How are we Keeping Development in Check? (w/ Ross Appel)

Talking Charleston

Mayor William Cogswel and Councilman Ross Appel discuss the complex infrastructure and regulatory challenges facing Charleston's rapid growt

Key takeaways

South Carolina possesses one of the highest numbers of highway miles relative to its geographic size, creating a 'spider web of asphalt.'
The City of Charleston lacks unilateral authority to impose taxes for road improvements, relying instead on county-level sales tax.

Main topics

Traffic and Road Infrastructure
Development Concurrency and Property Rights

Notable quotes

We're just a spider web of asphalt.

Conclusion

The episode illustrates that while regulatory and financial hurdles ar

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:04) This is the first edition of a podcast that we are trying out to educate people on what's going on in their city. Our first guest today is Councilman Appel, who represents parts of West Ashley and James Island. And we're going to have a council member on once a month, let people know what's going on in their city. So, Councilman Appel, appreciate you showing up. Speaker 1 (0:29) Absolutely. Being the guinea pig. I'm happy to be here. Looking forward to chatting with you about all the things that are going on in Charleston. Where do you want to start? I mean, let's start with Speaker 2 (0:37) your district since you're the guinea pig and that's a privilege that you get by right Speaker 1 (0:42) being first in line. Absolutely. Well, we got a lot of, you know, really exciting things going on over in District 11. For those that don't know, District 11, the shorthand is the oldest neighborhoods in West Ashley and James Island. So over in West Ashley, we're talking South Windermere. the Crescent, Wapu Heights, those neighborhoods around Avondale. And then over on James Island, we've got Riverland Terrace. We've got the country clubs and some of those neighborhoods along the Ashley River off of Harborview Road. Maybe we start with traffic. This is one of the biggest challenges associated with growth. The way I explain it to people, and there's a lot of different entry points to this conversation, is that until very recently, relatively speaking, South Carolina was not a very large. fast-growing state. And I think that unlike some of our neighbors in the southeast, we don't have a lot of the same mechanisms in place to deal with traffic before the growth arrives. Some of this has to do with how the DOT is structured in this state. The South Carolina Department of Transportation has the fourth most miles in their inventory, and that's not adjusted. So Speaker 2 (1:50) let's talk about that. I don't mean to interrupt you, but I think it's a fascinating fact because I remember this when I was in the state legislature being kind of blown away because we're near the bottom in terms of geographic area, in terms we're a smaller state geographically. But we have one of the largest number of highway miles, road miles. of any state in the country. So we're just a spider web of asphalt. I think most people don't realize that that really dates back to almost 100 years ago when we did have a very powerful federal delegation, probably when the term pork barrel spending was first invented because our senators and congressmen were very successful in getting a lot of federal dollars to come to South Carolina and pave a lot of roads. Right. And so what we're dealing with now is a legacy of that. And when you are a local municipality, but you don't own or operate 80 % of the roads in your community, that becomes Speaker 1 (2:59) a challenge, to say the least. Oh, absolutely does. And in addition to the ownership and control piece, as we all know, we don't have very much Speaker 1 (3:11) authority when it comes to revenue. Right. So we don't have the authority to impose unilaterally taxes for roads and things of that nature. There's no legislative authority for that. Home rule in South Carolina is pretty broad, but it sort of stops at the taxation. Right. piece. And so we're left with a situation where we're reliant upon the half cent sales tax at the county level, but it's not something that we control our own destiny on as a municipality. And so we're doing our best working within this existing framework that we find ourselves in, but it's hard to say it's ideal. Why don't you just change it Speaker 2 (3:52) is what people would say. Well, okay. So let's talk through those mechanics. Again, you've got, as you mentioned, You've got roads that are owned and operated by the state, but they don't really have the funding mechanism. Well, they have the funding mechanism, but just not enough funding to take care of them. So we in the low country augment that through the county, just to bring in another layer of government, with the half-cent sales tax so that visitors, by and large, pay for a lot of our road improvements. But at the local level, at the municipal level, we really don't have a budget. for it. We don't have income for managing traffic or dealing with roads or intersections and that. So we're having to rely on our big brother and big, big brother, if you will, to help us do that. But, you know, again, it's not all depressing. I tell people that governments do actually get along and do communicate. There is bureaucracy there. But Speaker 2 (4:54) We all know what the problem is. We all know what the potential solutions are. And I think we're at this point because we really don't have much of a choice because it's gotten so bad. We are all rowing in the same direction. There's any good news in terms of our traffic situation. People have gotten the message. Elected officials have gotten the message from Columbia to the county to the local level and are collaborating as a result. Speaker 1 (5:24) our system is perhaps not ideally structured isn't an excuse for us to throw our hands up and to say we quit and we're not going to do anything about it. We are working as hard as we possibly can within our existing framework while we're working with our friends in the legislature about making some needed reform. And to their credit, there are steps that have been taken very recently with the DOT Modernization Commission and some other efforts to kind of start addressing some of these issues. I remember when I first got into office, the state senator for my district was Senator Sen. And I remember asking her some of these questions about, you know, why doesn't the legislature, you know, take up more of these growth issues and infrastructure issues and things of that nature? And her response was something along the lines of, regardless of how fast Charleston is growing and maybe Greenville is growing, when you get to Columbia, the rural urban divide is still stacked very heavily in favor of the rural counties where these are just not priorities of the majority of the legislators up there. But it appears to me that in a relatively short period of time, I mean, I think that balance has begun to switch. Sure. Because you're now finding growth happening in counties all over the state. The growth is not just concentrated to Charleston. You know, so there's great Efforts that are going on underway in Colombia, but also on another matter of concurrency That's another tool that is very important to have in the toolbox for municipalities because so explain explain what concurrency is Yeah, absolutely. So one of the biggest things that I hear and I'm sure you hear to an order of magnitude beyond What I hear is how can you guys keep approving? development and issuing building permits when the roads are already so congested? Right. Yeah. And the answer to that is there's really not clear legal authority right now for us to put up a stop sign on entitlements based on the inadequacy of level of service for roads and other type of infrastructure nearby. Well, you can do it, but you would get Speaker 2 (7:29) sued and you would lose. Yeah, because it's a taking. It's a property rights issue. The analogy I used the other night was you buy a lot and you can build a 5,000 square foot house on it, but the city comes in 10 years later and you haven't built your house yet and says, you know, actually you can only build a 1,500 square foot house there. Speaker 1 (7:51) Well, Speaker 2 (7:52) that restricts your use and that's not what you paid for and so it devalues your property and you have a claim against the governing entity that pulled that property right from you, right? And South Carolina case law, as I understand it, and you're the lawyer of the room, I don't want to... It's pretty clear that when that occurs, the government is liable. And so what concurrency would allow us to do is not necessarily reduce the rights of the property, but would limit the time, would control the time on which it could be built. And it sounds simple, but back to your point on... just the different attitudes in the state legislature that is not an issue in a lot of South Carolina, even though they are growing. They're not growing as quickly as we are. And so it hasn't been as acute. I think for those that are listening that aren't familiar with our state or its history, Charleston was where Speaker 1 (8:58) it all originated, right? People in the upstate don't like to hear that. But Speaker 2 (9:02) the reality of it is There's not always been a strong relationship between Charleston and the rest of the state. There can sometimes be at odds. And the analogy I always use that I think is pretty fitting is it's like three siblings. So the three parts of South Carolina have the low country, the Midlands, and the upstate. Well, we're the oldest. We're the wealthiest in aggregate. And I always say we're the best looking, right? That's personal opinion. Point is, is if those three siblings were sitting down, the oldest sister pipes up and tells them about some issue or problem that they're having. The other two siblings are generally like, yeah, you seem fine. Speaker 1 (9:46) I'm not going to worry too much about you. Speaker 2 (9:48) You know, you'll be able to survive, I think. Anyway. Here are my problems. And so there's that, I would say, friendly competition for attention, for addressing the needs that we have. And it's not just a regional thing, as you point out. It is very much an urban versus rural because a lot of our state still is pretty rural, and those issues are much different. Speaker 1 (10:15) And the concurrency legislation that was getting kicked around in Columbia this past session, was not a one size fits all approach that mandated every municipality and every county in the state do this. It's the idea is to have a clear statutory authorization to allow local governments to employ this to meet the specific needs of their specific communities as they see fit within the parameters of the law. In a very short period of time, I mean, I can tell a stark difference between when I first started on city council, which was back in 2020. to now, the level of discourse and the debate around these various issues is light years from where it was only a short period of time ago. So I'm confident we're going to get to a place in the years to come, hopefully not too far in the years to come, where we're going to have a better system to solve a lot of these problems. But again, to go back and to make sure that people at home listening to this understand this is not us complaining. pointing the finger, excusing. The reality of it is we have to do the absolute best we can with the tools that we have while we're pushing to make things work better. And I think we can chew gum and walk at the same time. Agreed. And I Speaker 2 (11:30) think we've got examples of that too, where we've been able to thread that needle. And I think the stormwater manual would be a great example of that. I mean, again, it's not... exactly the same thing in terms of traffic impacts, but it is how much runoff your property will generate. And so it used to be that you couldn't make matters worse for your neighbor, right? You just had to have a, whatever you did, couldn't create more runoff onto your neighbor's property. I'll give compliments to you. You were there when Stormwater Manual was originally rewritten. We've just updated it. But my predecessor, John Teckelberg, there's something he was very passionate about. And we now have one of the strictest stormwater requirements probably in the country. And it's because we have to because of flooding and we have to deal with water. And so now it's not just making it net neutral. It is you have to actually have to make it better when you come in in low lying areas in and around our city. So probably is the gas guy that I got to go talk to about. Hang on for one second. So we've talked a little bit about traffic. We were talking about