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House Hunters
Olde North Charleston homeowners target developers with historic overlay proposal
By Kathleen Dayton
Staff Writer
As some of its older neighborhoods continue to refresh themselves after decades of decline, North Charleston is suddenly having to deal with some of the same issues the city of Charleston faces when it comes to new construction and renovation.
Although longtime residents of the Lowcountry may find it odd, history and architecture are now among the issues confronting developers in North Charleston, long known as the industrial core of the Charleston area, and home to its working class.
Nestled among modest subdivisions of mid-century, post-war houses are older neighborhoods that harbor a number of homes built between 1912 and 1930, many in the Craftsman style typical of downtown Charleston’s Wagner Terrace.
With new developments filling in vacant property in Olde North Charleston, a neighborhood group is on a mission to protect the area’s character and to discourage dissimilar architecture in new construction. However, some developers worry that restrictions could discourage development and raise building costs higher than the area can support.
The Olde North Charleston Neighborhood Council has drafted a proposal for a historic overlay district in the neighborhood bordered by East Montague, McMillan, Virginia and South Rhett avenues.
Residents of the area, which contains about 630 residential parcels, will receive information about the proposal by mail. They will have three chances for public comment in front of the city boards, said North Charleston Councilman Kurt Taylor, who represents District 9 and is a resident of Olde North Charleston.
“I think it’s a good thing for the neighborhood, if it’s done properly,” Taylor said. “I think it’s a great idea and it shows how far the neighborhood has come that we now have numerous residents interested in protecting their neighborhoods in the face of new development. We haven’t had that kind of enthusiasm for many years.”
Developers fear price hike
Richard Ballantine, broker-in-charge at Sweetgrass Properties on James Island, is handling the sale of eight homes planned for Glenshaw Avenue in Olde North Charleston. AD Development LLC of San Francisco is developing the project. The homes will be priced from $350,000 and should be on the market by the end of the year.
Ballantine said the developer is already limited in the types of houses that can be built on the small pieces of marsh-front property, where houses are required to be built on pilings because of the flood plain.
“I’m sure some of the neighborhood council will disagree with it and say it has to be more architecturally appealing.” Ballantine said. “To do that, we’d have to raise the price point by $75,000 and it’s not feasible with building costs the way they are.”
Developers say the neighborhood is still in transition and there is a limit to how much people will pay to live there.
“To go too upscale, the price point’s just not there yet,” Ballantine said.
Tony Gentile, a builder and general contractor who owns 2 3/4 acres on O’Hear Avenue in Olde North Charleston and 13 rental properties within the proposed historic district, said he feels the district needs to be scaled down.
“I have no problem if they want to come in and do a smaller section, but to come in at this time and try to do an area this large in these neighborhoods is not needed,” Gentile said. “The houses up by the commercial district, which is where the people who are pushing this live, what they have is different from some of the houses I have on the other side of Spruill (Avenue) on Bexley (Avenue). We’re still fighting a lot of crime over there, drugs and prostitutes.”
Defining character
Gentile would be happy if some of the homeowners in the area wanted to improve their homes, but feels strict guidelines and more expensive materials, such as wood siding instead of vinyl, might discourage renovations, he said.
“Once you start putting up restrictions, it makes the cost of construction go up drastically,” Gentile said. “I want to encourage people to improve their property, not discourage them.”
Gentile bought the lots on O’Hear in 2002 but said the time wasn’t right then for development.
“It was inexpensive to say the least, but I didn’t want to do anything yet because it wasn’t the right time. That area was a mess,” he said.
Now he has the property on the market, but may wind up developing the lots himself.
“I’m very concerned about giving any more rights to the government to make decisions for me and in this overlay district they want to have substantial say in what you, as a builder, can do with our properties, and I don’t think that’s right,” said Gentile, who is also a member of the Olde North Charleston Neighborhood Council.
The proposed overlay district would have to strike a careful balance between developers’ interests and the neighborhood’s concerns, Taylor said.
“We have to focus on the area that it makes the most sense to apply it to,” the councilman said. “We don’t want to stifle new development, but we want the development to mirror the character of the neighborhood, and that’s going to be a tricky thing: how to define character … and where are the places where it makes sense to do this.”
Taylor lives in a bungalow built in the 1920s, which his grandfather bought in 1936.
“In my opinion, we have to start with the most minimal regulation we can impose that will still meet the objective,” Taylor said. “We cannot succeed if we try to impose a downtown Charleston (type) ordinance immediately out of the gates.”
Noisette’s influence
David Tester, broker-in-charge at CSA Real Estate and part owner of Teal Construction, also has family connections to North Charleston and development interests in the area.
He and partner Tyler Teal are building 13 homes on Buist Avenue, including some that are marsh-front, where a trailer park formerly stood.
Already, the development, called Hope’s Pointe, has disappointed some members of the Olde North Charleston Neighborhood Council, because its first two homes are in the Charleston single house style currently popular in places such as I’On and Daniel Island. The homes are also elevated, because they are in a flood plain.
“They’re way up there and they’re huge and they don’t exactly imitate the character of the neighborhood when it was first built,” said Dan Coleman, president of the Olde North Charleston Neighborhood Council. Coleman, who lives in the 1922 Craftsman home where his wife grew up, helped draft the proposed overlay district and also sits on North Charleston’s board of zoning appeals.
“There are some houses now that, while they are attractive houses, they aren’t in the architectural style of those that were first built here in North Charleston,” Coleman said. “Olde North Charleston was the first actual developed neighborhood in this area and at one time there were streetcars going from here to Charleston. We were rummaging around last year trying to figure out ways to protect that history because there’s a lot of new development going on now.”
Speculation about the impact of the Noisette Co.’s redevelopment plans for the former Navy base has lured developers to the area, Coleman said.
Tester, who grew up in nearby Park Circle, said he knew the Noisette project would bring private investors to help revitalize the area, and the plan spurred Tester to purchase the dilapidated Buist Avenue trailer park.
“I saw Park Circle hit rock bottom,” Tester said. “There is a lot of history there and it was killing me to see that whole area do what it was doing. When the Noisette project came along, I saw the potential for what could be done with that land. It was inexpensive and it was beautiful land if you could see past the trailers.”
Infringement or preservation?
Tester can’t understand why some Olde North Charleston residents are less than thrilled with the first two homes that have been built in Hope’s Pointe, he said.
“What the civic club is trying to do, I’m not necessarily against,” Tester said. “I understand them wanting to protect the character of the older homes. But it makes no sense to impose harsh guidelines on new construction that’s replacing trailer parks.”
Tester also doesn’t understand the group’s insistence on building Craftsman-style homes, he said.
“This is humorous, because that area is a conglomeration of many decades and many different styles,” Tester said.
Coleman and other Olde North Charleston residents have met with several developers who have interests in the area and want to continue the dialogue, Coleman said.
“Even if this (overlay) doesn’t go into effect as we imagine it, the fact that we’re thinking in that direction is important,” Coleman said. “There’s nothing on the books right now that would prevent a developer from buying a piece of property, tearing something down and building something new in its place. They could raze a Craftsman bungalow and put up an ultra-modern house.
“I think a lot of people see this as an infringement of property rights, but we see it as protection of the history of North Charleston, and it’s just Olde North Charleston, not the entire city. This is where it all began.”
Kathleen Dayton is a staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail her at kdayton@charlestonbusiness.com.
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