Awendaw annexes Nebo Tract

AWENDAW -- Town Council has approved the annexation and development of the Nebo Tract, a forested parcel three miles south of Town Hall.

Representatives of the owners, EBCSC LLC, made three requests -- one to annex, another to rezone as a planned unit development and a third to approve a 10-year development agreement for the land.

Council voted 4-1 Thursday night to approve each request.

The master plan for the tract submitted by Urban Edge Studios, a land-planning firm based in Mount Pleasant, calls for building 360 homes and no more than 90,000 square feet of retail space and 80,000 square feet of office space on the land's 250 high acres.

Mayor William Alston said he is in favor of the project because it's right for the town.

He and Councilwoman Miriam Green said the commercial development would create jobs, and the town would benefit from the land that owners have promised to give to it.

"I think it will be an enhancement to the town," Green said.

The Nebo Tract adds a 355-acre subdivision to the already 1,871 acres the town has approved for home-building since the fall of 2006.

Public hearings on the plans for Nebo lacked most of the fireworks of past developments, perhaps because residents were given a clear picture of what the developed tract could look like in public meetings held by the landowner's representatives, Urban Edge Studios, said Bill Eubanks, Urban Edge Studios director.

"The opposition seemed to fade as time went by," Eubanks said.

A master plan places commercial and office space near U.S. Highway 17 with neighborhoods gradually becoming less dense as the land reaches back into the forest and the Fairlawn tract, a 7,000-acre private in-holding in the Francis Marion National Forest.

People most concerned with the effects on the environment, including Coastal Conservation League members, have critiqued the plan and said developers should offer the town more, which EBSC LLC did.

In the development agreement's final draft, the town would receive a total of 7 acres and the Mount Nebo AME church's 4 acres.

Councilwoman Nell Daniels said she cast the dissenting vote for several reasons.

The town's planning commission is about to finalize its comprehensive plan update, and she said other members of council had objected to previous annexations of individual property owners, saying an annexation policy was in the works.

She said the plan for the Nebo Tract also would take away from the town center envisioned at the Town Hall.

If the Nebo Tract were developed as planned, she said that it would become the new face of Awendaw.

"We will lose our identity as a rural community," Daniels said.

Rick Holland, an Awendaw resident, said he and other residents would have to travel out of their way to use the amenities planned for the Nebo Tract.

It offered little to residents in the short term, he said, and in the long term could damage the forest.

"I quite frankly think it's just wrong," Holland said.

Eubanks disagreed, saying the plan keeps the town's rural nature intact because the firm designed the community using McClellanville, a rural shrimping village, as a model.

Reach Jessica Johnson at 937-5921 or jjohnson@postandcourier.com.