BLUFFTON: A SERIES OF “VILLAGES”

It takes a town to raise many villages.

A few decades ago, Town leaders envisioned Blu ton as a series of “villages,” to maintain the small-town feel while the town expanded. This way residents have a “village” within the town or a small community within a larger community. Those villages are as follows: Historic District, Buckwalter, Buck Island-Simmonsville community, Palmetto Blu , Blu ton Village, Shults Tract (i.e., Goethe-Shults community, Blu ton Park), Village at Verdier (i.e., Seagrass Station), Jones Estate (i.e., Cypress Ridge area), and New Riverside.

Neighborhoods comprise the “villages.” Ninety-two percent of the Town of Blu ton neighborhoods are also a planned-unit-development (PUD), or a planned development. Only 8% of Blu ton’s neighborhoods are not in a PUD. That means most Blu ton’s neighborhoods had a Town Council-approved concept plan which included pre-planned infrastructure and land use designations. Due to the development agreements, Town leaders knew what the neighborhood would look like, at capacity, before the first dirt pile was turned.

The three neighborhoods which comprise the 8% which are not in a PUD are also the town’s oldest communities. These neighborhoods evolved one house at a time, therefore overall communal needs were not addressed. This is because it took years for these areas to become a “community” or neighborhood. Those three neighborhoods are the Historic District, the Buck Island-Simmonsville and Goethe-Shults communities. These neighborhoods are where the Town concentrates its infrastructure projects. These projects provide connectivity with other sidewalks to enhance town wide walkability, accessibility to neighbors and other neighborhoods and natural resource protection for the entire town due to retiring septic tanks and installing sewer lines. These areas currently have a neighborhood plan, with input from these residents, which prioritizes Town projects in these communities.

As of Spring 2023, residential build-out of the is town is 76% complete and non-residential build-out is 36%. Total Town build-out, per all development agreements, is 54%. This build out is according to approved development plans, which are legally binding contracts between the developer and Blu ton’s Town Council. Please be mindful, most of what you see being built today, was approved years ago. After a development agreement is approved and adopted by a Town Council, the building schedule is determined by the convergence of multiple factors such as economic conditions, supply/employee availability, weather, and the developer’s schedule and project workload. All changes to the originally adopted plan must be mutually agreed upon by both the town and the developer.