Long Savannah developers seek public opinions

A week of public planning workshops for the proposed 1,253-acre Long Savannah development in West Ashley began Friday evening with a presentation about the huge property, and the design concepts favored by the urban planning firm leading the workshops.

Tyrone Walker
The Post and Courier

West Ashley residents attend the kickoff presentation Friday for a week of public workshops aimed at gathering input on the design of the Long Savannah development.

The developers of Long Savannah have said they are coming to the table with a clean slate, eager to see what sort of residential and commercial development residents of the area would like to see.

Those residents may not want to suggest cul-de-sacs, wide roads and shopping malls at the workshops, however.

Planners with Dover, Kohl and Partners explained at length Friday why such staples of suburban life are the very things that crowd streets with speeding cars and degrade the quality of life.

In the new urbanist view of the planning firm, walkable streets are crucial to quality of life, design trumps density, and an appropriate sense of place is the big issue.

"We'll need to know, where do you think the Main Street kind of area is, and where the quiet, rural area is," said Victor Dover, who promised "an intense, but fun, community conversation" in the workshops to come.

Whatever Long Savannah turns out to look like, the challenge is to design neighborhoods, rather than a subdivision, he said.

Dover, Kohl and Partners is based in Florida but is known locally for designing the I'On development in Mount Pleasant, and more recently the 1,200-home Limehouse development in Summerville.

The firm was also involved with last year's effort by the East Cooper Planning Council to convince the town to build multi-lane roundabouts on Johnnie Dodds Boulevard rather than overpasses.

The Long Savannah property is far larger than I'On or Limehouse. At about 3,000 acres, it's roughly the same size the city of Charleston was in 1960.

Of the roughly 3,000 acres in the Long Savannah property, plans are already in place for roughly 1,800 acres to be sold to Charleston County and the city to create new parks, which Charleston Mayor Joe Riley says will create a "forever" green edge to the city more than twice the size of New York's Central Park.

The workshops are at the old Kincaid Furniture store, 1821 Sam Rittenberg Blvd., starting at 9 a.m., today through Thursday.

Reach David Slade at 937-5552 or dslade@postandcourier.com.