A centuries-old oak allée leading to Fenwick Hall on Johns Island is at the center of a standoff between a tree advocacy group and the city of Charleston, just as a proposed 70-lot subdivision heads to a key review on Thursday. The Charleston County Tree Preservation Alliance is pressing the city to guarantee the historic allée will not be harmed by roadway and utility work tied to the project, arguing that current plans put root zones and canopy at risk.
The Fenwick Hall Allee subdivision goes before the city's Technical Review Committee on Thursday, according to Live 5 News. The Alliance says current roadway plans threaten the allée, which it says has led to Fenwick Hall for hundreds of years, and argues that utility digging, grading and roadwork could damage root zones and compromise trees that are supposed to be preserved.
A Broken Promise, Advocates Say
Liz Munn, co-founder of the Alliance, said the developer had previously pledged to keep the historic allée intact but is now weighing a road that would cut through it. “The developer at one point in the process promised to maintain the historic Oaks Alley,” Munn said, per the station's report. The group says that during the project's 2021 Planning Commission review, representations were made that the portion of the allée within the development property would be fully preserved.
Munn argued the road could be rerouted or another arrangement found to spare the trees, and said the historic allée's trees are hundreds of years old and simply cannot be replaced. She added that no mitigation payment or replacement planting could restore the landscape if it were damaged or destroyed, and said the development should be designed around the historic allée rather than sacrificing it.
A Numbers Discrepancy Still Unexplained
Plans submitted to the Technical Review Committee show 19 grand trees marked for removal for roads and utilities, a jump from the 14 removals the Board of Zoning Appeals approved back on Dec. 7, 2022. The Alliance says the reason for that difference has not been established, and it is asking the city to reconcile the discrepancy and identify whether any of the newly marked removals affect the allée itself.
The city, for its part, maintains that no trees in the allée have been or will be removed, and that tree barriers will protect it throughout construction, according to the station's account of the city's statement. Officials said a few Grade F grand trees — a grading that denotes hazardous, poor-health specimens — will still be removed by hand within protected site areas, but that none of those trees are part of the allée. The city also said all other subdivision tree removals are already complete and followed the 2022 Board of Zoning Appeals approval and the approved road plans.
What the Alliance Wants Before Approval
The Alliance is asking the Technical Review Committee not to advance or approve the current plans until the city can demonstrate that the entire allée — its trees, canopy, root systems and historic landscape character — will be preserved and protected from construction impacts. Its requests include an independent arboricultural evaluation of potential construction impacts, enforceable measures to protect the trees' long-term health, and consideration of alternative road alignments, development modifications or density reductions if needed to prevent damage.
The group also wants the city to document consultation with the South Carolina State Historic Preservation Office about landscape protection and to establish independent construction monitoring and enforcement to uphold any preservation commitments. Munn said the city boards and departments involved should put preservation first, adding that development should only proceed if it does not compromise the trees' survival. Advocates say they will keep pressing until the trees' safety is guaranteed.
Part of a Broader Johns Island Pattern
Tree removal fights tied to development are far from new on Johns Island. At a Dec. 7, 2022, Board of Zoning Appeals meeting, developers sought permission to cut down 193 grand trees across two Johns Island projects, according to The Post and Courier. For a planned community near Fenwick Hall Plantation, the paper reported, a developer asked to remove 21 trees and the board reduced that to 15, while also requiring an arborist protection plan and the planting of 151 new native trees.
In a separate case, the zoning board approved removing 20 grand trees from a River Road property on Johns Island to make way for 102 townhouses, with conditions including an on-site licensed arborist during construction and mitigation if a protected tree later died, the Post and Courier reported in its coverage of that approval. The outlet has also described such removal approvals as a common scenario as the Lowcountry continues to grow, noting a 2025 case on Daniel Island where a developer sought to remove 24 trees for 24 townhomes in Nowell Creek Village, and a case on James Island's Sol Legare community where a developer withdrew a removal request after residents rallied around a historically significant tree.
