Lady’s Island development plan stirs resident opposition

Proposed changes to a planned 98-acre Lady’s Island development adjacent to Coosa Elementary School will go before decision-makers starting Monday.

For some area residents, the Beaufort County letter this month informing them of the upcoming meetings was the first time they had heard the details of Greenheath, a mixed-use development slated for more than 300 homes and 25,000 feet of commercial space. The development agreement, secured by owner Fred Trask, has been in place since 1997 and was extended 10 years in 2010.

The property is between Brickyard Point Road and Fiddler Drive.

The proposed changes include having homes on 24 lots along Fiddler Drive face the road rather than inward. A Lady’s Island community committee in January recommended approving the change.

The changes will be considered by the Metropolitan Planning Commission at 5:30 p.m. in Beaufort City Hall on Monday. The updated agreement will then face a county public hearing April 4 and and will go before County Council’s Natural Resources committee on April 18.

Council would see the amendment three times before a final decision.

Attempts to reach Trask on Friday were unsuccessful.

Council chairman Paul Sommerville last weekend knocked on doors along Fiddler Drive and told residents about the development and proposed changes and passed out maps, he wrote in an email to concerned residents this week. He offered to meet with with anyone interested “to discuss a path forward.”

“You are correct to be alarmed,” Sommerville wrote.

Greenheath would include 23 acres of greenspace, including a large community gathering area and several smaller parks. Homes could be single-family, condominiums or townhouses.

Lady’s Island resident Gordon Fritz is among those who reached out to Sommerville. Fritz, who has been a biologist, real estate agent and developer, is concerned about traffic and the pressure on Coosa Elementary.

Fritz acknowledged the development plans have been set almost 20 years but said Lady’s Island and its interests have changed since then.

“We’re not the same place or the same people, and we need to account for that,” he said. “We are the people who have to live with the decisions made 20 years ago.”

A roundabout is planned for the intersection of Sams Point Road and Brickyard Point Road. The $2.5 million project, covered by federal funds, is slated to begin this year.

Jim Hicks, chairman of the Lady’s Island Community Preservation Committee, has said the new configuration will help alleviate traffic from new development.

Coosa Elementary’s enrollment is 472 and building capacity is 476, not including modular classrooms, Beaufort County School district spokesman Jim Foster said.

The school district bought land on Lady’s Island off Springfield Road in preparation for a new elementary school. The purchase came from a 2008 bond referendum.

There has been no discussion about building a new school on the site, Foster said.

This story was originally published March 18, 2016 at 4:53 PM with the headline "Lady’s Island development plan stirs resident opposition."