62-home Maybank plan advances—with a promise to keep its traffic off Fern Hill

Charleston’s Planning Commission approved the 62-home Maybank subdivision concept and recommended its planned unit development zoning on Oct. 21, after the applicant’s team promised to block project traffic from reaching Fern Hill Drive.⁠[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8]

That was concept approval, not permission to begin construction. City Council retains the final zoning decision, and further technical review remains. No final Council zoning action is established in the records reviewed.⁠[7][9][10]

The Johns Island project sits between Southwick and Fern Hill drives off Maybank Highway in Charleston, South Carolina. The concept shows 30 detached homes and 32 townhomes. The broader PUD includes the operating Bright Oak Preschool Academy, and its guidelines require two parcels to be annexed from Charleston County into the city.⁠[11][12]

Fern Hill is where the hearing account diverged from the paperwork. The traffic study describes a road connecting Southwick and Fern Hill, and the August PUD guidelines list access from Maybank, Southwick and Fern Hill. At the hearing, the applicant’s team instead described a physical block and identified Maybank and Southwick as the connection points. A city presenter explained that roads can be built for future connections without opening them immediately. The reviewed record does not establish a revised written access plan reconciling those accounts.⁠[8][11][13][14]

We previously reported how the project could change Southwick’s route to Maybank. The applicant’s April draft traffic study assumes 90% of traffic otherwise using Southwick to reach the highway would divert through new streets to the project entrance. It recommends a signal opposite St. Johns Woods Parkway instead of the Southwick signal assumed in its no-build scenario—not the relocation of an established stoplight.⁠[11]

The model predicts acceptable overall operations at the new signal, but not improvement for every route against its no-build comparison. Drivers still entering Maybank directly from Southwick would face modeled evening intersection delay of about 59 seconds, versus about 44 seconds with the no-build Southwick signal. Both are below the roughly 385 seconds modeled for 2025 conditions. At the hearing, a city presenter said traffic and transportation staff had reviewed the study.⁠[11][15]

The housing numbers do not fully line up, either. A city presenter told commissioners, “They are limited to 62 units.” That matches the concept’s residential count, but the August zoning guidelines list a maximum of 69 dwellings. The April traffic study analyzes 38 detached and 38 attached homes, or 76 total. The reviewed evidence does not establish replacement zoning language reducing the written ceiling to 62.⁠[11][12][16]

Adjoining homeowner Alex Nosov questioned how grading would meet his property and protect it from additional runoff. The conceptual grading sheet lists approximately 41,235 cubic yards of fill. The applicant’s response was that the project could not increase stormwater onto neighboring property and that the plans showed facilities to handle it.⁠[12][17][18][19]

The Aug. 5 stormwater review provides a more qualified picture. Reviewers said submitted calculations did not meet required runoff-rate and volume reductions for 2-, 10- and 25-year storms. On a separate channel question, the applicant said an updated model showed no overtopping; reviewers responded that the grass channel would not contain modeled 100-year flow and requested changed dimensions.⁠[20]

Reviewers had closed a separate routing concern after accepting the applicant’s explanation that house impervious areas would drain toward streets and infiltration basins, while grassy rear-lot areas could follow existing offsite drainage patterns. More engineering review lies ahead, according to the hearing presentation. Whether the separate runoff-calculation and channel findings had been resolved by the October vote remains unconfirmed in the records reviewed; the August findings alone do not establish present noncompliance.⁠[10][20]