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JOHNS ISLAND, S.C. (WCIV) — It started as an island paradise, but residents at a Johns Island apartment complex say their home now resembles the woods.

The residents of Sea Island Apartments, which houses about 48 people off Maybank Highway, are speaking out against what they describe as "deplorable" conditions.

Read more: One80 Place launches eviction prevention line to support Charleston renters

"We have seen grass grow almost knee and chest high," said Farley, a disabled military veteran who has been living in the complex for six years. "You see fallen trees in the area, people not receiving maintenance, and overloaded trash bin."

In addition to the overgrown vegetation, the residents are concerned about random visits from wildlife. They say it seems management has slacked off and there's been little to no communication.

"You're forced to pay rent on time, but still, your issues are going unaddressed," Farley said. "We'll reach out to management and they haven't meet with us. Every time, they change management or owners. Nobody has contact to it."

It started as an island paradise, but residents at a Johns Island apartment complex say their home now resembles the woods. (WCIV)

There is also only one trashcan in the entire community and a small number of parking spaces.

"You have disabled people having to walk all the way down to one trash bin," Farley said. "There are not enough handicap parking spots. (Management) told us we'd have to park on the side of the road if there are no parking spaces."

"It's time we be up to date, as we were before," said Charlotte Turner, who has been living in the complex for 10 years. "Management needs to show a serious concern about resident complaints, at least be willing to meet or communicate."

Read more: Mayor Tecklenburg to host ribbon cutting for six new affordable housing properties in Charleston

A councilman was reached for comment on this area, but he was unable to conduct an interview due to prior commitments. A representative from the Charleston Development Group was also reached for comment.

JOHNS ISLAND, S.C. (WCBD) – Trident Medical Center is looking to build a new hospital on Johns Island.

A certificate of need was submitted by Trident Medical to the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) in a step toward constructing a 50-bed acute care facility between Maybank Highway and Cane Slash Road.

It would be directly across from the Live Oak Square development.

“We are excited to continue making medical care more accessible to residents in our historically underserved communities,” said Trident Health President and CEO Christina Oh. “Currently on Johns Island and neighboring communities, it can take residents 30 to 45 minutes to drive to their nearest hospital, and often longer in heavy traffic and inclement weather. Our goal is to increase access to timely, high quality, and affordable health care services.”

Trident leaders estimate the cost of building the new hospital at about $277 million. They said that in the first three years, the Johns Island Hospital would create nearly 300 jobs, contribute to $10 million in non-income taxes to support the community and pay $70 million in salaries, wages, and benefits.

“Johns Island Hospital will mean many residents in the area won’t have to leave the island for work. This will be a great benefit to them and their families,” said Oh regarding job creation.

In addition, the new Johns Island Hospital would be located seven miles from James Island Emergency, which is Trident’s new freestanding ER on Folly Road, which is slated to open in the next few weeks.

The hospital would include 50 beds with space to expand to 150 beds. It would have 40 medical/surgical/stepdown beds, 10 ICU beds, 20 ER rooms, four operating rooms, two endoscopy rooms, and other resources.

Leaders say the third floor will also be designed for future expansion to include a labor and delivery unit and nursery.

“From our first discussions about building a hospital on Johns Island, we have been committed to creating a thoughtful plan that preserves the natural beauty of Johns Island. We will honor the strong Gullah Geechee cultures of the community; we will partner with the areas’ community and businesses; and will promote the important and unique contributions of Johns Island’s agricultural community,” said Oh.

Trident Health operates hospitals in North Charleston, Summerville, and Moncks Corner with three area freestanding emergency departments, and Live Oak Mental Health and Wellness. Its fourth freestanding emergency department is forthcoming.

Trident Medical Center has submitted a Certificate of Need to the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control to build a $277 million hospital on Johns Island. The application is for a 50-bed acute care hospital between Maybank Highway and Cane Slash Road, across from the Live Oak Square development.

Projections for Johns Island Hospital show that within the first three years it will create nearly 300 jobs, contribute $10 million in non-income taxes to support the community and pay $70 million in salaries, wages and benefits, the organization said in a release.

“We are excited to continue making medical care more accessible to residents in our historically underserved communities,” Trident Health President and CEO Christina Oh said in the news release. “Currently on Johns Island and neighboring communities, it can take residents 30 to 45 minutes to drive to their nearest hospital, and often longer in heavy traffic and inclement weather. Our goal is to increase access to timely, high quality and affordable health care services.”

Trident Medical Center’s chief of the medical staff and medical director of emergency services, Dr. Scott Hayes, said he sees firsthand the results of delayed care.

“For residents who live far from emergency medical care and who may be experiencing a medical emergency like a heart attack or a stroke, minutes can mean the difference between life and death,” he said in the news release. “Access to care close to home is critical, especially in areas like Johns Island and the surrounding communities, that have frequent traffic delays.”

Trident Health surgeon Dr. Thomas Litton, who lived on Johns Island for 20 years and recently moved from there largely due to increasing traffic congestion and limited access routes off the island, said, “The rapid population growth and development of Johns Island, as well as its role as the sole gateway to Kiawah, Seabrook and Wadmalaw Islands, has created a strong need for a full-service hospital in the area. Residents on those islands have never had a full-service hospital. Trident’s hospital on Johns Island and their freestanding ER on James Island will greatly improve residents’ access to much-needed medical care.”

Johns Island Hospital will be located seven miles from James Island Emergency, Trident’s new freestanding ER at 945 Folly Road, Charleston, that will open in the next few weeks.

Plans call for Johns Island Hospital to have 50 beds with space to expand to 150 beds, 40 medical/surgical/stepdown beds, 10 ICU beds, 20 ER rooms, four operating rooms, two endoscopy suites and a cardiac catheterization lab. The hospital also would have two CT scanners, an MRI, two diagnostic radiology suites and a fluoroscopy room.

In addition to the hospital, services would include medical offices for primary care and specialists as well as outpatient imaging and support such as breast imaging, rehabilitation and other outpatient therapy services.

“From our first discussions about building a hospital on Johns Island, we have been committed to creating a thoughtful plan that preserves the natural beauty of Johns Island,” Oh said in the release. “We will honor the strong Gullah Geechee cultures of the community; we will partner with the areas’ community and businesses; and will promote the important and unique contributions of Johns Island’s agricultural community.”

The proposed Johns Island Hospital is in addition to nearly $140M in capital investments currently underway at Trident Health’s hospitals, Trident Medical Center and Summerville

Reach Ross Norton at rnorton@scbiznews.com or 864-642-5229.

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Clemson University’s Historic Preservation program is launching the Johns Island Preservation Field School. The summer field school program funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Vernacular Architecture Forum focuses on researching and documenting late 19th and early 20th century public buildings and their role within the African American community on Johns Island, SC.

Alongside Clemson’s Historic Preservation program, the Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture at the College of Charleston, the Progressive Club and the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor Commission (GGCHCC) are hosting this three-week program—the field school runs from May 22 to June 9.

“The field school brings together African American studies, public history, history, historic preservation and other thinking and skills, all surrounding important and story-laden historic places and the people associated with these built environments,” explained Amalia Leifeste, associate professor of historic preservation at Clemson University.

The program includes workshops by historic preservation faculty, history faculty, archivist, scholars and local community educators, teaching participants about life in the Johns Island community during the Reconstruction, Jim Crow and Civil Rights periods. Through hands-on training in historic preservation documentation and research methods, including archival research, measured drawing, photography, laser scanning, photogrammetry and GIS, participants will learn how to document the physical fabric and cultural narratives associated with the historic buildings and landscapes on Johns Island.

“This is the kind of work that can bring new people into the field of historic preservation and assists in continuing to evolve the field to include buildings and people not always centered in historic conversations,” Leifeste said.

Johns Island residents will also be encouraged to apply to the second year of the field school (Summer of 2024), and they will be given priority along with applicants demonstrating historic or cultural ties to Johns Island or the broader Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor. Residents will also be invited to participate in one-day workshops with topics including reading buildings with Jobie Hill. Community members will be compensated for their time in attending these workshops.

Public Preservation Events

Johns Island Preservation Field School also offers three public events during its three-week tenure on the island. The public is invited to panel discussions, student presentations and a preservation advocacy discussion. Following are the events that are open to the public:

There’s a new red light on Maybank Highway, and new Charleston County Councilman Joe Boykin hears about it. Every. Single. Day.

Because, make no mistake, traffic is the undisputed heavyweight chokepoint of contention on Johns Island.

“A lot of folks are upset; they can’t get on and off the island,” Boykin says. “You think it’s bad now — there are 1,300 homes planned or under construction around there. Wait ’til all that drops.”

Yep, that’s the thing — the island can’t wait any longer for traffic relief. Residents have been waiting, largely in idling cars, for years now.

Johns Island’s chronic congestion — and dysfunction — has spread over time, and overwhelms James Island and West Ashley with tens of thousands of commuters daily. Sometimes the drive-by traffic shuts down the grid west of the Ashley River.

See: Savannah Highway and Main Road, Interstate 526 and Sam Rittenberg, Maybank and Folly Road, et al.

There are various solutions to this problem planned, but land disputes, jurisdictional spats, environmental concerns, the threat of lawsuits and rising construction costs have slowed many of those projects. It’s a mess.

Of course, politics is behind some of the paralysis. Nobody can agree on anything these days, especially what needs to be done about Johns Island growth … and its infrastructure.

It’s really about an island with an exploding population that has exactly two routes on and off it. You could call that poor planning, but plans for a third route have been in the works for years. But that’s another story.

So here we are.

There is some reason for hope, however. On Thursday, county and city traffic engineers — along with Boykin, County Council Vice Chairwoman Jenny Honeycutt and City Councilman Karl Brady — sat down in Charleston Mayor John Tecklenburg’s office to talk about more collaboration between the two local governments to get various road projects moving.

Which is a good sign, because in the past the two haven’t always seen eye to eye.

At Boykin’s request, County Council recently pledged to work more closely with the city on Johns Island traffic.

And a unanimous vote from a City Council committee last week affirmed its commitment to the same.

Most significantly, City Council gave initial consent to a fourth lane to Maybank Highway between River Road and the bridge to James Island. Right now, much of that stretch is restricted to a single outbound lane that at times is ridiculously overwhelmed.

The City Council resolution is notable because, years ago, Charleston held up county plans to widen Maybank — largely because officials didn’t want to sacrifice trees for additional lanes.

But in the past two years, the traffic count on Maybank has gone up by 6,000 cars per day, to a new high of more than 35,000. For comparison, about 45,000 cross the Wappoo bridge.

The agreement to widen Maybank Highway is a good start, because it’ll ease the bottleneck that builds up ahead of the bridge to James Island. Boykin says if that can be done without sacrificing any trees, it will be.

That’s a big deal but, frankly, just having the city and county in accord is bigger.

“I believe we have a newfound, unprecedented level of cooperation and commitment to improving the traffic at River and Maybank,” Tecklenburg says. “We’re looking at temporary and long-term ways to get two lanes from River Road to the bridge. We’re going to update the traffic plan, which should take about a month. We’re going to do whatever the Department of Transportation will allow.”

Because, remember, the state technically owns all these roads.

Commute times don’t yet reflect it, but there’s already some movement.

The county’s northern pitchfork is under construction — that new traffic signal at Maybank and Fenwick Hall Allee (the one Boykin is getting calls about) is in place because that’s where the pitchfork will meet the highway.

The problem has been the light’s timing. As any traffic engineer will tell you, when a road is that hopelessly over capacity, it’s difficult to sync it.

The next challenge will be building the southern pitchfork, which Boykin says is key to alleviating congestion on that side of the island. And it’s needed whether or not 526 gets finished.

That’s one thing the county and city, which secured land for the southern leg a few years back, will study in the coming months.

As Boykin and Tecklenburg note, the tines of the pitchfork need to align because yet another traffic light on that stretch of Maybank is simply not an option.

Neither is allowing Johns Island’s congestion to fester any longer.