Hyperbaric Chamber Therapy in Johns Island, SC

Since 2012, South Carolina Anglicans have been in legal dispute with the Episcopal Church. A mixed State Supreme Court ruling in April 2022 began the conclusion of the last major church property dispute in the North American Anglican realignment.

Of the 36 Anglican parishes that were parties in the South Carolina Episcopal Church lawsuit, 28 retained control of their church properties, including the historic St. Michael’s, St. Philip’s and Old St. Andrew’s churches in Charleston. The Anglican Diocese of South Carolina (ADOSC) counts a total of 53 parish and mission churches.

Of the eight ruled by the South Carolina State Supreme Court to lose control of their properties:

The Episcopal Church also filed a Petition for Reconsideration and Rehearing in September, asking the Court to reverse their ruling regarding two Anglican parishes whose property rights were affirmed on August 17: Old St Andrew’s in Charleston (the oldest church building south of Virginia dating to 1706), and the Church of the Holy Cross in Stateburg. Those parishes await court action.

St. John’s Parish Church on Johns Island was the first to turn over property to the Episcopal Church, leaving their historic building and grounds to begin meeting for services at a nearby middle school. An Episcopal Church-affiliated congregation began worship on the historic site July 17.

During his recent visit to Charleston for the Mere Anglicanism conference, Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) Archbishop Foley Beach preached at the invitation of the St. John’s congregation.

The decision of Archbishop Beach – who presumably would be welcome in the pulpit of any of the three dozen Charleston-area ACNA parishes – to preach at St. John’s Parish Church signaled care for and support of those who had lost properties.

“It was an incredible encouragement to have the Archbishop with us. We are humbled he chose to be with us,” St. John’s Rector Jeremy Shelton shared with me in an interview this week. “It’s been six months for us now and it has been an incredible blessing. It is difficult, for sure. But God is faithful and our congregation is growing in size, faithfulness, and unity. The Gospel speaks much louder than anything else.”

Shelton, who became St. John’s Rector at the time of the property handover, explained that the invitation for Beach to preach came about after a parish staff member suggested it. The Archbishop’s office circled back within a month, suggesting the weekend of January 29.

Johns Island is a formerly rural community that has quickly become a Charleston suburb. The fourth largest island on the United States’ East Coast, it now has a population nearing 30,000, a growth rate of 114 percent since 2000. Named for Saint John Parish in Barbados by the first English colonial settlers, there is a long history of Anglican worship on the island, with St. Johns Parish Church founded in 1734.

“Our neighbors are from Minnesota, New York, Maryland, Ohio and Pennsylvania,” Shelton, who hails from Kentucky but has lived in South Carolina for nearly 20 years, tells me of his own residential subdivision on the island. “They are coming from everywhere.”

Asked about what has most surprised the congregation amidst the period following the property handover, Shelton answered that congregational unity has grown.

“We were essentially three different congregations worshiping in one space,” Shelton recounted of the church’s recent history. “We went from three different worship preferences to one, and there was almost no dissension at all. It has been such an incredible blessing.”

The relationship with the middle school began about 15 years ago when parishioners prayed together for the school, then scheduled to close, to remain open, leading parishioners to become more intimately involved. It now has a magnet program and is a School of Excellence.

“In 15 years, going from a school that was scheduled to be closed to being a School of Excellence is nothing short of miraculous,” Shelton says of the school where his oldest son was a student and another son is presently enrolled. “They were arms wide open from the moment I reached out to them.”

Shelton said that of the parish congregation, about 250 persons came to worship at the middle school cafeteria, while about a dozen remained with the building as it transferred to the Episcopal Church.

“We are seeing new people come almost on a weekly basis,” Shelton reported. “We hosted a newcomer’s lunch this past Sunday since we began at the middle school and there were about thirty [new participants].”

The transition has not been without challenges: school fire alarms displaced the congregation in the middle of reciting the creed on Sunday, only to recur two weeks later at the conclusion of a service. Worship in a school cafeteria also means visible chewing gum adhered to the bottom of folding tables that double as pews. But St. John’s has a history of making it work.

“We have people who have been members for 94 years that have left the historic buildings and grounds and are now worshiping in the cafeteria of the school,” Shelton notes. Longtime church members recall these aren’t the first challenges the parish faced: in the 1950s, limited space necessitated Sunday school classes meeting in an attic and a graveyard.

“We’ve always made it work,” an elderly parishioner recounted to Shelton. God, he insists, is faithful: “We’re not just making it work, we’re thriving, due to God’s faithfulness and the resolve of the congregation.”

One challenge has already been overcome: the parish initially utilized garages and living rooms for storage, but now a central home base has been established in Resurrection Hall, which houses offices, storage and a trailer at one central location less than a mile from the school.

“You can do anything for a little while,” Shelton laughs. “What we have seen is that simply being in the community, we are hosting bible studies in people’s homes but also coffee shops, restaurants and parks. People are seeing us out and that is a way of beginning conversations.”

The $75 million in funding that Charleston County Council approved for the Mark Clark extension project last week has the potential to be transformative for Charleston County and Johns Island in three ways, but not in ways council members or residents may think.

First, the project could be financially transformative in the short-term because it could be the largest county financial debacle since the millions “invested” in the former Naval Hospital.

Why? Because council is betting taxpayer money that a slew of low-probability events take place that make this $75 million bet a sure winner.

These events include betting that:

These bets don’t even include the bet that the state Joint Bond Review Committee will shirk its fiduciary responsibility and approve the infrastructure bank’s request for matching funds. This despite Charleston County having no real plan to raise the additional funds needed for the project.

If this low-probability bet is lost, county taxpayers will not only be out $75 million, but they also would have to reimburse the infrastructure bank for 50% of all funds it provided. And we would have lost $75 million that could have been spent on making much-needed improvements to our roads now.

Second, the project could be financially transformative for Charleston County in the long-term since the true cost of the project will likely be much greater than $2.2 billion.

Why? Because of the intergovernmental agreement Charleston County signed with the infrastructure bank and the state Department of Transportation, the county is solely responsible for all additional costs. These costs include any cost overruns and lawsuits; funds for bond servicing; and the cost to upgrade River Road to accommodate the traffic from this project.

These costs could easily add up to an additional several hundred million more dollars. Just imagine how the bond rating agencies will assess the county’s creditworthiness with this unbounded financial obligation.

Third, the project could be transformative to Johns Island because the Lowcountry character of the island would be lost forever.

Why? Because large road projects like these attract large “Anywhere USA” residential developments with their multitude of cars, big box stores and national franchises that push out local businesses. They also dislocate long-time residents. All of this would greatly and adversely impact our quality of life and worsen traffic congestion.

If you need some examples of this, just look to Mount Pleasant and the Cainhoy Peninsula.

Once the Ravenel Bridge was completed, growth in Mount Pleasant exploded. The town is now grappling with its growth and congestion at nearly every Town Council meeting. For example, the town recently announced it will perform an in-depth study to see what can be done to reduce the number of vehicles traveling on roads throughout the town. The study is not about building new roads but managing traffic on existing ones.

Without Interstate 526, the Cainhoy Peninsula was not attractive to developers. Now, there are plans to build 9,000 homes there and to fill vast stretches of wetlands — not to mention the eventual dislocation of long-time residents.

Even without the 9,000 Cainhoy houses, I-526 is currently so congested that the state and federal governments (not Charleston County) are looking to spend billions of dollars to try to relieve this congestion.

This is not the future Johns Islanders want.

There will be those who say that this is a much-needed project. This despite effective lower-cost alternatives that do not alter our island forever.

There will be those who say that residents are overwhelmingly in support of this project. This despite the latest DOT survey showing that fewer than half of them support the project.

There will be those who say that we need a third way on and off the island. This despite, in comparison, that we have only 10% more daily traffic than Hilton Head on our bridges. Yet we have two bridges with eight available lanes, while Hilton Head is about to spend millions to expand its single bridge from four to only six lanes.

Do we need to improve safety and reduce congestion on our roads to improve our quality of life? Yes.

Is betting the county’s short-term and long-term financial future, losing the soul of what makes Johns Island who we are, ignoring effective lower-cost alternatives and ignoring the desires of the majority of the residents the way to do it? No.

So what will happen?

The county could be saved from itself if the Joint Bond Review Committee votes against authorizing the matching funds. Then we can get back to the business of improving safety and reducing congestion on our roads.

John Zlogar is a cofounder of Rational Roads for Johns Island.

The South Carolina Environmental Law Project is urging people to request a public hearing for a potential bridge to be built over Pennys Creek.

JOHNS ISLAND, S.C. (WCSC) - The South Carolina Environmental Law Project is urging people to request a public hearing for a potential bridge to be built over Pennys Creek.

Pennys Creek separates a portion of land from Johns Island between the creek and the Stono River. The two-lane bridge would be 33-feet-wide by 570-feet-long.

Conservationists say that kind of construction work would affect the water quality and health of the salt marsh ecosystem. Betsy LaForce is with the Coastal Conservation League.

“We’re thinking about- runoff from cars and stormwater runoff that would go right into the marsh, but also just some of the shading and then the impacts from the piling,” she says.

The applicant is Mike Blanchard of Charles Blanchard Construction Corporation. The proposed name for the bridge is the Blanchard Family Bridge. The application is to build at Fenwick Plantation Road and St. Paul’s Parish Lane. That intersection sits inside a quiet Johns Island neighborhood. According to DHEC’s public notice, the purpose is to provide car access to private property where “access to public roadways is otherwise infeasible.”

South Carolina Environmental Law Project is concerned that the bridge will impact the estuarine ecosystem including some marsh habitat. The organization is also submitting a letter on behalf of the Coastal Conservation League. While the private bridge would access private property, the project argues that the negative impacts to the public waterway and ecosystem held entrust by the state are not worth it.

LaForce says there are a lot of questions about this bridge.

“There are kind of more questions than answers that have been provided in the application in the letter of intent as to why the applicant really needs this bridge to this island that’s already been under the same ownership for quite a long time and access via a separate bridge hasn’t been needed to date,” LaForce says. “So that’s part of the reason why this public hearing will be so important…to ask them to ask the applicant to provide a little bit more background on why this access is needed to the tip of this marsh island.”

The letter argues that there already is access to the land via Rushland Road. “The applicant does not appear to have detailed why this is an infeasible route for access” and that “their proposed access is not a necessity,” according to the letter. The applicant says he has been denied access through that avenue.

In a statement, the applicant explains his family has owned the land since the 40′s and sold off most of it reserving six remaining acres for their grandchildren to use. He says there used to be more bridges and causeways that fell into disrepair and have not been replaced. He says they have secured a permit in the past, but let it expire before being able to build.

Part of the statement reads:

“This property is landlocked and the only available access is by a bridge. We tried for 50 years to get access through the neighboring land between our property and Rushland Landing Road to no avail. We have met all of the regulations and were granted a bridge permit 3 times. If we can’t build a bridge, we cannot access our land.”

LaForce says they are also worried about development pressure.

“Some of the infrastructure that’s being proposed for such a sensitive ecosystem…so on our Sea Islands, we want to be really cognizant of these piecemeal kind of applications that are being considered whether it’s for new roadways, new bridges, and sort of the cumulative impacts that each of those individual budgets has on the bigger picture,” LaForce.

South Carolina Environmental Law Project urges people to submit a request for a public hearing to learn more about the reason for the bridge and potential impact to the environment. Neighbors say they are confident they will meet the 20-request requirement for a public hearing.

Public comments end on March 8th. For more information, click here.

Copyright 2023 WCSC. All rights reserved.

COLUMBIA, S.C. (WIS) -Thursday a resolution was filed that could begin an impeachment inquiry after a $3.5 billion accounting.

Representative Gil Gatch (R-Summerville) filed the resolution directing the South Carolina House Judiciary Committee to begin an inquiry into if South Carolina Comptroller General Richard Eckstrom should be impeached.

Eckstrom told the Senate Finance Committee in February that the state’s Annual Comprehensive Financial Reports have overstated how much reserve cash the state had. The error accounted for $3.5 billion over a ten-year period.

After the error was reported, a dozen Democratic state representatives filed a letter requesting an audit and further inquiry into the error.

Rep. Gil Gatch said, “This is a grave miscarriage of the public trust. If there was ever a reason for which the House should act on our authority to impeach, this rises to the top. At the end of the day, this is a $3.5 billion error, and we must hold the responsible parties accountable.”

Co-sponsors on Thursday’s resolution included Rep. Heather Bauer (D-Columbia) and Rep. Matthew Leber (R-John’s Island). Bauer was among the representatives that filed the earlier audit letter.

Bauer said, “I’ve asked for a full audit, and I got a meeting” She continued,“This has happened before, and he was warned. I’m honestly surprised he hasn’t resigned yet. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”

The South Carolina Constitution gives the SC House of Representatives the ability to impeach statewide officials for ‘serious crimes or misconduct in office.’ If the request is approved by two-thirds of the House of Representatives the question of impeachment would head to the South Carolina Senate.

Rep. Gatch said, “South Carolinians deserve better. We must demand transparency and accountability from our elected officials.”

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Cushman & Wakefield announced that the commercial real estate services firm arranged the $16.3 million sale of Forest at Fenwick, an 80-unit multifamily property located in Johns Island, South Carolina.

Cushman & Wakefield’s John Phoenix, Richard Gore, and Tyler Fish represented the seller, Southwood Realty/Triangle Real Estate, in the transaction. The multifamily property was acquired in a partnership managed by Rowin Capital and Penny Lane Associates.

“We are pleased to enter the Charleston market with the acquisition of Forest at Fenwick,” said Joe Scherban, Managing Director at Rowin Capital. “Forest at Fenwick is an extremely desirable place to live, located just minutes from downtown Charleston but in the quiet elegance of Johns Island.”

Built in 2005, Forest at Fenwick is located on Johns Island, an area that is walkable to restaurants and grocers on Maybank Highway. Residents enjoy state of the art amenities including a swimming pool with sundeck, poolside gas grill, fire-pit, 24-hour fitness center, coffee bar, and screened-in outdoor lounge.

“Forest at Fenwick provided the Buyer a proven value-add opportunity to capitalize on a well-maintained asset in a thriving Charleston submarket,” said Phoenix, Senior Director at Cushman & Wakefield.

Cushman & Wakefield’s Sunbelt Multifamily Advisory Group is a 109-person investment sales team covering 11 states with No. 1 multifamily market share in that region based on sales volume and transactions reported to CoStar. Per Cushman & Wakefield, in 2022, the group closed $11.1 billion in sales volume through 360 deals and over 60,300 units.

While the two main confidence indexes for multifamily housing increased slightly in the fourth quarter, they both remained in negative territory, according to results from the Multifamily Market Survey (MMS) released by the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB). The MMS produces two separate indices. The Multifamily Production Index (MPI) increased two points to 34 compared to the previous quarter and the Multifamily Occupancy Index (MOI) increased four points to 49.

The MPI measures builder and developer sentiment about current production conditions in the apartment and condo market on a scale of 0 to 100. The index and all of its components are scaled so that a number below 50 indicates that more respondents report conditions are getting worse than report conditions are improving.

The MPI is a weighted average of three key elements of the multifamily housing market: construction of low-rent units-apartments that are supported by low-income tax credits or other government subsidy programs; market-rate rental units-apartments that are built to be rented at the price the market will hold; and for-sale units—condominiums. The component measuring low-rent units increased five points to 41, the component measuring market rate apartments dropped one point to 38 and the component measuring for-sale units remained even at 23.

The MOI measures the multifamily housing industry’s perception of occupancies in existing apartments. It is a weighted average of current occupancy indexes for class A, B, and C multifamily units, and can vary from 0 to 100, with a break-even point at 50, where lower numbers indicate decreased occupancy. The MOI increased four points to 49, indicating that the market is close to being stable.

“Many developers continue to see strong demand for multifamily housing, but in some markets supply is catching up to demand,” said Lance Swank, president and co-owner of Sterling Group, Inc. in Mishawaka, Ind., and chairman of NAHB’s Multifamily Council. “In most markets, developers face challenges with regulatory costs and delays, and obtaining financing for new construction.”

“It is appropriate that multifamily developers are expressing some caution and that the MPI remains below 50, given the way starts have been outpacing completions,” said NAHB Chief Economist Robert Dietz. “This is also consistent with NAHB’s forecast that multifamily production will slow measurably from the very strong rates it sustained through most of 2022.”

For data tables on the MPI and MOI, visit www.nahb.org/mms.

For more information on the NAHB Multifamily program, please visit NAHB Multifamily.