Planning Commission supports expansion of Savannah Highway Overlay District

CHARLESTON - Many a Charleston home fronting a busy highway has been converted to a medical or legal office or other low-impact business, and Wednesday the Charleston Planning Commission made it easier for several more residences to join their ranks.

In a series of three unanimous votes the commission recommended amending the documents governing the Ashley Bridge District Plan and the Savannah Highway Overlay District and rezoning several properties lining the east side of Wesley Drive and the north side of Folly Road Boulevard.

The commission's recommendations now head to Charleston City Council for a public hearing on Sept. 27 at 5 p.m.

First created in the mid 1990s, the Ashley Bridge District Plan was worked out with residents in various neighborhoods in the area as a way to help protect the residential character of the district, according to Charleston Planning staff. It sought to allow some residential properties to be converted to tightly limited commercial uses, mainly as professional offices and the like.

In 2005 the city adopted an addendum to the plan, and at Wednesday's Planning Commission meeting the commissioners gave support to amending that addendum to add a dozen properties lining the triangle formed between Savannah Highway, Wesley Drive and Folly Road Boulevard to the 32 other formerly residential properties already approved for conversion to limited commercial uses identified by the city's Savannah Highway Overlay.

The owners of those properties, who sought the change, cited the changed nature of the neighborhood over the past 20-plus years. Increased traffic has made properties undesirable as places to live they said, one property owner noted that three cars had crashed into the home he owns in the 14 years he has owned it.

Most of the properties serve as rental housing and the owners say none of them house any children or families, and that it is time to let the properties be used for other things.

The commission had earlier this summer turned down a rezoning request made by one of the property owners, but at the time suggested that if several of the property owners in the area banded together to request rezoning of several of the properties, the chances of success would be greater. Meetings with the property owners and city planning staff followed, resulting in the plan the commissioners recommended Wednesday.

While all of the property owners spoke in support of the changes, one nearby resident of the Crescent neighborhood opposed the changes saying it would be harmful to the area to lose more residential property.