Columbia must start working to promote new investment — and stop working to stifle it

In an act that smacks of elitism and hypocrisy, a group of the wealthiest homeowners in Columbia’s University Hill has sued to stop a $60 million apartment complex on the corner of Gervais and Pickens streets.

It would be a development that would provide safe student housing near the heart of campus — and create a significant new tax base for Columbia that would help keep every citizen’s taxes from increasing.

The area is a neighborhood that owes its prestige to its proximity to USC.

It features large homes in a wide variety of architectural styles.

It has been home to both the city and university elite for two centuries.

It is a neighborhood of deans. professors, doctors and lawyers.

And there’s no other neighborhood in Columbia that boasts the walking-distance access to the university — or the safety and security of an area policed by both the city’s police force and USC’s own well-funded police department.

Not in my backyard

But these are not privileges that the neighborhood’s residents want to share.

Not long ago the University Hill Neighborhood Association president characterized the proposed 75-foot tall apartment complex as a “monolith” — this despite the fact that it would be directly across from the new 70-foot-high USC Law School, whose exterior design the new project consciously mirrors, and across Gervais Street from two newly renovated hotels.

The neighborhood association’s argument also ignores the fact that just a block away from the new project is the 20-story Senate Plaza, which is a “monolith” if ever there was one. The Senate Plaza is one of two existing high-rise towers in the University Hill neighborhood that include doormen — and one houses a member of Columbia’s City Council.

The neighborhood’s opposition is “Not In My Backyard” elitism at its worst.

And the bottom line is this:

If you choose to live next a school, you cannot complain about students being around you — that would be like buying a house next to an airport and then suing over the jet noise.

Don’t reward snobbery

The neighborhood association’s view that the proposed apartment complex “doesn’t fit in” is not only pretentious, it is also disingenuous.

Why?

Because the city’s Design/Development Review Commission — a body endorsed by many of the same residents to enforce arbitrary aesthetic standards on developers — approved the apartment complex’s design after review and the adoption of recommended changes.

We cannot tell developers willing to invest in Columbia that if you meet every requirement that the city can throw at you, you can still be roadblocked and delayed by a few elites. Nor should we reward the snobbery of those who chose to live next to a university and commercial corridor — and who then cry foul when those places grow or expand.

What should happen instead?

The developers in this case should hold those suing responsible for financial damages. And the city should enjoin them in a countersuit to protect its sovereign zoning rights and ensure stability and predictability in permitting.

If you can’t put a brand new $60 million building on the most important commercial corridor in Columbia — not to mention a structure that looks just like the building that’s right next to it — then why would anyone take the risk to invest here?

Leaders must listen

Finally the city’s leaders should start to listen to the complaints about the Design/Development Review Commission that were made by the neighborhood association.

The reality is that the Design/Development Review Commission is actually a judicial entity that has no place being involved in the city’s zoning process.

It is an antiquated entity that kills too many investments that are good for Columbia by stretching out the permitting time and running up the cost.

If we would just let the planning commission, the zoning staff and City Council lead the approval process, we might finally see a tower construction crane as part of Columbia’s skyline again.

Joe Taylor is a lifelong resident of Columbia and served as SC Secretary of Commerce from 2005 to 2011.

This story was originally published August 19, 2020 at 8:53 PM.