Preserving the beauty of some of the older Charleston, SC neighborhoods is of paramount importance. Many neighborhoods have expressed interest in maintaining the character, flow, height/mass/scale of their area and hope for help avoiding demolition for the sake of “biggie-sizing”. We’re thankful the City of Charleston is working with us on a solution…

By solution, I mean an ordinance (still in the works) that is very lenient yet offers some protection, unlike historic downtown Charleston, where everything goes through the Board of Architectural Review (BAR) and is far more strict (which is why downtown looks as amazing as it does).

Our area is historic, but not as historic as downtown. We live in a beautiful neighborhood full of towering live oak trees that were planted when the neighborhood was established in the 1920’s and they are worth protecting. Having demo purview (at least a notice posted when a demo permit is requested) is important.

Oh, the stories these trees could tell – if only they could speak, right? A live oak tree was planted in the front yard of most homes when the neighborhood was established. Most are still there. They are stedfast and magnificent. They require a lot of communication with the city when it comes to utility pruning (thank you DG!), and more recently fiber optic cable lines being buried (not for use by our neighborhood). These trees have been through a lot these past few years.

The beauty of the Spanish moss blowing in the breeze, the resurrection fern that grows brown and crispy until it rains and then turns into the greenest leaf fern ever and back to crispy brown is hard to believe unless you see it happen. It’s magical. Let’s all protect what we can and preserve the special areas for years to come.

🌳 Until next time…