Hall
691 Doar Road
Awendaw, SC 29429
Corrections:
3/9/22 1:55 pm – Corrected verbiage and image of Romain Bay Preserve to indicate an unknown number of total homes when the 204 homes were verified for the White Tract development. Added septic information and concerns.