CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) — Community advocates are pushing back against a proposed 12-story apartment building on Newmarket Creek, one of the peninsula’s last intact tidal waterways.
The pushback is ahead of a City of Charleston Board of Zoning Appeals meeting on Tuesday where a zoning variance request for the construction of the development without an active use on the ground floor will be discussed. The variance request is located at 989 Morrison Drive right on the creek. Preservation and environmental advocates are saying the creek plays a key role in the peninsula’s resilience and stormwater management, and a large development could harm it.
“The Newmarket Creek area is a really special part of the upper peninsula,” Anna-Catherine Alexander, Preservation Society of Charleston director of advocacy initiatives, says. “It’s our coastal edge and it is an area that’s been identified as a high priority as we think as a community about the future of resilient design solutions for the peninsula.”…