1,600 housing units in development in Port Royal. Is another apartment complex needed?
A developer’s request that land be annexed into Port Royal prompted a rare split vote from the Town Council on Wednesday after a councilman raised concerns about another apartment building being constructed on the property and the pace of the town’s growth.
Town Council members voted 4-1 to annex 12.1 acres at 450 Parris Island Gateway, where Beaufort Mobile Home Park is located, and zone it T4 Urban Center. There are about 50 mobile homes on the property now.
A specific development application has not been submitted for the Parris Island Gateway property, but the annexation request came from Gateway Holdings, a developer of multi-family housing.
Kevin Phillips, who voted no, says he’s concerned about the possibility of an apartment complex being constructed on the annexed property and about the displacement of the residents.
The town already has 1,600 housing units in some phase of development, with most of them apartment complexes or townhouses, Phillips said. And if 1,600 units are built, with an average of two people per unit, it will total 3,200 people, Phillips said.
That comes on top of 2020 Census results that showed Port Royal’s population had increased 33.2%, jumping from 10,678 in 2010 to 14,220. Beaufort, meanwhile, grew 10.1%, from 13,170 to 13,607.
The population increase and growth in housing units in such a “fast and drastic time frame,” Phillips said, “is concerning to me” because of the strain on future services that could force the town to raise taxes or cut services to keep up.
Phillips said he also is concerned with the message the town is sending in approving the annexation given council members have publicly discussed the importance of adding more commercial development and “trying to get away from apartment complexes.”
“I think that it’s important to have consistent messaging from leadership,” Phillip said. “Why are we saying we don’t want apartment complexes and still voting for them.”
Mayor Joe DeVito said he understood Phillips’ point about the town wanting to encourage additional commercial development.
“We want commercial development, and we’re doing everything we can to do commercial development,” DeVito said.
But DeVito added that the council was voting on annexation and zoning, not apartments. Specific development plans for the property, DeVito said, will come later and based on his experience nobody can say for sure what will be constructed on the site.
“20 years on the Planning Commission, when somebody comes in front of me and says, ‘We’re going to build something,’ I don’t believe what they say until they put a permit in front of me,” DeVito said. “It’s the underlying zoning that’s the most important. The underlying zoning does allow commercial if it makes sense.”
If he were a developer of the 12.1 acres, DeVito said, he’d look at proposing some small businesses that could serve residential development in the area.
The property, DeVito added, is located in an area originally designated for residential use and it’s also within the town’s growth boundary.
In speaking with the developer, Planning Director Noah Krepps said, it’s possible that commercial properties could be developed on the front of the property.
“It could very well be mixed use,” Krepps said. “That’s not a promise, but it is a possibility even with this developer that is a largely multi-family developer.”
