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Post and Courier
December 7, 2006
By Katy Stech
Mary McCarthy tried not to be fussy while searching for an apartment.
But throughout the process, the Ohio native tried to assure her five-year-old son, Ethan, that they wouldn't end up too far from his uncle's Awendaw home, the boy's favorite place to play hide-and-seek.
Now, a month after her search began, McCarthy has been able to keep that promise thanks to the first affordable housing development to come online on Daniel Island.
Seven Farms Apartments is scheduled to be dedicated today by city of Charleston officials and the Daniel Island Co. It marks the first of three planned developments that will help the upscale planned community meet a requirement of making 5 percent of its housing stock available to low-income buyers or renters.
McCarthy, a nurse's aide, hopes to move in around Jan. 1.
Her new home, a 72-unit apartment complex at Daniel Island Road and Seven Farms Drive, is already fully leased to tenants like McCarthy who must qualify for the housing. Tenants had to make less than $20,000 for a single person and $28,000 for a family of four.
A few blocks away, a second project that will offer below-market-rate homes is under construction. Geared toward first-time buyers, the 84-unit Parkside Condominiums is expected to welcome residents near the end of the first quarter of 2007, said Robert Morgan, managing director of Trammell Crow Residential, the developer.
Qualified purchasers have already stepped up to secure about 25 percent of the units, which are priced between $209,000 and $244,000. Those buyers cannot earn more than $59,250 to $91,350, depending on the size of their households.
While a $244,000 condo is not generally viewed as affordable, the median price for a comparable property on Daniel Island so far this year is $355,500, according to the Charleston Trident Association of Realtors.
The third affordable development also involves Trammell Crow Residential, which will build a 28-unit apartment complex on the same property as Parkside for the Charleston Housing Authority.
Project organizers say the efforts will help diversify the growing residential base and give Daniel Island service workers who don't earn big incomes an opportunity to live closer to their jobs.
"You have to have people who can logistically get to their jobs," said Tracy Doran, president of the Humanities Foundation, a nonprofit group that developed the Seven Farms Apartments.
Businesses on the island provide about 550 retail jobs, according to the Charleston Area Metro Chamber of Commerce's Center for Business Research.
