04/04/2026
Incorporatejohnsisland.com---I've lived on Johns Island for most of my life. Going on 30 years. I'm a licensed home builder. Been doing this a long time. I build custom homes here — not subdivisions, not cookie-cutter sprawl. I live here. I fish these waters. My dogs run this dirt. This is home.
And I've watched what's happened to it.
I've seen developments pop up everywhere. I've seen neighborhoods get annexed into the rural areas of this island that were never supposed to be developed. We filled in foreign dirt. Displaced water. Killed beautiful trees and landscape that took a hundred years to grow. We suffocated everything between the Urban Growth Boundary and Maybank Highway, and now it's bleeding out into the rest of the island.
Traffic? I'm not even going to get into traffic. You already know. You sit in it every morning. You sit in it every night. You know.
But here's what most people don't know — and this is the part that should make your stomach turn:
In 2006, St. John's Water Company and Charleston Water System signed an agreement that FORMALLY RESTRICTS sewer service to only the 20% of Johns Island inside the Urban Growth Boundary. The other 80%? You're on septic. By design. By policy. Forever — unless somebody does something about it.
Let that sink in. Eighty percent of the 4th largest island on the East Coast has no public sewer. Every new home outside that line puts another septic system in the ground. That wastewater leaches into the groundwater. Groundwater runs downhill. And on a sea island, downhill means one place: your creeks, your marshes, the Stono, the Intracoastal, and every backyard waterway your kids fish in.
Meanwhile, Charleston County's Comprehensive Plan — the document that's supposed to guide the future of this island — is talking about bike lanes and resilience officers. Not one dollar is allocated toward expanding sewer on Johns Island. Not one foot of new sewer line. Zero.
137% population growth since 2000. 0% sewer expansion. Same pipes. Same policy. Same neglect.
Until SEPTEMBER 2025, Charleston County didn't even LOOK at infrastructure — traffic, stormwater, sewer, water — when approving zoning requests. They just checked a map and said "inside the line? Approved." It took 300 residents showing up to fight one rezoning on Cane Slash Road for them to even start thinking about it.
There's a sewer line on Fickling Hill Road that runs right up to the edge of the Urban Growth Boundary and stops at a bridge. Feet away from connecting hundreds of homes to public sewer. They just… didn't connect it. The pipe was right there.
And here's the part that keeps me up at night.
We've filled in wetlands. We've imported foreign dirt and displaced water that used to have somewhere to go. We chopped down the trees that held the soil together and absorbed the rain. And now when it floods — and it will flood, because this is a sea island in the Lowcountry — who goes down first?
Not the newcomers. They're elevated. Their homes are built to new flood codes. The people who've been here forever go down first. The families that have been on this island for generations. The ones who didn't need a flood zone map because the land told them where to build.
They call it a "1,000-year flood." That's a joke. It could happen any day. A hurricane. A stalled tropical system. A king tide stacked on a full moon after a week of rain. We all know it. And when it comes, the water is going to follow the path we carved for it — right through the neighborhoods that got filled, graded, and paved without a plan.
I'm elevated. My home is built right. But I'm not doing this for me. I'm doing this because I believe in this community. I believe Johns Island deserves exactly what every other municipality, county seat, city, and town in this state gets: infrastructure that matches its growth. Tax dollars that come back to the people who paid them. A government that gives a damn.
Where do our tax dollars go?
There are no street lights. The roads aren't maintained — well, the two roads that matter get patched every few years. Nobody cuts the grass on the right-of-way. They just chop your trees down, leave all the debris in the stormwater easement, and then fine you when it doesn't drain right.
Read that again. They create the problem. Then they fine you for it.
The County is bleeding Johns Island dry. We pay in. They plan elsewhere. West Ashley gets improvements. Adams Run gets a plan. Wadmalaw gets left alone. And Johns Island? We get density, septic, traffic, and a promise that one day a $354 million road project might make the drive a little shorter.
I'm not anti-growth. I'm a home builder. Growth is how I feed my family.
But I am anti-neglect. I am against watching this island get strip-mined for tax revenue while the people who live here get nothing in return. No sewer. No lights. No maintenance. No plan.
We have to make a move.
Whether that's incorporation, a Special Purpose District for sewer and water, or just enough voices in a room to make the County actually listen — something has to change. Because the current trajectory is not sustainable. It's not responsible. And the people who've been here the longest are the ones paying the highest price.
Fix what's here before you expand over there.
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Our roads. Our marshes. Our tax dollars. Our town. Sign the petition.
