Town of Summerville working to assess contaminated land for future development

SUMMERVILLE, S.C. (WCBD)- As Summerville continues to grow, the town’s leaders are coming up with creative ways to incentivize developers to use land that may be considered unconventional.

The community’s footprint is rapidly expanding, but with only so much room to grow, developers are being asked to consider some sites that wouldn’t normally be top picks.

“We’ve already identified that priority sites are 203 North Gum Street and 113 North Gum Street,” planning director, Jessi Shuler said.

Those sites are Brownfield sites, which are properties that have been abandoned due to past contamination or environmental concerns.

“Whether it was a fuel storage area, a gas station, maybe an area where lumber was being treated in the past,” Mayor of Summerville, Russ Touchberry said.

Some may see those pieces of land as unusable, but the town of Summerville is working to change that.

Touchberry said, “We received a $500,000 grant to work on brownfield assessment. It’s really exciting because it’s not taxpayer dollars locally, but it’s being used to benefit the community.”

The town says assessing the contamination and telling developers exactly what they need to do to clean it up will incentivize companies to use that land because assessment is usually something developers pay for.

“That opens up the door for redevelopment, incentives and additional grants and funding to help us reestablish the excellence in our town through redevelopment,” Touchberry said.

For leaders of the town, they say this is one step towards a brighter future for Summerville.

“Things are going very well within our economy. We have new shops and new restaurants opening all the time and our downtown is very vibrant. So being able to redevelop some of these underused spaces, making sure they’re cleaned up for the health of our citizens, to me it’s exciting,” Touchberry said.

The town is looking for your help in this process.

They’re working to put together a steering committee of 9 to 11 people that will help the town target land, assess it, and redevelop it in the future.