Data Center Moratorium & Demolition By Neglect Reform

City of Folly Beach · Parks and Recreation Board
🌳 COG presents draft Parks and Recreation Master Plan to board
The Berkeley-Charleston-Dorchester Council of Governments presented a draft parks and recreation master plan to the Folly Beach Parks and Recreation Board, covering community survey results, updated park classifications, and draft recommendations centered on preserving natural areas, elevating existing amenities, and connecting parks via linear paths through unopened rights-of-way. The board discussed the Wave Watch playground replacement and a warranty repair to the basketball court sound wall, deferring formal action on both to the November meeting. A contract deadline of December 2026 was noted for council adoption of the final plan.

City of North Charleston · North Charleston City Council – Community Meeting
🏛️ Liberty Hill faces National Register of Historic Places hearing November 20 in Columbia
A community-led effort years in the making has brought Liberty Hill, established in 1871 as the oldest neighborhood in North Charleston, to a scheduled hearing before the South Carolina State Historic Preservation Office on November 20, 2026 in Columbia. The City of North Charleston planned to read a proclamation on October 22, 2026 formally recognizing Liberty Hill as a historically significant cultural and social neighborhood in support of the application. Designation would unlock federal historic tax credits and grant funding for property improvements within the community.

City of Charleston · Commission on Women
🚺 Revamped Commission on Women launches with vote on 2027 agenda
The City of Charleston's newly restructured Commission on Women held its first meeting under Chair and City Council District 12 representative Leslie Skardon, adopting affordable child care as its 2027 study topic and endorsing a parallel push to expand paid family leave benefits through the HR committee. City HR staff presented the current policy — 6 weeks paid for birth parents (structured as 4+2) and 2 weeks for non-birth parents — and outlined potential changes to match state standards including adding stillbirth language and increasing non-birth parent leave to 4 weeks. The commission voted unanimously to pursue both tracks and will convene again January 11, 2027 for expert presentations on child care solutions.

City of Charleston · Committee on Community Development
🏛️ Historic chapel collapse drives sweeping preservation reform proposals
The loss of the Emma Abbott Memorial Chapel at 52 Cooper Street — a historic African-American church on the East Side — prompted detailed reform presentations from both city planning staff and a coalition of three preservation organizations. City staff outlined a two-track action plan: immediate steps (1–3 months) including reconvening a Demolition by Neglect Task Force and improving coordination, and longer-term steps (6–9 months) including code amendments to classify long-vacant neglected buildings as public nuisances and redirecting fine revenue to stabilization funds. The preservation coalition called for limiting the building official's emergency demolition authority, applying the BAR balancing standard to the building official, automatic BAR jurisdiction over demolished parcels, a deconstruction and salvage ordinance, and heirs property title clearance support.

City of Charleston · Committee on Public Safety
🚒 Committee clears path for Fire Station 20 acquisition at 2637 Clements Ferry Road
Staff presented a detailed nine-criteria comparison of two candidate sites for the permanent Fire Station 20 on the Cainhoy Peninsula, recommending the eastern parcel at 2637 Clements Ferry Road — a 22-acre impervious trucking lot where the city would use roughly 3–4 acres for a 12,000 sq ft, three-bay facility with 28 parking spaces and a stormwater pond. The alternative western site, located within the mixed-use Cooper River Town development, was flagged for environmental concerns, three property owners and six parcels including a church, a cell tower obstruction, lack of direct Clements Ferry Road frontage, no expansion capacity, and longer response distance. The committee voted unanimously to remove the western alternative from consideration, reaffirming the prior authorization to negotiate acquisition of the eastern site including eminent domain if necessary.

Town of Mount Pleasant · Planning Commission
📋 Commission shapes data center zoning rules under two-year moratorium
With a two-year town council-approved moratorium on data center applications now in effect, the commission discussed how to regulate data centers going forward, examining models from York County and Cherokee County that require special exceptions, acoustical studies, water and power disclosure, and closed-loop cooling systems. The commission leaned toward a special exception process in the Light Industrial district combined with specific conditions addressing noise, setbacks, water usage certification from Mount Pleasant Waterworks, lighting, and economic impact; a geographic overlay limiting data centers to only certain LI locations was also discussed. Staff will develop draft definitions, conditions, and permitted-location provisions in consultation with town legal counsel and bring them back well before the two-year moratorium expires.

City of Charleston · Ad Hoc Budget Committee
💰 Baseline costs rise $15.5M driven by public safety, insurance, and fuel
Staff presented FY2027 fact-of-life increases totaling $15.5 million above FY2026 levels, with police and fire salary step increases and pay grade changes as the largest driver. Additional pressures include a $1.3 million rise in property insurance (already over budget in FY2026), a $1.3 million fuel increase, higher workers' compensation, rising rents, and street light cost escalation as base-rate agreements expire. New debt for the West Ashley office building, parks and rec, and the Municipal Operations Complex expansion, plus $2 million for tidal and inland flooding, round out the increase.

I recently got a briefing on "Setting New Standards," the project to rewrite the City of Charleston's zoning code. The current ordinance dates to the 1960s and has more than twenty zoning districts. It has been patched repeatedly over the years, and the rewrite is aimed at making it easier to find, easier to understand, and less complicated. It is not necessarily a clean slate.

Info sheets posted around the room filled in the details. Here is what I learned.

The goal is to make the code easier to navigate for the general public, so that a person can tell what can be done on a property without working through many layers of rules. The example I heard was a homeowner trying to find out what is needed to put a shed on their property.

The consultants started with a code assessment, completed in April 2024, which went through the existing code and recommended changes. The new code is being drafted in three installments: procedures, zone districts and uses, and development standards. Two drafts have been reviewed so far.

Planning, zoning, BAR, and preservation staff all reviewed the drafts. The review produced "quite a few pages of comments," many of them asking what a given passage means. The reasoning is simple: if staff do not understand a provision, the public cannot be expected to.

The consultants are now revising the first installment, which should be made public soon. They are also working through staff comments on the second installment.

The new ordinance will include diagrams showing things like setbacks and what is meant by measuring "from the corner." Tables and pictures will sit alongside the text, closer to a study guide than a legal document.

The current ordinance does not distinguish between the peninsula and the rest of the city. The rewrite will. The new districts include Lower Peninsula districts, with their own names, and a separate set of districts for areas outside the Lower Peninsula. The Lower Peninsula is "completely different" from West Ashley.

The total number of districts is expected to drop from more than twenty. Many overlays are also being deleted. No count was given, only that the total is "significantly less."

A couple of new overlays are planned. One of the most important is the Low Elevation Overlay, or LE-O. The draft on display says it is intended to restrict development in areas subject to frequent flooding, based on guidance in the City Plan. It would apply in areas the City Plan designates Low Impact/Conserved.

The City Plan estimates 36 inches of sea level rise by 2080, and the resilience sheets describe more frequent tidal flooding over the past decades.

The posted draft calls its standards "a basic set of initial standards." They include a 5-acre minimum lot area, 10 percent maximum building coverage, and single-family detached homes as the only residential use, with one accessory dwelling unit allowed where the base zoning permits it. Additional standards are still to be discussed.

West Ashley is being considered for a form-based district. The posted sheet explains that form-based zoning puts context and building form ahead of land use, setting things like height, setbacks, massing, and parking location. West Ashley was identified as a study area for several reasons, including its higher elevation, its commercial corridors, and its position in the West Ashley TIF district along Sam Rittenberg Boulevard and Savannah Highway.

The draft ideas posted for West Ashley's mixed-use corridors fall into three groups:

In the conversation, I also heard that staff may offer pre-approved building forms, such as a set number of stories, so a project built to one would move through the process more easily because reviewers would already have seen something like it. Those forms are still being evaluated and are "not set in stone."

One board invited feedback on a drawing of possible redevelopment at Savannah Highway and Wappoo Road. Comments gathered at an earlier charrette included hiding parking behind buildings and orienting buildings to the bikeway.

I asked how the rewrite would treat properties already entitled under current zoning, since those would have to be honored. The answer centered on making the new rules as least restrictive as possible so fewer items go to the board of appeals. One example given was that a deviation of about five percent might be approved by staff, "or something like that." It will not work for everyone.

The intent is for approvals to be clearer and more black and white. Applicants should know which process applies, whether that is a board or the IRC, and what to expect at each step.

I also raised the possibility that some people may oppose the rewrite because it could speed up development. That point did not get a direct answer in our conversation.

The posted housing sheet cites the City Plan in noting that housing costs have far outstripped income growth over the last decade, and that many residents are "cost burdened," spending more than 30 percent of gross income on housing.

The code assessment proposes allowing a broader range of "missing middle" housing in appropriate districts, including triplexes, fourplexes, courtyard apartments, live/work units, and cottage courts. It also recommends strengthening and consolidating the city's affordable housing incentives into one section of the new code.

In the conversation, I heard that staff are trying to make affordable housing "almost mandatory" for developments. The posted sheets describe the recommendation in terms of incentives.

The tree protection ordinance is being revised, along with the land development and subdivision rules. The stated plan is that "everything" will be revised.

The posted timeline chart runs from December 2025 to March 2027. It shows testing of the drafts and preparation of a public hearing draft through late 2026, followed by Planning Commission and City Council review in the early months of 2027, with public and stakeholder engagement running alongside.

In our conversation, I heard that the final draft has to be in council by March and that council would take it through a couple of readings. The target is for the ordinance to be in place by the end of 2027. Once it is in use, staff expect to find out what does not work and fix it.

The project began under Mayor Tecklenburg. After the change in administration, work was stopped because the vision was different. The section chief for development services, which covers planning, permitting, and engineering, then had a different vision, and work slowed again. That person later left, and another vision followed.

The project is taking much longer than expected. A longer timeline also means the process is not rushed, and different visions bring different angles.

Staff are reviewing drafts and sending comments to the consultants. The first installment is expected to go public soon, and the second is being revised from staff comments. The project website, newchsstandards.com, has background documents, upcoming events, and a sign-up for project updates.

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Until next week,
Bill Olson
Father • Husband • Realtor® • Civic Storyteller