Hardeeville council presses developer on lost active open space in Farmhouse master-plan revisions

The Hardeeville City Council held a workshop on May 18 to review proposed amendments to the Farmhouse master plan in the East Argent Planned Development (PDD), focusing on a layout change that adds a ninth building, reassigns which structures are four stories and enlarges stormwater lagoons while preserving the project's approved 300 units and roughly 32-acre footprint. The council asked the applicant for more technical information on open-space calculations and stormwater risk before any final action.

Planning staff opened the discussion by summarizing the previously approved February 2024 plan and the changes the applicant is seeking, including shifting three four-story buildings closer to East Argent Parkway and away from the adjacent Riverton Point neighborhood. Planning staff said the Planning Commission recommended approval with conditions that included clarifying open-space calculations, building unit counts and the number of entrances to East Argent Parkway.

Alec Gregg of Orange Capital, the applicant, told council the design change responds in part to updated building and fire codes that increased required fire-suppression systems for four-story buildings and significantly raised construction costs. "When you go up to a four-story building now, you have to put in a much beefier fire suppression system, which inflates the budget by millions of dollars," Gregg said, and described the redesign as a compromise intended to reduce perceived neighborhood impacts while keeping elevator-served units for older residents.

Gregg also said enlarging stormwater lagoons during the redesign reduced the available open space by roughly one acre. He provided a headline figure for open space, telling council the project meets and exceeds the PDD's numeric open-space requirement: "The PDD requirement is 7.98 acres. We are now at 17.19 acres," he said.

Several council members disputed counting enlarged stormwater lagoons and narrow landscaped buffers as "active" open space that could be used for future community recreation. A council member said it was "unacceptable" for the plan to leave no contiguous, unprogrammed green field for future uses such as additional courts or a multiuse field; others warned approving the plan could set a precedent for allowing engineered stormwater basins to substitute for usable parkland elsewhere in the city.

Council members also raised a second open-space complication: an easement tied to Juniper Street owned by a neighboring developer. Staff and the applicant said Juniper will be gated and not used for routine access, but council members noted the easement remains in place and therefore that parcel cannot reliably function as city-controllable active open space. "You can't count this as active open space if we don't own it or can't prevent vehicle access," one council member said.

Council asked the applicant to supply engineering verification about stormwater-storage sizing and downstream flood risk (a 50-year or 100-year event analysis was suggested), clear acreage breakdowns that distinguish active versus passive/open-water space, and a plan that demonstrates consistent treatment of active open space compared with other recent developments. Several members suggested options to restore contiguous active space, including refilling or reducing a stormwater pond or reducing the building count; Gregg replied that reducing units has economic implications and that the original 2024 plan could be implemented if council preferred.

A letter from Riverton Point resident Deb Thompson, read into the record, expressed support for the revisions and said the redistributed building heights would be less intrusive for nearby homeowners. Gregg said he had consulted neighborhood residents and that "they were happy to hear" the proposed reductions in building height.

The council did not take final action on the amendment. Members agreed workshop follow-up is needed: they asked the applicant to return with verified open-space calculations, a stormwater expert's analysis of overtopping risk, and alternatives that restore usable, contiguous active space. The workshop closed on a council motion to return the item to the applicant for further work.

Next steps: the applicant will provide the requested stormwater engineering and a clearer open-space acreage breakdown; the council indicated it may schedule an additional workshop or hear the matter at the next meeting after those materials are provided.