A longtime House member of a key legislative committee has raised concern about the College of Charleston’s plans to build a dormitory on an 18th century burial ground near the campus.
“I was not aware this dorm was being built over a graveyard,” S.C. Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter, D-Orangeburg, recently told the Charleston City Paper. “I consider graveyards sacred, and I especially consider graveyards for formerly enslaved people to be sacred ground.”
Between 4,600 and 12,000 individuals may be interred in the “Strangers and Negroes Burial Ground,” a former city-owned burial ground bounded by Coming, Vanderhorst and Calhoun streets. Some maps also show St. Philip Street as the eastern boundary.
The deceased include poor Whites and Africans, who were newly arrived on slave ships, as well as travelers and orphaned children. The college has said it purchased the property knowing it was a former burial ground.
The project has faced increasingly stiff opposition from some people in Charleston. The burial ground includes 106 Coming St., the former headquarters of the YWCA of Greater Charleston.
When the YWCA purchased 106 Coming St. in the early part of the 20th century, the old cemetery was not mentioned in a description of the property or the organization’s records. As the city has grown, more forgotten burial grounds have been found, and attitudes about building on the bones of the dead have changed.
Cobb-Hunter is a member of the state Joint Bond Review Committee, one of the agencies that has oversight of the project. She admitted she did not have a solution or compromise to settle the objections of the project, which the college said is necessary to meet its growing demand for affordable on-campus housing.
The college is in a “lose-lose situation because whatever decision is made, there are going to be people who are not going to be happy about it,” Cobb-Hunter said.
College of Charleston graduate and state Rep. Leon Stavrinakis, D-Charleston, said he has talked to the college and “encouraged them to handle that process with care, and they are committed to doing that.” It is very difficult for the college to acquire property that meets the housing needs of the students on the peninsula, he said.
“As long as they do things the right way, it is my plan to support them moving forward,” he said. “There was concern early on that they were not being responsive (to the community), but I don’t hear that anymore.”
The committee’s chairman, powerful Sen. Harvey Peeler, R-Cheokee, did not respond to repeated calls from the City Paper. Peeler also chairs the Senate Finance Committee.
Increasing engagement
In response to the project’s criticism, the college formed a Community Engagement Council (CEC) that has held two meetings with the college’s leadership. The most recent meeting was to be Feb. 5.
Committee member Jerry Harris of James Island is expected to raise concern over the college’s recent delivery of documents to the S.C. Department of Environmental Services (DES) without allowing the council to comment on them. Last month, the college sent the DES a report that explains how human remains will be handled and how the college will commemorate the YWCA’s history.
“It is interesting and concerning that these documents were filed on the same day that we met (last month), and we didn’t have an opportunity to review and comment on them before they were submitted,” he said.
In an email to the City Paper, the college said that at the Jan. 8 meeting with the council “a project manager outlined the complex application, permitting and approval process for the 106 Coming Street project. The council members had an opportunity to ask questions, and there is ongoing commitment from the college to keep the CEC informed about project developments.”
In a separate legislative subcommittee meeting on Jan. 21, Cobb-Hunter asked the college’s president, Andrew T. Hsu, if the college could build the dorm on donated property at Market and East Bay streets.
Philanthropist Ben Navarro and his family reportedly intend to donate the vacant Carroll Building to the college to house its rapidly expanding business school.
Hsu told the legislators that under the donation agreement the building can only be used for the business school.
In an email to the City Paper, a college spokesperson wrote: “The (college) continues to work through the state approval process to purchase” the Carroll Building. “The full purchase price will be supported by a restricted, philanthropic gift that requires the college (to) use the land exclusively to construct a new school of business building.”
Help keep the City Paper free.
No paywalls.
No subscription cost.
Free delivery at 800 locations.
Help support independent journalism by donating today.