By Dan McCue
Staff Writer

It’s the development philosophy that inevitably leads to a loaded question: Are you for smart growth or against it? But with 170,000 homes slated to be built in the Lowcountry over the next 25 years—and the state with no comprehensive growth management plan spelling out what is acceptable and sustainable and, most importantly, what is not—getting beyond the wisecracking, “No, I’m for dumb growth,” will be critical to determining whether the region’s quality of life survives or is swallowed up by a tsunami of sprawl. What’s already clear, according to both homebuilders and economists, is that the growth the Lowcountry is facing is here to stay. Market factors and demographics have South Carolina poised to increase by an additional million in the next two decades alone. According to a 2004 report prepared by the Urban Land Institute and the University of South Carolina’s Moore School of Business, accommodating the expected growth using low-density land-use patterns would result in the consumption of more than 900 square miles of land. As a result, this desirable region finds itself on the horns of a delicate dilemma—how to address public concerns about overcrowding, traffic and the affordability of the region’s housing stock while also fostering the home building industry that may be the area’s third largest employer when all its sectors are viewed together. Finding ways to accommodate both is vital to the state’s economy and the quality of life of its residents as South Carolina becomes more developed and urbanized. What is smart growth? Throughout the Lowcountry, scores of projects claim to be smart-growth developments, but the very breadth of these projects, not to mention their dissimilar natures, has become as much a source of frustration as a source of pride in the building community. “I used to feel that I was an advocate for smart growth, but I’m not even sure what that phrase means anymore,” said Phillip Ford, executive vice president of the Charleston Trident Homebuilder’s Association. “At first I thought we were talking primarily about infill, but more and more lately, I’m hearing people talk about preserving green space and pushing development further out from downtown Charleston,” he said. “I think what we all want at the end of the day is well-balanced, managed growth, but the phrase ‘smart growth’ is being overused and, I think, used in ways to advance agendas other than those being openly stated.” A textbook definition holds that smart-growth communities are carefully planned commercial and residential enclaves designed as an antidote to urban sprawl. The problem with the definition, experts say, is that without being legally codified, it leaves a gaping hole to be filled by argument, debate and dispute. John Knott, president and chief executive officer of the Noisette Co., North Charleston’s 3,000-acre urban redevelopment project and head of the South Carolina chapter of the Urban Land Institute, worked with local developers and other stakeholders two years ago to come up with a smart-growth framework that would work as well for Charleston as it would for Greenville or Myrtle Beach Among the framework’s tenets: ensuring that all new development preserves and enhances the local quality of life (for instance, redeveloping languishing industrial properties served by existing infrastructure); emphasizing mixed-use development; preserving open space and natural resources when possible; and encouraging community participation. All those elements are coming into play at Noisette, Knott said. Storm Cunningham, author of The Restoration Economy and an expert in the integrated renewal of communities and natural resources, described Noisette as “a true model for the kind of redevelopment that should be occurring throughout the nation.” Build what sells Others take a different view. Among them is John Templeton, principal and broker in charge with Special Properties Inc. of Charleston. Templeton, who has more than 20 years of residential real estate brokerage and development experience, believes a distinction should be drawn between designing projects intelligently and the need to adhere to some kind of smart-growth formula. In his view, smart growth is essentially a tool used by environmental preservationists and others to advance a no-growth agenda and that market forces should direct how many new houses are built in the Lowcountry and at what cost. “Think about it: If gas prices soar for a prolonged period, people begin driving smaller and more gas efficient cars,” he said. “If people favor one type of development over another, the market will guide development that way. It’s simple economics, really. We can only sell what the public is willing to buy.” But Knott was having none of that. “That’s a cop-out,” he said. “The fact of the matter is the further promulgation of smart growth faces two challenges. The first is the habit pattern that exists in the building and development communities. Then you have regulatory problems. Many communities don’t allow for enough density and mixed use to allow smart-growth strategies to work.” Not so simple Dan Emerine of the Smart Growth Network in Washington, D.C., an advocacy organization formed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and several nonprofit entities, partly agreed with Knott’s assessment that smart growth is, in a sense, a return to traditionalism. “Certainly, we are trying to recover things that were good about how neighborhoods were developed for hundreds of years on a scale where a lot of your daily needs could be met within a short distance of your home,” Emerine said. “At the same time, however, a big part of smart growth is updating those good things about traditional neighborhoods of bygone eras for our modern lifestyle,” he said. A different approach Matt Sloan, chief executive officer of The Daniel Island Co., said as a citizen of the Charleston area, he finds the marked increase of infill development projects heartening. However, his work takes a different approach to fulfilling smart-growth goals. Rather than create infill developments, The Daniel Island Co. builds new communities that integrate residential, commercial, office and recreational features into their design. In essence, The Daniel Island Co. is continuing to increase residential densities westward but doing so in a way that the community functions as an effective whole—in line with Emerine’s assertion—rather than merely being sprawl. “Our approach, and I think it’s something we share with people who are doing a lot of these infill projects, is we design our projects with a mix and synergy of land uses in mind,” Sloan said. “Our philosophy is the same. What’s different are the kinds of spaces we’re currently working in. And that’s another thing about smart growth. It is location-specific and trying to foster a particular piece of land’s highest and best use.” Land defines smart growth That sentiment is shared by Ben Gramling III, president of Gramling Brothers Real Estate & Development, the group behind Cane Bay Plantation, off Highway 176 in Berkeley County, and the Reverie on the Ashley, off Faber Place Drive in West Ashley. When it comes to defining “smart growth,” Gramling said, the size of the property, its location and its individual characteristics are perhaps the biggest determinant of the phrase’s meaning. “While I think every definition of ‘smart growth’ you might come across includes some of the same aspects, if you’re really striving for what I like to call sustainable development, your definition has to be flexible enough to account for the property you’re dealing with and the existing infrastructure, among other factors,” he said. As the smart-growth movement has grown in the tri-county region, so too have the number of developments that fly the smart-growth banner, regardless of whether their creators actually practice what true smart-growth advocates preach. For his part, Knott sees a silver lining in the proliferation of developments that are described as “smart growth,” even if they fall short on some of the details. “The fact that developers are labeling their projects as smart-growth projects is meaningful if for no other reason than that they are admitting this is important,” he said. “They know people want it. But there’s only so much ‘green-washing’ you can do. If you keep doing it like we have been, just kind of freewheeling it, we’re going to have major consequences.” Dan McCue is a staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail him at dmccue@charlestonbusiness.com.

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