Status: County transportation funding was recently allocated to complete final engineering for the roadway and infrastructure plans. This integral first step will set the stage for project implementation.
What is the issue?
Given the extraordinary character of Beaufort, the city’s citizens have long expressed their frustration at the absence of any real character on the Boundary Street entrance corridor. The ongoing effort to articulate and impart this character to this corridor and to provide a mechanism for preserving that character resulted in the Boundary Street Master Plan. If the County and City hope to deliver the promises made to the public, to bring the character of old Beaufort to the entrance of Beaufort, the implementation must be true to the details of the plan.
How would it affect South Carolina?
The Boundary Street Master Plan is an exemplary model of form based code. The plan is widely known and respected throughout the Southeast. It is the culmination of more than 20 years of public meetings and charettes – a tremendous example of successful community based planning. The South Carolina DOT however has their own set of regulations and their roads are designed for cars, not pedestrians. The Boundary Street Master Plan is designed for the pedestrian – in keeping with the character of historic downtown. State bureaucracies should not be permitted to steamroll over a community’s ability to design for itself.
What can you do about it?
Attend County and City meetings when the Boundary Street Master Plan is discussed. Voice your concern that this plan remain true to the vision of a safe, walkable, pedestrian friendly design.
Support new DOT thoroughfare standards that are currently being considered.
- An entrance corridor to the City of Beaufort that inspires civic pride. Such a corridor will contain the qualities articulated in the master plan and articulated in so many public meetings: “urban, mixed use, pedestrian friendly space, carrying the physical pattern of old Beaufort and reflecting Beaufort in its character” (Entrance Corridors Planning Charrette, City of Beaufort, March 18-21 2002.)
- The right to design our own communities without bureaucratic interference on the State level.
- If the network of roads, sidewalks and greenways in this redevelopment is not truly safe, inviting and functional for the pedestrian – the entrance to Beaufort will be just another facade that implies New Urbanism but fails to deliver a sense of place and character and will be just another “anywhere.”
- A potential center of unique and vital economic and civic activity, rather than a set of strip retail centers.
Image source: Dover, Kohl, & Partners
