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Photo Courtesy SCDOT / Change is coming to Beaufort County's one quiet two-lane roadway.
By Kathleen Dayton
Travelers heading from Charleston to Beaufort or Savannah travel a timeworn route little changed for most of the 20th century. Along the narrow corridor lined with dense forests, dark swamps and old rice fields, motorists on U.S. Highway 17 cross rivers named for ancient American Indian tribes and pass country stores and produce stands selling boiled peanuts, peaches and tomatoes.
Gas stations are few. Nature and history abound along the 22-mile route between Jacksonboro and Point South, where Interstate 95 returns travelers to a world fraught with high-speed traffic, dueling convenience stores and budget motels.
The northern portion of Beaufort County and the edge of Jasper County is where the two-lane and six-lane worlds collide.
For Highway 17, change is coming on the wings of a highway widening project designed not only to handle increasing traffic, but to curb accidents on what has become one of the state’s deadliest stretches of roadway. Widening has already begun on the Combahee River Bridge, and the Beaufort County portion of the project should be complete by 2010.
Already, developers are drooling over roadside land parcels zoned for the most part as rural/residential. One 1,300-acre tract, known as Binden Plantation, has been annexed into the nearby town of Yemassee in order to allow as much as 450,000 square feet of commercial development and as many as 1,300 homes.
Binden and its sister development, Bull Point Plantation, are perhaps the first signs that northern Beaufort County is poised for growth, but many doubt the level of development will reach that seen in southern Beaufort County, which is dominated by Hilton Head Island and the rapidly growing town of Bluffton.
Beaufort County has preserved more than 10,000 acres of land since 1997 and in 2000 approved the Rural and Critical Land Preservation Program, which allows the county to purchase or negotiate conservation easements for historic or environmentally sensitive sites. The program was renewed last year with a $50 million bond issue to be repaid through property tax revenue.
“We’ve been very concerned about the impact of the rapid and unplanned growth that’s been happening in Beaufort County, but the citizens of Beaufort County have always been fairly progressive,” said Reed Armstrong, South Coast office project manager for the Coastal Conservation League. “That referendum ballot this past November was supported by more than three-quarters of the voters, so there is very strong public support for preserving and protecting the natural resources in the area.”
There also is concern for economic development in this poorest section of Beaufort County, where agriculture no longer provides a support base and where jobs are an hour or more away.
“A while back, we had proposed some rural business districts, but we have held off because of the highway widening. We didn’t know how it might affect that area,” said Beaufort County natural resources planner John Holloway.
Holloway’s department is charged with analyzing sites targeted for development and identifying natural areas that should be protected. Northern Beaufort County lies at the edge of the ACE Basin, a wildlife-rich region nourished by the Ashepoo, Combahee and Edisto rivers.
“At some point we have to protect what makes this area beautiful. There’s still a possibility that there could be a real business district in Gardens Corner. If you widen a highway, typically you provide more access to properties and people think they’re worth more,” Holloway said
Because of its location at the turn onto U.S. Highway 21 leading to Beaufort, Gardens Corner might be seen as the capital of northern Beaufort County. Previously, there was a lone gas station at the intersection, until Piggly Wiggly made its debut in 2001. More development is planned for the area around the store, the site of a former dairy farm.
“On all the property you own, you have to pay the taxes sooner or later. Somebody’s got to make some money. It’s just a fact of life in America,” said Chris Campbell, whose family has owned the Piggly Wiggly property and other acreage in the area since the 1950s.
Campbell operated the store independently until 2005, when he leased it to Piggly Wiggly. Campbell calls the Lowcountry-style grocery store his family’s gift to the community, adding that Family Dollar has been showing interest in the spot for years. Campbell hopes to eventually add more retail to the property, while negotiating with Beaufort County to purchase the development rights on 400 acres surrounding the property.
Campbell also owns property adjoining Binden Plantation and is filing a lawsuit, along with the Coastal Conservation League, contending that Binden’s developer illegally annexed the property into Yemassee to open the door to substantial commercial development.
“The Binden thing really was a shock to everybody in this neighborhood,” Campbell said. “I think they should develop under the rules of Beaufort County. Yemasee has no rules. We need some development out here, but I think most people would like to see it controlled.”
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