Board turns down design of proposed development
The controversial Angel Oak Village development, a plan to build more than
600 apartments and condominiums on Johns Island on land abutting Angel Oak
Park, was dealt a setback Thursday by Charleston's Commercial Corridor
Design Review Board.
Opponents of a proposed development near the Angel Oak tree hope the
builders will reduce the project's scale now that a city board has rejected
its design.
The board reviews the design elements of certain development plans, and
found the collection of three-story apartment buildings proposed in the
first phase of Angel Oak Village unappealing in several respects. They
unanimously voted against conceptual approval.
Opponents, who have been mobilized by the proximity of the development at
Maybank Highway and Bohicket Road to Charleston's Angel Oak Park, hope the
setback will prompt developers to negotiate on reducing the scale of the
project and perhaps increasing a buffer area around the park and its famous
tree.
"We're pretty much fighting this at every step of the way," said Johns
Island resident Samantha Siegel, creator of savetheangeloak.org. "We can
keep this up a long time."
Robert DeMoura, of Angel Oak Village Development LLC, said his team will
give the plan some further study. "We're very good at listening," he said.
Zoning for the development was approved last summer by the Charleston City
Council, and the plan has been supported by the city's Planning Division.
The only issues still awaiting city approval are those involving the height
and mass of the buildings, and their appearance.
The land has been approved for development since 2001, and was originally
slated for a big-box type store and about 200 residences. The plan was
revised when Sea Island Comprehensive Health Care, a nonprofit organization
that operates health and nursing facilities on adjacent property, sold the
land in 2005 after filing for bankruptcy protection.
That year, the city threatened to buy the land in bankruptcy court unless
developers agreed to large buffers, hydrology studies and the hiring of an
arborist chosen by the city. The huge Angel Oak tree, rumored to be 1,400
years old, sits within Charleston's fenced 2-acre park, which would be
surrounded by an additional 150-foot undisturbed buffer under the
development agreement.
City planning officials are confident the tree is adequately protected and
see the development as part of a larger plan for Johns Island, which calls
for densly built commercial and residential communities at several points
along Maybank Highway.
Members of the city's CCDRB didn't share that vision Thursday.
"The scale of those buildings does not relate to any village or small town
I'm familiar with," said board member Ashley Jennings.
While Siegel's group is focused on winning a larger buffer area around the
tree, and the Coastal Conservation League has gone from supporting the
project to now opposing it in its current form, the Design Review Board
focused upon the large rectangular or L-shaped apartment buildings.
Several board members said they'd like to see the buildings broken up into
smaller structures, and said the developers didn't go far enough toward
making Angel Oak Village pedestrian-oriented. Curiously, several board
members also said the Angel Oak Park shouldn't be shrouded from the
development so that residents could enjoy it.
That's exactly the opposite of what the city has insisted upon. The buffer
area was specifically designed so that the development would not be visible
from the park.
|
My
Scribe