Opponents see marshfront condos as part of a trend

By Charles Swenson
Coastal Observer

September 11, 2008

After a month’s delay in a request to allow a 12-unit condo in a commercial development overlooking Pawleys Creek, the developer and neighbors who oppose the project have not found any common ground.

George Taylor wants Georgetown County to change the zoning of the Pawleys Island Business Center to allow the marshfront condos. The Planning Commission deferred action last month at the applicant’s request.

“We were caught a little flat-footed,” said Steve Goggans of SGA Architecture, the project planners. “We viewed this as a down-zoning.”

Neighbors submitted letters and petitions opposing the project, Ocean Marsh Villas. They argue the three-story condo is out of character with the single-family homes on either side of the business center.

“It caught most of us by surprise,” said Jim Newman, president of the homeowners association at Oak Lea, a neighborhood on the south side of the business center.

He said the petitions contained some errors, notably the claim that the pool at the condo project would impact the adjacent marsh.

“There was a lot of misunderstanding,” Goggans said.

After meeting with the neighbors, Taylor agreed to increase the density of plants in the 10-foot side buffer and restrict any future residential development in the business center, Newman said.

But those steps didn’t address concerns about a high-density development between two areas shown as medium density on the county’s land-use maps, he said.

If Taylor was asking for single-family residential “there wouldn’t be any objection to that,” Newman said.

The change from commercial to residential, even high-density residential, is a reduction in the intensity of use, Goggans said. That’s one reason Georgetown County planning staff cited in recommending approval.

“You could go down on these same lots and build the same height, almost the same footprint, and it could be commercial,” Goggans said.

That would create twice as much traffic as the condos, he said. Commercial use would actually create 220 trips a day, according to county planners. Residential use would create an average of 96 daily trips.

“And that’s assuming they are occupied full time,” Goggans said. He believes most of the units will be second homes.

Oak Lea residents say it isn’t just traffic, it’s an issue of scale.

“It’s a significant change for this area,” said Tom Fous, who lives in Oak Lea, where houses along the marsh rise two stories over ground-floor parking. He asked Pawleys Island Town Council to support efforts to block the zoning change.

“It more gravely impacts the aesthetics from Pawleys Island looking west than it does us,” Fous said.

Some property owners on the north end of Pawleys area concerned, Mayor Bill Otis said. “They’re taking an active interest in this,” he told Fous.

The Pawleys Island Civic Association board discussed the issue and is “in sympathy” with Oak Lea residents, said Linwood Altman, the association president. “They didn’t want something there that would be offensive to the island,” he said.

But the association hasn’t taken any action because the board thought the developer and the neighbors were working on a compromise, Altman said.

Newman said Oak Lea still opposes the plan, and the residents hope to gain support of other residents.

“A lot of people are also disturbed that this is the foot in the door,” Newman said. “They can make a great deal of money packing that many units into one acre.”

He notes that the future land-use plan for Murrells Inlet talks about limiting development along the creek to single-family residential. There’s no similar language in the plan for the Pawleys Island-Litchfield area.

“There seems to be a glitch,” Newman said.

Goggans said this isn’t the start of a trend. “I totally, totally disagree with that,” he said.

Because the business center is a “planned development” zoning district it needed approval of all the owners to make the change from commercial to residential use. Of the eight property owners that signed off on the change, four have an interest in the lots proposed for the condos. Goggans also owns a lot in the business center. So does the firm that did the survey work for the project.

“Then there’s the [land-use] plan and zoning,” Goggans said.

They won’t allow a similar project elsewhere on the creek, because it would require raising the density, a step he said the county is unlikely to take.

As to the 45-foot height, that’s allowed by the zoning ordinance in areas where buildings have to be raised to meet federal flood regulations. “Anyone in Oak Lea or Sweetgrass can built to 45 feet,” Goggans said.

A Planning Commission hearing on the Ocean Marsh Villas request is scheduled for Sept. 18 at 5:30 in County Council chambers.