Berkeley County proposal targets developments that cluster homesBerkeley wants elbow room By Andy Paras (Contact)
The Post and Courier
Monday, April 14, 2008
Wade Spees Everett Mahon doesn't like the new subdivision he drives through to get to his house on a large lot off Cypress Gardens Road. If you goBerkeley County Council will consider a moratorium on clustering of houses at 6 tonight during its monthly meeting at 1003 U.S. Highway 52 in Moncks Corner. MONCKS CORNER — Berkeley County wants to put an end to tightly packed neighborhoods that offer little or no open space for their residents. Next week, County Council will consider a nine-month moratorium on accepting or approving any plans for subdivisions that would 'cluster' homes. Clustering allows developers to squeeze smaller lots into their plans if they agree to designate 'green space.' The problem is that the county's current ordinance allows developers to claim unusable wetlands and rights of way as green space, leaving little or no park space or recreational areas, Berkeley County Planning and Zoning Director Jeff Tyndall said. Tyndall said the moratorium would buy the county enough time to adopt an ordinance that would require and encourage developers to create usable open space for their inhabitants. Plans already accepted or approved would not be affected. 'This just offers a little bit of protection right now so we don't get steamrolled,' Tyndall said. But one developer said instituting a moratorium during a housing market crisis will only put more pressure on builders trying to create affordable housing. 'It's just very difficult without clustering to produce affordable housing in Berkeley County,' said Cy Goforth, director of land acquisitions and development for BFH Developers on Daniel Island. Tyndall said the proposed ordinance would better define 'green spaces' and change the way developers calculate the number of homes they could put on a property. As it stands now, developers can reduce lot sizes from 14,000 square feet to 6,000 square feet if they set aside green space. They also can base the number of homes they build on the gross acreage of the property, even if a large portion is uninhabitable. The new ordinance would require the number of houses to be based largely on the property that is buildable. 'Density is good when done correctly, but it shouldn't be done at the sacrifice of open space,' Tyndall said. The proposal comes too late for residents in the Berkeley Run subdivision. The community of large houses on sprawling 5-, 10- and 15-acre tracts off of Cypress Gardens Road tried unsuccessfully to keep a tightly packed development from being built next door. Charlotte Crosby, president of the Berkeley Run Homeowners Association, said residents are worried the new community will lower their property values and increase traffic. 'We were trying to keep it as rural as we could,' Crosby said. Under the current ordinance, BFH Developers is building 74 houses on 26 acres next to Berkeley Run. But eight of those 26 acres are unusable because they are wetlands, and that doesn't include the space that roads and rights of way will take up, Tyndall said. The roughly 6,000-square-foot lots leave as little as 10 feet between houses. 'They've used every inch they possibly could,' Berkeley Run resident Francine Reed said. Goforth said parks are great but that they shouldn't come at the expense of affordable housing for young families who don't want to rent. 'There's people who just want to have a house,' he said. He said changing the law could force developers to buy more land, causing sprawl and driving up costs that the homeowners will have to pay. Tyndall said the proposal will give developers a bonus if they include open, usable space in their plans. The bonus would be an increase in the percentage of homes they could cluster together. BFH recently applied for a second phase of the project, which likely would exempt it from the proposed moratorium. The second phase includes 122 homes on 43 acres, 10 of which are wetlands. Crosby said she's disappointed the county didn't move faster to get a new ordinance passed. County Council gave first reading to a new ordinance in October but the measure has never been back before council. Tyndall said he needs more time to complete the ordinance. The bottom line is the current ordinance needs to be changed to reflect what is being done in surrounding communities, he said. 'It's archaic,' Tyndall said of the current ordinance. Reach Andy Paras at 745-5891 or at aparas@postandcourier.com. |
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Comments
This article has 33 comment(s)
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Posted by chucktonian on April 14, 2008 at 1:18 a.m. (Suggest removal)
good. it's time to check these developers overrunning berk co with their mcmansions built by illegal mexicans out of compressed paper. it's all a disgrace. the houses have no architectural appeal and the people building them all have no taste
Posted by UrGatorbait on April 14, 2008 at 3:25 a.m. (Suggest removal)
All these cookie cutter houses are also at the center of the current mortgage crisis. The house themselves are largely unattractive designs designed to maximize profit for the builder. So that means they are overpriced shoeboxes squeezed into lots as small as they can get. It's great if you like or think every thing has to be done to high efficiency. Sorry but 10 feet between houses is just a little to close for my taste. No trees, piss poor landscaping, bad neigborhood layout and one of the developers is worried about sprawl? Yeah sure dude. He's a heidious product of the housing boom. He's concerned about sprawl only because he can't make more money.
All one has to do is look in South Florida or all over my beloved state to see this same type of over development. Tract after tract of faceless homes. It has wiped out alot of habit irregardless of providing that feel good "greenspace" in the development. Nature can adjust but only so much. It messes up the water tables, ruins natural habitats, creates road problems, school problems to name a few. Artificially inflating housing prices and creating a glut of houses. It's greed run amok. Developers want the money. The county wants the revenue and will probably give this lip service and give in to the money. Greed.
The people designing them have no taste, the people buying them are told it's good taste or have none themselves and the developers and county people smile as the bank account swells.
McMansions..I like that
Posted by moonpie on April 14, 2008 at 6:19 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Berkeley county already has a minimum size lot criteria which is 1/3 of an acre. This is much bigger than was in the past. Some of these neighborhoods they're talkng about were grandfathered in under the OLD zoning prior to the new zoning being passed. I don't get them, it's like they just woke up. Bunch of buffoons! Maybe if you let all those house con't our sewer rates will go down!
Posted by gencon1 on April 14, 2008 at 7:31 a.m. (Suggest removal)
These regulations will increase the cost of housing and run the workers we need in our businesses further away where land is affordable. The increased cost of homes make the traffic much worse. It was only ten years ago that clustering was the new idea in smart growth.
Clustering helps keep the cost of services and utilities down because the water and sewer don't have to run as far.
Less government regulation is the answer.
Posted by JohnS on April 14, 2008 at 7:31 a.m. (Suggest removal)
The Market is taking care of itself now anyway. The under the table Latino help will hopfully be taking care of soon. It's good out of state developers are being told no to these type neighborhoods. It seems houses with at least one half acre would be standard.
Posted by theronce on April 14, 2008 at 7:54 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Maybe we should attack this from the other end. Build a wall and keep the dumb, from-off, uncaring buyers away. This will make sure that the owner of the land understands that we, his friends and neighbors, not he, owns the lands and will make sure that our other friends and neighbors are protected from being forced to buy these things.
Posted by CountryGirl on April 14, 2008 at 8:54 a.m. (Suggest removal)
A hurricane will come through and take them down. Then the insurance companies and FEMA will pay to rebuild, hopefully better quality homes. Nature usually takes care of itsself.
Posted by SJ1 on April 14, 2008 at 9:54 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I'm just curious where everyone in here lives. Do you all live on a half acre out in the country?
Posted by SJ1 on April 14, 2008 at 9:59 a.m. (Suggest removal)
BTW, Wescott is in the City of North Charleston, Dorchester County. Sure hope there aren't any poker games going on in there.
Posted by SomeTruthPlease on April 14, 2008 at 10:18 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I bought a "cottage" in Goose Creek on .23 of an acre...the house itself is 1008 sq. ft., and it seems fine to me...I'm happy with it. If the home were larger, I could definitely see what losing part of the yard would do. When I see homes that are TWICE this size on lots that are literally the same size or smaller (Dorchester County has gotten good at that), I wonder why those buyers didn't just consider a condo. White Gables in Summerville has done a phenomenal job, and I don't mean that in a good way, at cramming the maximum number of homes on the tiniest lots imaginable. It looked charming, but looking at the MLS, it's fairly apparent that a large number of those buyers now have changed their views on what they consider livable space.
Posted by SJ1 on April 14, 2008 at 10:36 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I also live in Goose Creek. The neighborhood is only a few years old and would fall into the category of cookie-cutter homes. Although this isn't my dream home/property, I gotta say that I love my house, my neighborhood and my neighbors. In fact, I couldn't have ordered better neighbors. To my surprise, several of my neighbors grew up in Mt. Pleasant and moved to Goose Creek to get away from what's happening over there. Our house is 2400SF and the neighborhood will have about 500 or 600 houses when complete (I think). We have young children so the close proximity of similar neighbors works well for us. We all look out for one another, which is what a neighborhood is all about, right? But I must say the only reason I don't live on several acres in the country is because I simply can't afford it...yet.
Early, I understand now what you were saying. :)
Posted by SJ1 on April 14, 2008 at 10:53 a.m. (Suggest removal)
What puzzles me though is when Park West (the king of cluster developements and one of the neighborhoods that started the cluster phenom) was built, everyone thought it was "Smart Growth". Remember that terminology? Now everyone wants to go back to the way our grand-parents did things. Interesting.
Posted by Landbuyer on April 14, 2008 at 10:54 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I hear complaints about the cost of housing and the need for affordable housing ALL the time. Our company strives to suppy a better than average tract/production home. The idea that everyone should have a half acre lot is simply put, not feasable. If that were the case we'd be eating up land and building Charleston in Orangeburg and Colleton Counties.
If you own a larger tract of land and desire to sell it for top dollar, then density is the way to get the higher price. The cost of running sewer and water is not inexpensive. The cost of building a home is not inexpensive. This ordinance will only make homes more expensive or lower the cost of land to the seller. The second is alright with me, we already pay too much for land.
I also am getting the understanding that "PROFIT" is a bad word. Most consumers go to Dillard's, Belk's or any retail store and think "woo-hoo" 50% off!! Do they know that the retail store maked the item up 100% before the "sale".
Get real!! Profit pays taxes, builds roads, puts kids through schools, buys groceries, gas, and allows you to print newspapers.
Posted by 512c on April 14, 2008 at 10:56 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I wish I had time to sit on the board and show you all how to lay out the countryside, but I don't... I will suggest this to the boards: don't let people develop out in the country... Start at your city - centers...
The city density makes sense, in a city. Don't let people who want to build "smart" growth in stupid places buy your future!
Especially stupid growth in stupid places. If you say no, they will not die!
Posted by mnbvcxz on April 14, 2008 at 11:52 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Coldbeer, what trailer park do you live in?
Posted by RedfishRunner on April 14, 2008 at 12:37 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Better late than never. These idiotic money-hungry, land-grabbing developers are just clear-cutting trees, packing in the cheap, toothpick houses wrapped in plastic, taking their money and RUNNING! I've been hearing that stupid 'I don't want to pay rent' argument about 'affordable' housing for years, but a high percentage of those sardine cummunities end up as rental property any way. Lots are so small, people use the streets as their driveways, leaving room for only a single car to pass through them at a time. If the county had any guts, they would pass this as a STARTING POINT for curbing the current trends.
Posted by AmazonRia on April 14, 2008 at 12:52 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I personally live in a newly constructed neighborhood (an no it's not White Gables, that place is just UGLY), in Dorchester County. We like our house, we are not too pleased with the builder. However, our houses are very close together and they do look similar. We have a 2500sq+ house. I would have preferred the backyard to have been bigger to allow for a swingset for my daughter, but we chose to buy our house in this neighborhood. There are tons of young families and young children. I understand where Mr. Tyndall is coming from. You certainly don't want houses so jammed packed that you look like a metropolis. The roads are already getting congested. If Mr. Tyndall can get the ordinance passed, this will hopefully keep our area from turning into another Northern Virginia. I left that state because of the congestion and the explosive growth that happened. Anyone around here that has been to Northern Virginia and the last several years understands what a nightmare it is to get around, even on the weekends. I too would love to have several acres and my neighbors be a couple miles away. I support Mr. Tyndall, 100%. I think what he's trying to do is a good thing.
Posted by dbeast420 on April 14, 2008 at 1:40 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I hate my neighborhood AND my neighbors. I wasn't like this when I first moved here.
But,with the "slum lords" buying up the houses in the area and turning them into section 8,it's like living in the ghetto..
I pray to God that this won't be the house I'm when I retire.
Posted by wjhamilton3 on April 14, 2008 at 2:31 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I live on 1/10th. of an acre in I'On. I can walk the Pub, the park and the grocery store. I have a church at the end of my street and the Montessori Charter School is three blocks away. I don't have a big yard to worry about. If I need a big yard, it is one block to Maybank Green, which covers about three acres whare my son can usually find other kids to play with.
The problem with putting houses on a third of an acre is the amount of roads and driving that are required to make normal life function. It takes about 1200 households to support one modestly sized grocery store. If they're spread over four square miles, most people have to drive to the store. You can't support the cost of sidewalks because they have to cover so much ground to get to where anyone wants to go. The amount of road, sewer line, water line and other infrastructure needed per home is much higher when the density is lower.
The minimum functional average density for sustainable communities is about 8 units per acre. That can include apartments, duplexes and garage apartments on larger homes. At that density community supported businesses can be within walkable distance. Bus transit can function because enough people live near enough to the bus line to walk to the stops. Most elementary school aged students can walk to school. Enough taxes can be collected to cover the cost of municipal services.
We simply aren't going to be able to afford to spend the time and the money spread out development consumes in the future. It worked when suburbs were a few miles out of town, but now that they extend 20 miles or more, there isn't enough urban area to provide the needed tax subsidy for suburbs which don't cover their costs to the government.
Of course if you don't care how long it takes for the police, EMS and fire department to arrive and your willing to live with a well and a septic tank, it's different. However, people want reliable municipal services with short response times, dependable water and a safe environment.
Posted by pompusmaximus on April 14, 2008 at 2:48 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Right on wjhamilton3, I agree 100% We can't continue to spread out development and expect our services to remain cheaper. Density is good. You can't argue with facts. a 1/3 acre minimum lot size is too big and needs to be lowered to 1/4 acre or 1/5 like I'on. The is country needs to WAKE UP and stop sprawl.
I am not an environmentalist, just someone who has common sense.
Posted by SJ1 on April 14, 2008 at 3:01 p.m. (Suggest removal)
wjhamilton3- You bring up very good points. Thank you.
Posted by mogley on April 14, 2008 at 3:25 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Maybe if Berkeley county EVER thought about the development impact and not just the cash they would never have opened Tanner to Redbank road allowing all the excess traffic on Yeamans Hall either
Posted by mkris on April 14, 2008 at 3:52 p.m. (Suggest removal)
South Carolina Politicians and Developers make exactly the same mistakes that were made in the 50's 60's and 70's in the Northeast. Congestion, pollution and a downward quality of life are the result.
Developers drop a load in the community and leave the community to clean it up.
Posted by pompusmaximus on April 14, 2008 at 4:36 p.m. (Suggest removal)
wjhamilton3 that was such an excellent analysis, are you a planner yourself?
Posted by JohnS on April 14, 2008 at 5:04 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Stop the Mexicans without the proper documentation and you stop the construction workforce for affordable housing industry (IE cookie cutter entry level homes). The ones with papers and American Citizens will not do those jobs for $9.00 an hour. Once the builder has to pay more for labor the price of the house will go up. Once a house reaches a certain price it is no longer affordable for the entry level buyer for this area due to higher loan requirements. The market will then take over for supply and demand. The county will not need to introduce this new law.
Posted by moonpie on April 14, 2008 at 6:23 p.m. (Suggest removal)
"WJHAMILTON" good points.
Berkeley County is already at 4 homes per acre so why would they need to rethink that and make it less? Sounds like from the post here all are in agreement that they're heading down the wrong path.
Posted by Mon_Kie on April 14, 2008 at 7:36 p.m. (Suggest removal)
" mcmansions built by illegal mexicans "
" Build a wall and keep the dumb, from-off,
uncaring buyers away "
" The under the table Latino help will hopfully (sp)
be taking (sic) care of soon "
It sounds as if some of you might be bitter, and clinging to a mutual dislike of people who are not like you.
Posted by rollo on April 14, 2008 at 8:17 p.m. (Suggest removal)
"The market will then take over for supply and demand. The county will not need to introduce this new law."
And Congress will declare that people are being unfairly excluded from the market, and developers will be forced to cut back on development standards, and mortgage banks will have to offer subprime loans, and we'll have come full circle!
The prob isn't the market, the prob is Gov't interference in the market.
This is why the present "bailout" plans (schemes) will only hurt the taxpayer and the consumer in the long run.
Posted by majorjohnson on April 14, 2008 at 8:21 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I see there are only a few people who get density. Without density housing costs increase incredibly. You can't restrict the size of lots, height of buildings, areas you can build in, and number of multi-family housing units without drastically increasing the cost of housing for both owners and renters. People want to make all of these restrictions and then they can't figure out why a purchase of a house or rental is so expensive, and on top of that the expect mass transit. How can any county/city have usable mass transit when they have such restrictive density zoning? How the heck can mass transit get people scattered over 100 square miles a person ever few acres or miles to business locations scattered all over the place? How the heck are people going to be able to take the bus to work and get from work to lunch and back?
People want a rural atmosphere and limited density in a city with limited area, then they want mass transit and affordable housing. You can have one or the other, you can't have both. I wanted a cheap house in a rural setting, so I looked hard and found a house in a very rural setting and bought a house and surrounding acreage. A 1000 sq ft house and 26 acres for less than $50k. I put up with a 100 mile round trip commute to work every day for a couple of years, but it was worth it to me till I managed to work from home. If that's what you want, don't move to Summerville and buy a quarter acre and then complain when someone buys the property next to you. Don't cry that the city or county allows too many people to live there and about all the "people from off" then complain that your kids teacher or the guy who cuts your lawn can't afford to live there. The same people who cry about affordable housing and at the same time too much density are the same that scream about gated communities...you're the same people but you folks who are keeping density down are just building different kinds of gates.
The problem is that people want low density living at high density prices.
Posted by rollo on April 14, 2008 at 8:24 p.m. (Suggest removal)
"The market will then take over for supply and demand. The county will not need to introduce this new law."
And Congress will declare that people are being unfairly excluded from the market, and developers will be forced to cut back on development standards, and mortgage banks will have to offer subprime loans, and we'll have come full circle!
The prob isn't the market, the prob is Gov't interference in the market.
This is why the present "bailout" plans (schemes) will only hurt the taxpayer and the consumer and the market in the long run.
Posted by rollo on April 14, 2008 at 8:54 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Meanwhile, Restricting land use restricts the opportunity for inheritants of the property to capitalize their options on the property.
Not everyone who inherits property has the cash on hand to pay the inheritance tax, without selling off some or all of the property. Then there are state and local property taxes, and much inherited property will end up for auction.
The developers will buy the property at auction and still lobby to do with it as they will.
There is a market for this property, and the market will find a way to get the property to the buyer.
Posted by Bertha90 on April 14, 2008 at 9:26 p.m. (Suggest removal)
majorjohnson - as usual you speak the truth. It amazes me that there are people on here that support the propozed zoning changes, yet, live in a dense subdivision themselves!! I bet these are the same folks that would picket to keep a wal mart away, but would shop at it the first day it opened!! Between citizens with this mentality and a new planning director trying to make a name for himself, Berkeley County is screwed! Here we come Orangeburg!!
Posted by SJ1 on April 14, 2008 at 9:45 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I have one more gripe. This website sucks. I have lightning fast Comcast internet and this website takes FOREVER to load. And it always loads "with errors". Can they put another friggin' thing on the front page? Oh crap...I shouldn't have challenged them.