Medical University Of South Carolina
Andell West will be heading back before Charleston County Council in September, but this time for a rezoning request. The Andell West property that sits next door to Freshfields Village, closer to Kiawah Island, is technically in unincorporated Charleston County. The owners of the nearly 50 acres of land are asking for it to be rezoned from Low Density Residential, or R-4, to a Commercial Planned Development.
As an R-4, the zoned area allows for four dwelling units per acre, but the current plan for development by the owners, which took many months of work with plenty of public input, doesn’t even include any residences. As a Commercial Planned Development, the zoned area would not allow for any residences to be permitted at all, which fits more with the owner’s current plan for development anyway.
Going from an R-4 to a Commercial Planned Development means that a wide variety of commercial uses would be allowed.
For example, R-4 allows for hair, nail, or skin care services and community recreation. It also allows for catering services, a country club, school, and anything related to residential communities like residential care facilities and complexes – as examples. The Commercial Planned Development status would open the property up for a much more diverse amount of commercial uses only. It would even allow for buildings to be as high as 55 feet.
Commercial Planned Developments can have retail, food sales, medical offices, bars, alcohol sales, vehicle stores, microbreweries, even a convention center and more.
Seabrook Island Town Administrator Joe Cronin addressed the action of rezoning Andell West to a Commercial Planned Development at the Seabrook Island Town Council meeting on August 22. He said that along with this request, Kiawah Island updated their traffic study which was completed in 2022.
“Andell West will have a pretty big impact on traffic. Looking at the impact of that project specifically, not including everything else in the works, peak projection is at about 1,100 trips per hour. Traffic studies make a lot of projections based on square footage and uses. The property owners put in a factor to reduce the 1,100 trips between Freshfields Village and Andell West, and they have other plans to help with that too, but still factoring all of that out, it is still at 700+ additional trips per hour, during the peak hours,” he said.
Cronin expressed concerns about the traffic circle at Freshfields Village and the impact this development will have on it. “The traffic study didn’t even address the impact of that project alone on the circle.”
He continued, “Their study did indicate a need for a turbo lane in the traffic circle, but as best as I could tell that was not included in the rezoning documents, so to my knowledge the roundabout was not included in any plans related to that project.”
There is a plan that includes a road that could continue on behind Freshfields Village and come out onto Seabrook Island Road, which would provide interconnectivity for that property. There would also be an access out onto the Kiawah Island Parkway.
Ultimately, the Charleston County Planning Commission recommended approval for the rezoning Andell West to a Commercial Planned Development. It will now go up before Charleston County Council on September 12.