JOHNS ISLAND, S.C. (WCIV) — It started as an island paradise, but residents at a Johns Island apartment complex say their home now resembles the woods.

The residents of Sea Island Apartments, which houses about 48 people off Maybank Highway, are speaking out against what they describe as "deplorable" conditions.

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"We have seen grass grow almost knee and chest high," said Farley, a disabled military veteran who has been living in the complex for six years. "You see fallen trees in the area, people not receiving maintenance, and overloaded trash bin."

In addition to the overgrown vegetation, the residents are concerned about random visits from wildlife. They say it seems management has slacked off and there's been little to no communication.

"You're forced to pay rent on time, but still, your issues are going unaddressed," Farley said. "We'll reach out to management and they haven't meet with us. Every time, they change management or owners. Nobody has contact to it."

It started as an island paradise, but residents at a Johns Island apartment complex say their home now resembles the woods. (WCIV)

There is also only one trashcan in the entire community and a small number of parking spaces.

"You have disabled people having to walk all the way down to one trash bin," Farley said. "There are not enough handicap parking spots. (Management) told us we'd have to park on the side of the road if there are no parking spaces."

"It's time we be up to date, as we were before," said Charlotte Turner, who has been living in the complex for 10 years. "Management needs to show a serious concern about resident complaints, at least be willing to meet or communicate."

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A councilman was reached for comment on this area, but he was unable to conduct an interview due to prior commitments. A representative from the Charleston Development Group was also reached for comment.

There are several powerful reasons why Seabrook Island Town Council should reject a proposed annexation that would pave the way for a new boat dock, private clubhouse, boathouse, pool house and 10 rental cottages near the town’s northern limits.

The additional boat and car traffic would create more congestion on Betsy Kerrison Parkway in particular and Johns Island in general, as well as more pollution to the otherwise pristine Bohicket Creek. But the biggest reason Town Council should reject the 18-acre annexation is the dangerous precedent it would set, a precedent that would erode the rural character of southern Johns Island.

Decades ago, local governments, led by the city of Charleston and Charleston County, agreed on an urban growth boundary across Johns Island and other areas. The big idea was to ensure their zoning and other policies were synchronized to allow suburban development to continue to spread, but only up to a point, beyond which the existing rural nature would be preserved. The boundary has generally worked well, but as with so much other conservation work, it needs to be embraced and reaffirmed by each new generation.

Seabrook Island’s potential move would mark one of the first and most dramatic annexations by a municipality into the rural portion of the island; if it succeeds, it almost assuredly wouldn’t be the last, and it could hasten the unraveling of the boundary line — and increase development pressures on the shrinking amount of land on the rural side of the boundary.

Robby Maynor of the Coastal Conservation League agrees that annexing and rezoning this property on the rural side of the urban growth boundary would set a disastrous precedent on the county’s Sea Islands and could lead to annexation battles such as those that are playing out along the most rural stretches of the upper Ashley River, whose rural historic district remains in jeopardy from encroaching homes, stores and the traffic they bring. Approving the marina project would be “like kicking an anthill and hoping you don’t get bit,” he says.

The case that the property’s owner and other supporters have made for the annexation is that it would give Seabrook Island future control of the site and limit future development there, according to reporter Warren Wise. But the proposal appears to us as designed to facilitate development, not to curb it. Annexing the site, which is next to Bohicket Marina, would allow it to tie into the town’s sewer system.

Unfortunately, Seabrook Island’s Planning Commission has recommended annexing the site and rezoning it for a mixed-used development. We urge Town Council members to reject that move when they consider the matter Aug. 22.

As Mr. Wise noted, the project is a scaled-down version of a 30-year-old Andell Harbor project that state environmental regulators rightly and mercifully rejected. While this is smaller, with only about 4 acres of development near the creek and the rest set aside for open space, it still would represent an unwelcome and disturbing encroachment into the rural area between the barrier islands of Kiawah and Seabrook and the suburban growth from the city of Charleston.

Last year, we urged elected officials, neighborhood leaders and planners with Charleston County and the two beach towns to come up with a mutually agreed-upon overlay for their shared area at the southern tip of Johns Island. That overlay should guide future development toward the kinds of uses — and the sizes and scale — residents of all three jurisdictions would most like to see, and help address growing real estate pressures in a way residents prefer. We repeat the call for regional cooperation, and Seabrook Island’s rejection of this annexation would be an important first step.

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JOHNS ISLAND, S.C. (WCBD) – Trident Medical Center is looking to build a new hospital on Johns Island.

A certificate of need was submitted by Trident Medical to the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) in a step toward constructing a 50-bed acute care facility between Maybank Highway and Cane Slash Road.

It would be directly across from the Live Oak Square development.

“We are excited to continue making medical care more accessible to residents in our historically underserved communities,” said Trident Health President and CEO Christina Oh. “Currently on Johns Island and neighboring communities, it can take residents 30 to 45 minutes to drive to their nearest hospital, and often longer in heavy traffic and inclement weather. Our goal is to increase access to timely, high quality, and affordable health care services.”

Trident leaders estimate the cost of building the new hospital at about $277 million. They said that in the first three years, the Johns Island Hospital would create nearly 300 jobs, contribute to $10 million in non-income taxes to support the community and pay $70 million in salaries, wages, and benefits.

“Johns Island Hospital will mean many residents in the area won’t have to leave the island for work. This will be a great benefit to them and their families,” said Oh regarding job creation.

In addition, the new Johns Island Hospital would be located seven miles from James Island Emergency, which is Trident’s new freestanding ER on Folly Road, which is slated to open in the next few weeks.

The hospital would include 50 beds with space to expand to 150 beds. It would have 40 medical/surgical/stepdown beds, 10 ICU beds, 20 ER rooms, four operating rooms, two endoscopy rooms, and other resources.

Leaders say the third floor will also be designed for future expansion to include a labor and delivery unit and nursery.

“From our first discussions about building a hospital on Johns Island, we have been committed to creating a thoughtful plan that preserves the natural beauty of Johns Island. We will honor the strong Gullah Geechee cultures of the community; we will partner with the areas’ community and businesses; and will promote the important and unique contributions of Johns Island’s agricultural community,” said Oh.

Trident Health operates hospitals in North Charleston, Summerville, and Moncks Corner with three area freestanding emergency departments, and Live Oak Mental Health and Wellness. Its fourth freestanding emergency department is forthcoming.

The full scope of the $3 million project would have brought updates to the school’s stadium and baseball fields.

JOHNS ISLAND, S.C. (WCSC) - A project to bring much-needed renovations to athletic fields used by St. John’s High School’s baseball and softball teams has been pushed back and funds for the project have been diverted to other, more “priority” projects.

The full scope of the $3 million project would have brought updates to the school’s stadium and baseball fields. It’s part of a $54 million program the board approved back in February that covered nearly two dozen projects across the district. The district says $2 million from those projects has been reallocated to other priorities.

Millicent Traeye Middleton is the parent of a former student-athlete and sits on the school improvement council. She says they’ve been waiting years to have baseball fields that rival the facilities at other major high schools.

“The people moving here are taking their students off the island to go support other schools because they are already built up, they’re already developed,” Middleton said. “They have great education programs. They have great facilities.”

Many of the other renovations at the field will go ahead this year, but the baseball fields will not.

Currently, St. John’s students use the fields at John’s Island Park, which is owned by the City of Charleston. District staff said during a board meeting that the project has to be delayed while they work out a stormwater issue with the city. They say the project is getting pushed back about a year.

Darlene Dunmeyer-Roberson is the school board representative in the area where the high school sits. She says she’s extremely disappointed that the project is being put on hold.

“Inequities continue to shape how students experience school differently in rural areas. We do not always receive the same attention or resources as other district schools. Whether it’s experienced educators, corporate partnerships, or comparable athletic facilities to showcase our talents, the underlying factor remains the same,” Dunmeyer-Roberson wrote in a statement. “Students and families in rural areas of the District deserve the same level of support, opportunities, and educational outcomes as those in any other zip code. It is my expectation that the District Office will revisit St. John’s High School baseball/softball field project and make it a priority.”

Phase One of the project was supposed to start this year and would have included upgraded lighting, dugouts, new batting cages, improvements to the press box and bathrooms as well as new scoreboards. The fields themselves would have seen irrigation improvements. About half of the project would have been completed in Phase One. District staff say they will allocate more money to phase two and complete the whole project at one time next year.

The project was always planned for two fiscal years and would not have been upgraded/completed before the Spring 2024 season.

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A 25-acre wetland restoration project on Johns Island is turning the tide on how the city of Charleston manages water.

The $13 million Barberry Woods drainage improvement project cleared its final funding hurdle this week and is expected to provide relief to a frequently flooded neighborhood on the island, as well as create a new passive park for nearby residents. The property will help absorb and store stormwater like a natural sponge rather than siphon it away with a series of drains and pipes.

Charleston City Council voted July 18 to accept a nearly $5 million grant from the state of South Carolina, as well as put $8 million worth of city drainage funds toward the effort.

As street flooding in Barberry Woods became more severe and slower to drain, city officials and nearby residents grew nervous. They feared that the floodwater would eventually reach the homes or cause issues in surrounding neighborhoods.

“Since I’ve been on council, one of those questions I would always get was, ‘Why would you even build there in the first place?,’ ” said Charleston Council member Karl Brady, whose district includes Johns Island.

If the subdivision was proposed 20 years later, it may never have been built.

A new stormwater manual adopted by city council in 2019 requires new developments to store enough stormwater to negate any potential downstream impacts. And more recently, City Council banned slab-on-grade foundations, common for single-family subdivisions, in the 100-year flood plain. The building practice is largely regarded as a perpetrator of increased flooding.

But not all of the water management regulations that city officials are considering have been finalized yet, leaving some development practices in a gray area.

A pilot project

The Barberry Woods project is one of the largest efforts of its kind on Johns Island and in the city as a whole. It’s a test of “green infrastructure,” or the practice of managing water the way the natural environment already does rather than forcing it through a network of drainage pipes.

“It’s a nice pilot project for building these large scale green infrastructure projects,” said Matt Fountain, city stormwater director.

The city is following a similar approach in the Church Creek Basin in West Ashley. In 2019, the city bought out a neighborhood of 32 frequently flooded townhomes. The community, known as Bridgepointe, will eventually be converted into a passive park, although the project is in earlier stages.

Fountain said the city did not pursue buyouts in Barberry Woods for two reasons: Because buy-outs must be voluntarily agreed to, city officials were uncertain that homeowners would be interested; although the roads frequently flood and hold stormwater for hours and even days, flooding of the homes themselves is not a frequent problem. Additionally, the cost to buy the homes would likely exceed the cost of the proposed drainage project.

“When the homes are repeatedly flooding, the homeowners are more interested,” Fountain said.

Robby Maynor, a program director with the Coastal Conservation League, said he is excited to see the city embracing more nature-based projects. Not only will the project protect Barberry Woods, but it will also provide park space for residents and an improved habitat for local wildlife.

“This is a great step and something that should be incorporated throughout developments in these low-lying areas,” he said.

The challenge moving forward will be setting aside resources to maintain the property and encouraging more private developments to take a similar approach in their stormwater management plans. Ideally, Maynor said, such practices would be required or incentivized in city code.

Learning from past mistakes

Developments across the city are proceeding with new projects amid ongoing regulatory shifts.

What is currently legal may not be legal a few years from now.

That’s because Charleston officials are currently crafting a Comprehensive Water Plan and a new zoning code for the entire city. When those documents are complete, developers will have a new set of standards to follow. And those could restrict how much building happens in low-lying areas. A plan adopted in 2021 called for elevation-based zoning to be the foundation of the city’s currently ongoing zoning re-write