Editorial: Rural development will cost North Charleston taxpayers

On Monday, the North Charleston Planning Commission will consider a rezoning request that would allow as many as 1,000 residences to be built in a dense community in the middle of an entirely rural area next to the Ashley River Historic District. Unfortunately, the alternative would be even worse.The rezoning request would affect a 4,000-acre tract west of S.C. Highway 61 in Dorchester County known as Watson Hill that was annexed into North Charleston years ago to avoid more restrictive zoning under the county.The property is part of the East Edisto Conservancy, which limits development to one unit per four acres, hence the 1,000 homes.But rather than sprawling a new neighborhood of hundreds of homes across the entire rural tract, the Coastal Conservation League and the National Historic Trust worked with the property owners to come up with a plan for a dense, mixed-use community that would leave the vast majority of the land untouched.The proposed site for this entirely new and necessarily self-contained community is surrounded by forests, swamps and wetlands. There are no roads, no sewer lines, no fire or police service, schools, grocery stores or any other kind of infrastructure or amenities.It’s 18 miles to downtown Charleston via the nearest existing routes, 11 miles to downtown Summerville, and 10 miles around the Ashley River to the rest of North Charleston.Allowing any kind of development in the area would almost certainly put an incredible burden on North Charleston taxpayers, who would be on the hook for new services and infrastructure. And the location of the new community suggests it would put pressure on much of the rest of the region as well.