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by DYLAN NOLAN
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Residents of James Island, South Carolina are flooding the city of Charleston’s planning commission with indignation over a controversial project. These citizens are worried their properties could be flooded as a result of a planned 67-home residential/commercial development on one of the few remaining tracts of undeveloped land on the island.
The plans, a product of the work of the firm Levi Grantham LLC, have proceeded to this point in the face of years of protests from residents, who have argued the Delaware-based firm’s development would eradicate one of the few natural rainwater absorbing tracts of land left undeveloped in the already flood- and traffic-prone Folly Road area.
Charleston City Council recently approved requests to annex a parcel linked to the proposed development at 0 Folly Road after delaying a vote for months until city officials confirmed developers indeed planned to proceed with the project regardless of the which governmental entity controlled the land.
A vote to approve the annexation passed after leaders cited stronger stormwater protections of the James Island jurisdiction.
“It’s the better option of two not-great options,” Charleston mayor William Cogswell told The Charleston Post and Courier.
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The development project is located in a city-designated “special protection area,” and includes a drainage pond attached to the subdivision in order to comply with the additional stormwater management requirements of the protection designation.
Despite Levi Grantham’s efforts at compliance, dozens of residents have submitted public comments throughout the approval process indicating they don’t believe local roadway or stormwater management infrastructure can handle a new neighborhood on an already-busy road in an area that currently collects run-off water.
“The infrastructure is not sufficient to support a project of this size and there is frequent flooding along Grimball Road extension where traffic from 67 townhomes would queue,” James Island resident Tina Benson wrote in a public comment ahead of a City of Charleston planning commission vote last week.
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“To build this they would be getting rid of trees and 14 acres of green space which currently help manage storm water,” Benson wrote, adding that “these are dangerous intersections at Folly/Grimball Road and Grimball Road Extension (with) high speeds, no sidewalks, and no bike lanes.”
Resident Rebecca Luhrs echoed those concerns.
“Flooding is already an issue, and with more people, houses, asphalt, and buildings, this will only worsen,” she wrote.
While dozens of supplicants to the planning commission bemoaned the potential pitfalls of the plan, few addressed the elephant in the room – the fact that an undeveloped tract of land in a highly desirable area looks like a bag of cash waiting to be picked up by anybody more concerned with making a profitable real estate investment than with the quality of the life of those impacted by the development.
Resident Aymi Welch addressed this inventive structure at the conclusion of her public comment.
“I urge you to listen to the many voices of those who will be directly and negatively impacted, rather than to the few who stand to gain financially,” Welch noted, telling members of the planning commission they “have the ability to significantly affect the lives of hundreds of families.”
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“Please consider what you would want if this were your own neighborhood,” she said. “I strongly urge you to VOTE NO on the subdivision approval, reject RR-1 zoning for the remaining three acres, and instead rezone the land as CONSERVATION.”
Despite the dozens of well-reasoned comments from members of the community planning to attend the commission’s next meeting, opponents of the development are not optimistic given the perseverance of the project in the face of a growing chorus of voices expressing legitimate concerns.
Members of the Charleston planning commission are appointed by the Charleston mayor and members of the city council. Lest our readers need reminding – local elections matter.
FITSNews attempted to contact attorneys representing Levi Grantham LLC but had not heard back at the time of this writing. Should a representative of the firm like to comment we would be happy to include their perspective in an updated version of this story. To contact the author email Dylan@FITSNews.com.
The next meeting of the Charleston County planning commission has been scheduled for this Wednesday (January 21, 2026) at 5:00 p.m. EST in the public meeting room on 2 George Street in Charleston. Stay tuned to FITSNews for the latest updates.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR…
(Via: Travis Bell)
Dylan Nolan is the director of special projects at FITSNews. He graduated from the Darla Moore school of business in 2021 with an accounting degree. Got a tip or story idea for Dylan? Email him here. You can also engage him socially @DNolan2000.
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1 comment
Cogswell is a corrupt douche