COLUMBIA – State Sen. Dick Harpootlian, D-Columbia, has taken aim at an apartment complex proposed for the North Main neighborhood of Columbia. The lawmaker and lawyer joined Cottontown residents who fear the development will bring homeless veterans into the neighborhood at a recent city meeting.
But developers for the proposed apartments, slated for a tract of land between North Main and Sumter streets, told city officials they had no concrete plans to house veterans experiencing homelessness or use housing vouchers.
Harpootlian made an appearance at a city Design and Development Review Commission meeting March 21 to oppose The Woodley apartment complex, which was ultimately approved at the meeting.
Residents of the Cottontown neighborhood are concerned the two-building, 102-unit complex will house homeless veterans using government vouchers to pay rent, Harpootlian said. Residents reached out to Harpootlian the night before the Thursday meeting, he said.
“These people don’t need homeless people living in their neighborhood,” he said at the meeting. “My office is two blocks from here. I don’t need more homeless people defecating in my parking lot every morning, which is what is happening right now.”
Harpootlian said he would be reaching out to the local Veterans Affairs office, federal Housing and Urban Development department and U.S Sen. Lindsey Graham to investigate and oppose vouchers being provided to the proposed complex.
“I want to ascertain what’s going in there,” he said. “If it’s homeless people, I’m going to fight it tooth and nail.”
The Woodley's developers maintained fears about the complex are unbased.
“This is a multi-family apartment building, nothing else,” developer representative Lauren Taylor said at the meeting. “Not a homeless shelter, not a healthcare facility, not a soup kitchen, not a halfway home. The designs presented today clearly reflect that use.”
Rendering by Studio LR of the proposed Woodley apartments on North Main
Neighbors, Harpootlian don't want homeless vets housed without support in Cottontown
Harpootlian told The Post and Courier in a subsequent interview he would support the project if it provided supportive services for mental and physical health to any homeless veterans housed at The Woodley, or if it were a market multi-family project not making use of government-funded vouchers.
Bringing homeless veterans into an apartment without supportive services to help address problems like substance addiction would be a “recipe for disaster,” he said.
The proposed apartment site is blocks away from Transitions Homeless Shelter and Oliver Gospel Mission, two of the city's largest homeless support organizations, and several miles away from the local Veteran's Affairs office near I-77.
Harpootlian currently represents the Cottontown neighborhood in Senate District 20 and is no stranger to shaping neighborhood development — most notoriously, he helped influence the closure of several bars in the USC-adjacent Five Points district. He is currently running for the re-drawn Senate 26 seat, which also covers Cottontown.
Denise Wellman, president of the Cottontown neighborhood group, said developers have been inconsistent in communicating plans to residents.
Wellman said she was initially told by developers the complex would be completely made up of veterans with housing vouchers and would provide services for physical and mental health and substance abuse, but have since described it as luxury or multi-family apartments — as it is described in the plans approved Thursday.
The developer has declined to answer questions about who will be housed at the complex in several meetings with neighbors, she said.
Legal representation for the project told the Post and Courier final details on who would occupy the apartments have not been decided.
“I just want the truth,” she said. “Cottontown wants the truth. We want to know what they’re planning to do with this land.”
The neighborhood is not opposed to redevelopment in the historic area, or to providing vouchers and services for veterans, she said.
“We are not trying to take something out of our backyard,” she said. “We're not trying to be exclusive, but this developer has not been honest for 17 months with what they are intending to do. And that just confuses us.”
Wellman and several other neighbors, including representatives from other neighborhood associations, spoke against the proposed complex at the March 14 planning commission meeting, where it was also approved.
City staff said at that meeting any major changes in the use of the property from what was approved by the city would have to go through appropriate channels first.
What is The Woodley?
The Woodley is a proposed mixed-use development located on the block bordered by Main, Sumter and Scott streets, near Elmwood Avenue. Plans approved by the city Thursday include two four-story buildings housing residential units, a residents center and a commercial leasing area.
The complex will include studio and one- and two-bedroom apartments, a surface parking lot between the two buildings and 1,800 sq. ft. of commercial space for retail or office use.
A traffic study for the complex has been approved by the city and state Department of Transportation, according to city documents. This project was initially proposed in October 2022, The Post and Courier previously reported.
The property is owned by California-based Ghost Rider OZ Fund LLC, according to city documents.
Taylor, the developer's representative, said she is a resident of nearby Elmwood Park. The developers have been in contact with many residents of the neighborhood, she added, and the design of the complex has improved as a result of neighbors' feedback. Opposition to the project is being led by a “small number of loud individuals,” she said.
“We’re grateful for the opportunity for The Woodley to be a small part of a much larger rebirth of the Main Street corridor,” she said.
Representatives for the development did not take up an opportunity to respond to Harpootlian’s statements when offered.
“Fair housing clearly stipulates whoever lives in a building is nobody’s business,” Taylor told The Post & Courier after the meeting. “So from our perspective, we have met with the community on multiple different occasions, we’ve explained to them what our plans were, they are having this response and we're proceeding.”
At the March 14 meeting, Taylor said anti-discrimination and fair housing laws prevent her from commenting publicly on who can live at the complex.
Dylan Goff, the developer's lawyer, said in a statement neighbors’ concerns were based on “outdated information.”
“It is very important that the facts are clear: in initial outreach to the Cottontown community, we discussed on-site social and supportive services for residents,” Goff said. “Based on input from the Cottontown community earlier this year, we adapted our proposal to focus instead on a traditional apartment building with no supportive services whatsoever.”
Conflicting uses for N. Main apartment project
Taylor is also the founder of Haven Home, an affordable housing developer. The Woodley is described on archived versions of Haven Home’s website from April 2023 as a community for at-risk veterans that would make use of VA and HUD voucher programs. Current versions of the website do not mention The Woodley. Haven Home is not mentioned in any current city planning documents.
Haven Home was removed from the project after the proposed support services were axed from plans, Goff, the lawyer, said.
The Woodley will not provide short-term rentals, he added. Neighborhood questions about the financing of the project can not be answered as details have not been finalized, he said.
Whether or not vouchers will play a part in the complex has not been decided, he said.
"Any comments or speculation regarding specific details of our plans are premature," Goff said.
What's next for the project?
Members of the city Design and Development Commission voted unanimously to approve the design of the development, following another approval from the city Planning Commission a week prior.
Development commission members spoke in favor of the development’s potential to bring new growth to the neighborhood.
City staff recommended the developers add a low wall between the sidewalk and surface parking on Sumter and Scott streets, and to either recess the building’s windows or add shutters to give the facade of the building more depth and articulation.
Taylor said the developer is confident those changes can be made.
The project is making use of the "opportunity zones" initiative spearheaded by U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, R-SC, which provides tax incentives for developers investing in economically distressed areas — such as North Main, Goff said.
“The Woodley is proud to be one of many new local developments stimulated by Sen. Tim Scott's Opportunity Zone program, and as such, we're committed to long-term ownership and investment in the neighborhood,” he said.
