Mayor Cogswell urges partnership to build 3,500 affordable units on peninsula sites
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Summary
Mayor Cogswell asked Charleston County to allow city-led solicitations that would include selected county parcels and to consider an MOU or option through year-end so the city can secure buyers or joint-venture partners to deliver 3,500 net new affordable units using build-first phasing and permanent affordability restrictions.
Mayor Cogswell told the Finance Committee he and the City of Charleston want to work with the county to scale affordable housing on publicly owned sites, particularly on the Charleston Peninsula.
“We have an initiative to deliver 3,500 affordable housing units in the city of Charleston,” he said, describing a plan based on a Bloomberg housing analysis and an inventory of publicly owned parcels. The mayor said the strategy relies on economies of scale, build-first phasing (to avoid displacing current residents) and a new zoning approach to lock in long-term affordability. He said the city would seek private partners and institutional social‑impact capital and asked the county to include 993 and 995 Morrison Drive in an upcoming market solicitation or consider an MOU or short option to allow the city time to find a buyer who would pay the county’s appraised value.
Cogswell described zoning and affordability mechanics: a proposed MUWH variant would include permanent restrictions that guarantee 50% of units remain affordable in perpetuity, split roughly with 25% reserved for current public‑housing residents being rehoused and 25% designated as workforce housing (roughly 50–120% AMI), with the remainder market rate. He said the city would pursue high-density typologies (about 80 units per acre in targeted areas) and that prototypes and architectural designs are being planned for March to make the product marketable and reduce entitlement risk.
Council members reacted with both interest and caution. Several members praised the scale and design emphasis and asked whether rezoning or other strings would attach to county parcels if the proposal did not materialize; the mayor and staff said the county parcel could remain in its current status until closing and that the MOU could contain a trigger tied to front-end investor capital so the county is released from an option only after it receives payment.
No formal county commitment was made at the meeting. Members asked for the proposed MOU and further technical details to be shared in writing; the mayor said he would provide documents in the coming days.