Mount Pleasant council opposes Laurel Hill Parkway portion of Highway 41 improvements

Mount Pleasant Town Council on July 8 adopted a resolution urging alternative Highway 41 corridor improvements that avoid impacts to Laurel Hill Park while expressing support for improvements to Highway 41 itself.

The council vote followed more than four hours of public comment, during which speakers from conservation organizations, historic-preservation groups, county officials and settlement-community residents debated whether the county'proposed Laurel Hill Parkway is necessary and whether it would cause undue environmental and cultural harm.

Supporters of the county compromise said the combined package of Highway 41 widening and the parkway is needed to reduce congestion and protect the Phillips settlement community from bearing the entire traffic burden. "The parkway would only impact 12 acres of the entire 750 acres," said Tori Sanders, communities and transportation project manager for the Coastal Conservation League, adding that state infrastructure funding is tied to a…