Charleston County advisory board backs Polk Flynn conservation easement, asks council to fund $340,000

CHARLESTON COUNTY — The Charleston County Greenbelt Advisory Board voted Oct. 22 to recommend that County Council provide $340,000 in rural Greenbelt funds to secure a conservation easement on the 136-acre Polk Flynn property at the corner of Highway 174 and Old Jacksonborough Road.

The board’s vote followed a presentation by representatives of the Edisto Island Open Land Trust and questions from board members about valuation and subdivision rights. The land trust requested $315,000 for purchase of the easement and $25,000 for closing and due-diligence costs; the property owner is donating the remainder of the easement value as a match, the presenters said.

The recommendation matters because the easement would sharply limit development on land currently zoned under the Parkers Ferry overlay. Tom Austin of the Edisto Island Open Land Trust said the easement, as revised, will reduce the property’s potential buildable footprint from more than 100 home sites to a small number of large parcels with strict limits on building envelopes and impervious surface.

"This is a property with incredibly high conservation value," Austin said, noting the site hosts rare and imperiled plants and provides habitat connectivity with adjacent conserved lands. He said the trust had negotiated reductions in subdivision rights so the landowner will retain the ability to create nine lots (each with a one-acre building envelope) and will retain limited working-lands rights for forestry, hunting and agriculture constrained by state best-management practices.

Board member Mr. Jones pressed presenters on a recent deed-recorded transfer and the apparent change in value. "Some hundreds of percent in 2 years just stretches the imagination," Jones said, adding that the $660,000 figure recorded in county deed records reflected an internal family transfer rather than an arm’s-length market sale. Austin confirmed the $660,000 transfer was from the managing member of the LLC to his mother and not a public-market sale.

The land trust said it holds a fee-simple appraisal performed in February that valued the entire property at $2,460,000 and that a preliminary conservation-easement appraisal by Palmer Owings — on the South Carolina Conservation Bank’s approved appraiser list — estimated the easement value at about $950,000 for the earlier version of the easement. Austin said a final easement appraisal was in progress and expected before closing, but might not be complete before the council meeting; board members and staff reiterated that their rules require a final appraisal before funds are dispersed.

In describing restrictions, the trust said the preserved layout will: limit development to roughly 8–10 acres total through one-acre building envelopes on the retained lots; cap impervious surface in each envelope at 10,000 square feet; place permanent protections on wetlands and a 50-foot buffer around them; prohibit commercial, industrial uses and sand mining; and require vegetative buffers along public roads. Austin said those limits amount to an approximate 90% reduction in buildable rights compared with what zoning would otherwise allow.

The Greenbelt subcommittee had recommended approval earlier; after discussion at the full board meeting, a motion to approve the recommendation to council carried. Board members noted the landowner is 81 years old and needs a closing in 2025 for the bargain-sale financing to work, which adds time pressure to the transaction.

The trustees and the board framed the easement as part of a larger conservation effort in the area, noting adjacency to previously conserved parcels including the Oak Lawn easement, the Greenbelt-funded Bee Haven easement and the Spring Grove properties. Austin said the site contains the county’s only known population of a globally rare plant and is endorsed by the ACE Basin Task Force.

Next steps: the board will forward its recommendation to County Council; staff and the land trust said a final conservation-easement appraisal and completed due diligence will be required before any Greenbelt funds are released.

Votes at a glance: The Greenbelt Advisory Board voted to recommend County Council funding of Polk Flynn conservation easement (requested grant: $315,000; due-diligence/closing: $25,000; total requested: $340,000). The board and subcommittee recorded the approval unanimously on voice votes; no roll-call ballot was recorded in the transcript.