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AWENDAW, S.C. (WCIV) — Many Awendaw residents are calling it a "win" after the town's Zoning Commission denied a request Monday evening to rezone 66 acres for a possible development.

The land in question is in the vicinity of Boomstraw Hill Road and Sewee Road and was recently annexed into the town limits from Charleston County.

Developer David Weekley Homes recently acquired the neighboring Awendaw Village development, and made a brief presentation at Monday's meeting answering questions from board members and the public.

Read More: Proposed plan to build 72-home subdivision in Awendaw

Their proposal included creating lot sizes of 20,000 square-feet per home with a little more than 60 homes planned. But the current Agricultural zoning designation only provides for a minimum 30,000 square-foot lots. A change to Residential zoning would have decreased that limit to 12,500.

Allen Rioux serves on Awendaw's Board of Zoning Appeals and said the consensus from citizens is a desire to keep development density low.

"We're certainly not anti-development or anti-developer. We understand that this is a desirable place to be, and - in fact - we think that development is important for our community, for our tax base," Rioux said. "But, what the community is against is high-density development. We need to be reasonable. We have great resources here and we need to be careful that we don't negatively impact them."

Read More: Environmentalists fear impacts of 200 new homes near Awendaw wildlife refuge

Others at Monday's meeting called the request premature.

David Weekley Homes faces some challenges with the land. First and foremost, access.

The parcels are currently land-locked, meaning there's no road legal road access. However, a phase to development of their recently acquired Awendaw Village off Highway 17 would provide an adjacent connection to the 66-acres.

Read More: People still concerned after hearing developer's redevelopment plan for Union Pier

A few residents from Awendaw Village were at the zoning meeting and voiced their concerns over unfulfilled promises from their original developer.

David Weekley Homes will likely need to return before town council or the Zoning Commission with an updated development proposal.

AWENDAW, S.C. (WCIV) — One Awendaw woman is launching a new company with the goal of bringing new services to her community.

Awendaw is a small quiet rural city next to Mount Pleasant, but for people like Stacia McNeil Dawson it's better known as "home."

“Being out in the country, born and raised, which I love and I see that everybody else is starting to love it as well,” McNeil Dawson said.

Awendaw woman starts trash service, looks to bring more resources to rural communities. (WCIV)

But the beauty of a small rural town comes at a cost.

“Growing [up], born and raised in Awendaw, I’ve noticed that we always lack,” McNeil Dawson said.

Cities like Awendaw don’t have county-sponsored resources when it comes to maintenance or sanitation like many other areas do. So for many basic necessities, residents are pushed towards private services which, according to residents, may be unreliable or have such a large service area that these rural cities may get over looked.

“We are the last to have anything available or otherwise any type of services funding or even programs,” McNeil Dawson said.

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One of those resources McNeil Dawson says the lack: trash services.

“Just to see when you go out and visit other relatives, and they have all these type of services come into their community, and you come back home and you see that we don't have it, it makes you feel like why don't we have it? It makes us feel like, well, maybe we're not worthy to have it or maybe they just don't want to cater to us," McNeil Dawson said.

Instead of accepting her fate, McNeil Dawson decided to get up and do something about it.

“In order to make a difference in the world, we must start [at] home first. Community is number one, " she said.

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McNeil Dawson decided to create her own sanitation service company specifically for Awendaw and the surrounding rural areas in the North Mount Pleasant area. It's called Awendaw Sanitation Services.

What started out as a vision five years ago turned into a full blow operation set to open next week. McNeil Dawson took the an unconventional route to get there.

“Typically, every day in both of my vehicles is full with anything on sanitation," she said.

She's a true self starter who built this business using her own money- raising almost a quarter of a million dollars in total- her own time and her own resources to put together trucks and commercial vehicles.

From rolling trash cans down the street to now just being days away from the rollout of her business– it’s been a long journey.

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But for McNeil Dawson, her purpose is much larger than just trash clean-up.

“I believe Awendaw Sanitation Services will be the door to start opening up new opportunities, to bring out more resources and just to give more to the rural areas," she said.

She hopes the road she took to get to this point will inspire others to do the same.

“It's going to take us if we see the need, it's going to take us to make that change," she said.

Awendaw sanitation company will provide household trash cleanup services to Awendaw, McClellanville, Huger, North Santee, Buck Hall and North Mount Pleasant starting on August 2.

McNeil Dawson said they are currently running a promotion for signups before their start date next week and are also looking for more employees– specifically for anyone with a CDL license.

Good news, folks. After a two-year hiatus, the 25th Annual Awendaw Blue Crab Festival is returning this month.

What to expect

Hosted by the Town of Awendaw on Sat., Aug. 27, this annual, family-friendly celebration is expected to bring in 3,000+ guests at its 300-acre event venue at the Town of Awendaw Municipal Park at 7997 Doar Rd.

Though some might assume the event will only offer blue crab, the festival is set to feature local food trucks, more than 75 art + retail vendors, beer and wine, live music by The Secrets — aka one of Charleston’s longest-running funk shows — pontoon boat and hayrides, and a kids’ area.

And of course, there will be bushels of Lowcountry Blue Crabs served by the bucket in three flavors: Traditional, garlic, and cajun. Heads up: Crab buckets, beer and wine, hayrides, and boat rides will all require tickets.

General admission tickets are available for $10 if purchased in advance, or $15 at the door. If you’re looking to go all out this year, grab a VIP ticket for $125. A portion of the admission proceeds is set to be donated to “Build the Park” and other Awendaw charities.

But some (or all) of this may not be new information to you — seeing as how the annual celebration dates back to around 1994. So what’s the story?

How it began

In 1994, a group of Awendaw residents gathered to enjoy a few bushels of crab under an oak tree at Town Hall when the idea of a blue crab festival dawned on them.

What began as a small get-together became the annual Awendaw Blue Crab Festival that we know and love. It’s as simple as that.

Blue crabs in the Lowcountry

Though sometimes regarded as aggressive in nature, the blue crab is admired in the Lowcountry and said to support commercial fishery. The crustacean actually requires both inshore brackish and high salinity ocean waters to fulfill its life cycle — so it sounds like we’ve got the perfect environment.

Though there are other small swimming crabs in the family, this is the only crab with recreational and commercial importance in the state. The meat is used for various quintessential Lowcountry dishes — peep this story by Charleston Magazine featuring eight recipes from local restaurants.

We hope you head to this year’s Awendaw Blue Crab Festival with a new appreciation for the festival + the blue crab’s significance in the Lowcountry. Let’s get to crab crackin’, Charleston. *

AWENDAW — One of two controversial housing developments is moving forward after a public meeting in which several residents of this rural town made clear the construction is not welcome.

Awendaw’s Planning Commission on April 18 approved the plats for a development by national homebuilder PulteGroup on a piece of land known as the White Tract. The development includes 204 homes at build-out on 148 acres near the intersection of Seewee and Bulls Island roads.

All of the homes would use septic tanks to handle sewage.

The tanks are a major component to environmentalists’ objections of the project, contending the tanks could fail and send untreated sewage leaching into the pristine waters of nearby Cape Romain Wildlife Refuge. Neighbors are concerned by the construction for additional reasons, including added traffic and already minimal fire services for the area being stretched further.

The panel approved the development with several conditions attached. The vote was 5-1, with only Commissioner James Gardner voting against. Lewis White Jr., chair of the planning commission, was not present at the meeting and has not weighed in on the project because he owns the land where it will be built.

Will Waterhouse, a representative of Pulte, said during the meeting that developers had worked to meet with the community and address concerns first raised in a raucous March meeting where angry members of the public argued they had not been properly briefed on the plans.

“What was evident was that folks in this room had something to say about it, and in the time between the meetings we’ve been listening,” Waterhouse said to the commission.

Residents of the town argued the project should be thrown out entirely because of several changes in the proposal from the conceptual development plan, which was approved in 2006.

“This is dramatically different from what Pulte has proposed to you (16 years ago),” resident Susan Cox said.

She pointed out the original plan called for a new road that will no longer be built, more space between house lots and the edge of the development area, and more distance between homes and a saltwater impoundment that drains directly into the Intracoastal Waterway.

Some concerns that were first raised in the March meeting were addressed in the list of 17 conditions that commissioners added to the project. Among them is that covenants future homebuyers will agree to will include an easement for smoke. Smoke often drifts over the area from nearby prescribed burns by the U.S. Forest Service in Francis Marion National Forest, which are necessary to maintain the ecosystems there.

Waterhouse acknowledged that for some things, like an annual septic tank inspection Pulte will require, may not last.

Asked by Gardner how builders could ensure their conditions will hold after the project is done, Waterhouse said Pulte will retain control of the future homeowners association board only until all the houses are built.

Whether there is a way to ensure septic inspections stayed mandatory after that point, Waterhouse said, “I just don’t know (how) off the top of my head.”

After the meeting, Grace Gasper of conservation group Friends of Coastal SC, said she was “disappointed but not surprised” by the commission’s decision.

She said Pulte had made strides in talking to interest groups and neighbors about their plans, but there are still concerns about the effect on the Francis Marion forest and the nearby Cape Romain National Wildlife Refuge.

Developers will still have to get approval from several other public agencies before they start construction, including the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control, which will review plans for septic tanks.

The town will have another meeting next month on the second development proposal that stirred up animosity in March. That plan will eventually put 249 houses on 184 acres near the intersection of Doar Road and U.S. Highway 17.

Taken together, the two projects could eventually increase the population of the town, now at about 1,400, by 50 percent.

AWENDAW, S.C. (WCBD) – The Awendaw Planning Commission voted to move forward with a proposed neighborhood that’s caused many residents in town to call for a time out.

This comes after a nearly two-month-long fight from Awendaw residents who say the proposed 200-home White Tract Development would be detrimental to the town and its resources.

It is slated to go on Bull Island Road a few miles away from the Cape Romain National Wildlife Refuge.

Neighbors are concerned about the negative impacts on wildlife and the water quality of the refuge. Due to the lack of a sewer system in town, each home would be built on an individual septic tank. The concern is that the septic tanks would eventually leak impacting the water quality and wildlife both above and below the surface.

“It is a travesty. The oysters will die. The shrimp will die. The fish will die. and the birds and other animals that depend on them will die,” said Susan Cox, an Awendaw resident who has been one of the frontrunners of the opposition to the plan since the beginning.

Other concerns brought to the table in the original public hearing for the development held in March are traffic safety on the two-lane road, water drainage concerns, the small lot sizes in the proposal, and more.

Many of those concerns and more were brought to Monday’s public hearing.

Of the more than 60 community in attendance at the meeting 16 people participated in the public comment section. Nearly every one brought up the concern that the plans for the proposed neighborhood do not line up with the towns conceptual master zoning plan passed in 2006.

According to the master plan, a 50-foot buffer is required on developments like this, but Pulte Home’s plan includes only a 20-foot buffer.

Peter McGrath, an Awendaw resident and environmental lawyer, says the plans are legally invalid.

“When it was approved, they had a 50-foot buffer. They also had a different road, and they sold a piece of the land since. So, this plan is very, very different and that’s what we tried to point out to the board….I’m surprised they passed it,” said McGrath.

Another concern brought up by a representative of Awendaw-McClellanville Fire Department is the lack of first responders. The department is understaffed and would need many new firefighters to accommodate hundreds of new homes in the area. The representative also said there is only one EMS worker for the area.

A representative of Pulte Homes, the applicant for the development, was present at the meeting and said since the March meeting, he and his team have been talking to environmental groups and neighbors to work on making the plan more accepted.

“What was evident is that folks in this room had something to say and in the time between meetings, we’ve been listening,” said the representative of Pulte Homes.

Now that the preliminary plat has been approved with conditions, the town’s planning commission and Pulte Homes will work to make the necessary changes.

Meanwhile, people in town are planning to take legal action to try and stop the development in its tracks.

“There will be a lawsuit. Unfortunately,” said McGrath.

“There will be action on many fronts. Because this cannot be allowed to stand,” said Cox.

Town residents including Cox and McGrath have created an organization called Save Cape Romain to bring awareness to the situation.

News 2 reached out to the town for comment but have not heard back.

This is a developing story. Stay with News 2 for updates.

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