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CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) - Residents who live near one West Ashley development learned more about the future of their community during a meeting hosted by developers.

Cameron Property Company, the company overseeing the development of 26 acres near the Essex Farms community, invited residents to share their concerns and provide input at a meeting Thursday night.

The 26-acre lot runs from Essex Farms Drive, down Skye Drive and extends to Dorothy Drive.

Developers were accompanied by Charleston city officials representing the council, planning department, and traffic department to discuss what potential businesses residents could expect to see.

During the meeting, community members said they were relieved to learn that the developer withdrew its request to change the zoning language to include drive-thru windows at restaurants.

The developer is in talks with a grocery store and gas station, but plans have not been finalized.

Some residents said they are less than pleased about the big changes coming to the Essex Farms community.

Residents also expressed concerns about traffic congestion and the potential for a gas station to be built on the property.

“Tonight’s the first time we’ve heard gas station. That was a shock for all of us. When we purchased our properties, we were told specifically that a gas station wasn’t allowed to be there,” resident Kellie Kinard said.

Development Manager Collins Moe said he wants community input but that the company has the right to build to the zoning order, which does allow a grocery store and gas station.

“We’re going through the appropriate city of Charleston permit steps which require traffic studies. Things that outline what we’re proposing to make sure they meet all the standards with the county, the state, and the city, more importantly, based on where this property lies. At the end of the day, we’re still very far out,” Moe said.

Kinard said she is disappointed and was left with even more concerns and questions.

“I think my husband and I are going to have a serious conversation about whether or not we’re going to list our home. Which is really unfortunate because we love our neighborhood. We have great neighbors, but we do not want this type of development that they’re talking about potentially literally within several feet of our driveway,” Kinard said.

City officials stated that this development was approved many years ago and the zoning goes back to 1997.

Copyright 2024 WCSC. All rights reserved.

CHARLESTON COUNTY, S.C. (WCBD) – More than a dozen volunteers gathered in West Ashley early Saturday morning to clean up a homeless encampment and help those in need.

The cleanup took place in a wooded area behind the Food Lion grocery store off Savannah Highway and Ashley Town Center Drive.

Charleston resident Olivia Grafton organized the event with help from Charleston County Sheriff Kristen Graziano after seeing numerous posts on social media. “People were complaining about it, but nobody was taking action. So, I took it upon myself to gather a group of people and come out here to start this event,” Grafton said.

Roughly 15 volunteers, including Sheriff Graziano, worked to clean up the encampments that were either destroyed or abandoned. They hope that offering a hand will remind others about the ongoing issues of homelessness in the area.

Grafton’s younger nephew, William, also participated in the community cleanup. “I just think it would help a lot,” he said, noting that he wanted to see if they could help some people in need.

In addition to cleaning up the area, volunteers met with those in need to hear their stories, offer food, and find resources to pave a new path forward.

“We want to see what their deal is … if we know their story, and if they have issues with mental health or substance or alcohol use, we have to know because the last thing we want to do is direct them to services and them not be successful. So, part of what we do is try to figure out what their story is and then find resources we can direct them to,” said Sheriff Graziano.

Sheriff Graziano said there is a community wellness problem and that it’s time to give people the resources they need to get well. “We’ve displaced folks long enough, it’s time to get in the trenches and help them out,” she said.

She added, “There’s no better feeling than to lift somebody up when they need it the most, and I think part of my goal as a person, as a human, in this community is to make things better for folks. If we can do that, one step at a time, one person at a time, I think that’s a win and it also helps clean up our community.”

The volunteers collected several bags of trash and removed old furniture and mattresses during the event.

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) - Charleston County officials held a community meeting with the hope of addressing crimes associated with people who are homeless in West Ashley.

Prompted by community concerns, the Charleston County Sheriff’s Office held the meeting at the Bees Ferry Library Wednesday evening.

Charleston County Sheriff Kristen Graziano opened the meeting by discussing a recent incident involving William Whitfield, a person who resided in the woods along Bees Ferry Road. Mental health officials provided an update on his condition.

READ MORE: Arrests, charges continue for man who lives in trees on Bees Ferry Rd.

“He is flagged in the jail, so if he is about to be released, he’s going to be seen by the mental health team at the jail and evaluated for whether or not he needs to go to the hospital either voluntarily or involuntarily,” William Malcolm, director of mental health, said.

Community members shared their experiences and raised questions about the city and county’s efforts to find solutions.

Some emphasized the need for more support and collaboration.

Aaron Comstock, the founder of Uplift Charleston, a homelessness advocacy group, highlighted some solutions.

“None of this can be solved unless we have more shelters and more affordable housing and housing solutions,” Comstock said.

A West Ashley resident, Olivia Grafton, shared her efforts to help the homeless by cleaning up the community and spending time with those in need.

Elected officials were asked tough questions about their plans to address the issues in the future.

Charleston City Council member Stephen Bowden shared potential solutions.

“We’ve got to do a better job of going to our county partners and going to our state partners and letting them know what the dollar figure is,” Bowden said.

Community members wanted to know the whereabouts of Charleston Mayor William Cogswell during the meeting.

When asked about the meeting, the mayor’s spokesperson Deja Knight McMillan provided the following statement:

The Sheriff did not notify anyone from the Mayor’s office that this meeting was happening. Poor communication will not help us collaborate on solving issues in our city.

Officials and organizers acknowledged that this is a long process and stated they will continue working towards solutions.

Copyright 2024 WCSC. All rights reserved.

A new kind of forest is soon taking root in West Ashley, and it's one you could eat right up — literally.

Pluck an apple, cut some herbs or pick some berries at South Carolina's first food forest, a new free-of-charge grove being built in the Ardmore community.

With an expected seven stories of canopies and an estimated $25,000 annually in produce by its fifth year, Charleston Parks Conservancy director Darlene Heater acknowledged it's a remarkable undertaking for the local nonprofit.

"It's creating access in food deserts but creating it in a way that is low-maintenance and little barrier for people to be able to participate in it," Heater said.

The food forest on Mulberry Street near Grech Street, and off the West Ashley Bikeway, is being funded by a $50,000 grant from the South Carolina Forestry Commission.

While the conservancy is handling the horticulture, the City of Charleston's parks department is working to excavate the land, add pathways and install a new playground at the park. It is one of several conservancy projects this year, in addition to working with the city to manage 24 parks on the peninsula, on James Island and in West Ashley.

Parks Department director Jason Kronsberg compared the collaboration between the city, the conservancy and the community to a three-legged stool. The conservancy liaises with the neighborhoods, like Ardmore for the food forest, and then fundraises with them before going to the city to bring a project to life.

The food forest is intended to help the Ardmore neighborhood, recently identified in the Charleston parks master plan as a community of high need, along with the surrounding community.

Besides providing free access to produce, the forest can help people better understand where their food comes from, Kronsberg said. It's also an opportunity for folks to lend a hand with some maintenance.

"The parks are owned by everybody," Kronsberg said.

The project will not be without its challenges, though. As the weather in Charleston gets more severe, Heater said that the conservancy will need to tend to the forest carefully and make sure plants or produce don't wash away.

Teaching the community how to use — and not overuse — the one-of-a-kind forest will take time, too.

The conservancy plans to lean on its volunteer base to maintain the forest, such as harvesting, packing and sending excess produce to local nonprofits. There will be no constraints on harvesting to start, as to not adversely impact food accessibility, Heater said. Part of it will be trial and error, and much of the plan is flexible based on the demand the conservancy sees for certain produce.

"What we may learn is that this community really loves sweet potatoes but doesn't care as much about turnips," Heater said. "So let's look at how we can expand growing our sweet potato patch so that we can continue to serve the people adequately who most need it."

This spring will mark the first planting of the fruit trees, brambles and herbs. Heater said that best practices dictate not harvesting during the first year, so by the second year the conservancy expects to have herbs, mushrooms, brambles and possibly bananas to harvest.

By the fifth year, with an estimated 70 trees bearing fruit, Heater said she expects 10,000 pounds of produce.

The food forest comes two years after the adoption of a new Charleston parks master plan and months after the overwhelming approval of a bond referendum question last November.

"Citizens spoke loudly and clearly that they supported the referendum and improved park spaces," Kronsberg said. "Coming out of COVID, when parks became critical infrastructure, it was natural that there was that much support for a referendum."

As the Ardmore food forest begins to yield, relieving supply-chain issues might just become an additional perk. And in a world reshaped after the pandemic, the food forest is one project that shows how to branch out from the traditional park.

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CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) - After months of her son being chronically sick, which even led him to temporarily stop walking and talking, one West Ashley woman wants to warn people about the effects of living with mold.

Mold test results allege this is exactly what former tenant Lauren LaMantia experienced while living at The Heyward Apartments.

“There’s nothing more frustrating than knowing something is wrong with your kid and there’s no one that will help you,” LaMantia said.

LaMantia and her son Leo moved into The Heyward apartments in West Ashley in 2020. What began as off-and-on colds, led to a sickness that wouldn’t go away for Leo LaMantia last spring.

Lauren LaMantia says he had constant mucus, an oozing eye and he even eventually stopped walking and talking. He was diagnosed with three different viruses and pneumonia in his right lung.

A specialist recommended getting an environmental test in their apartment, which is when she hired The Mold Girl, LLC and GSL Engineering.

She explained what The Mold Girl, LLC recommended.

“[An employee] said, ‘Based on how I feel after being here and testing, I wouldn’t keep my family here for another day,’” LaMantia said. “So, that night we packed up and we left.”

She took the topical tests to The Heyward management, who then hired a vendor to remediate the area and clean invasively, which she claims only exacerbated the problem.

“It was worse, obviously, than what was just topical,” LaMantia said. “And those spores got thrown out into the air, into the air ducts and contaminated all of our belongings.”

When the two initial companies came out to test again, the results were worse than before.

GSL Engineering’s air quality test says anything higher than a five requires an investigation. The apartment’s levels were 7.7.

In The Mold Girl, LLC’s test, there were a variety of molds found, with some of these also showing in the 95th percentile in Leo’s urine sample.

“When I told the complex that, they considered this matter closed and that they had denied any allegations with my initial concern with sending a vendor out there to fix it,” LaMantia said.

She says The Heyward offered to terminate the lease, under one condition. She was asked to sign a waiver of liability, a confidentiality agreement and a non-disclosure form. When she refused, she had to pay nine more months of rent in an apartment she couldn’t live in.

“Between moving, medical, rent, legal counsel - just consultations - it’s between $40,000-$50,000 out of pocket,” LaMantia said.

The Heyward’s attorney, Thomas Howard, sent this statement in response to the allegations:

Due to privacy concerns, it is our policy not to comment on specific questions regarding any resident. We are aware of the resident’s complaint to which our community representatives promptly investigated and responded. We contest the resident’s portrayal of the facts and our corresponding actions. At Heyward, the safety and well-being of our community residents are paramount, and we treat all concerns with utmost seriousness. Heyward has been nationally recognized in the country for resident experience placing in the Elite 1% ORA Power Rankings (34th nationally) by J Turner Research. The ORA® Power Ranking is based on the relative strength of over 140,000 communities assessed by J Turner Research, a prominent consulting firm that monitors resident satisfaction. This accomplishment reflects the hard work and positive impact of our onsite management team which remains dedicated to providing the best possible environment for all of our residents.

Since moving out, LaMantia says she still experiences memory loss and is on more antibiotics now than she has been in the last ten years. She wants to warn other renters about the dangers mold could present.

“I just hope that people get out of that place,” LaMantia said. “...It’s just a breeding ground for mold... And they have no idea that they’re going to breathe in these terrible things and that could permanently damage them.”

She recommends if anyone is feeling symptoms no matter where they live, to get your place tested.

Copyright 2024 WCSC. All rights reserved.