Weaving history into a growing area

MOUNT PLEASANT – Life got sweeter Tuesday night for the basket makers and sellers who dot the roadside on U.S. Highway 17.

Town Council gave initial approval to a Sweetgrass Basket Overlay District, which is a joint effort with Charleston County to recognize and protect the art form that has been a part of the community for more than 300 years.

Sweetgrass basket making will be featured at the town’s new Memorial Waterfront Park at a Sweetgrass Basket Pavilion. The S.C. Arts Commission a few days ago awarded the town $14,319 for the pavilion, which will provide a place for sweetgrass basket makers to practice their craft and sell their wares. The park is scheduled to open in the summer of 2008.

West African slaves brought sweetgrass basket making to the Lowcounty. Today, their descendants’ work stands next to the din of U.S. 17 and the booming commercial and residential growth of the town.

Councilwoman Thomasena Stokes-Marshall is a champion of the sweetgrass culture east of the Cooper. She worked to secure the sweetgrass pavilion grant for the park, and is keenly aware of the challenges the sweetgrass basket makers face as they work to preserve a living legacy of the Lowcountry.

“The art form is diminishing,” Stokes-Marshall said.

Sweetgrass basket makers have had run-ins with the state Department of Revenue over business licenses and sales taxes, and with the state Department of Transportation over setting up shop in the right of way of U.S. 17.

The ordinance given first-reading approval Tuesday night allows sweetgrass basket makers to set up stands within buffers and rights of way if “the entity having jurisdiction over encroachments to the right-of-way extends permission.”

The Sweetgrass Overlay District limits a sweetgrass basket stand to up to 500 square feet of covered area. Parking for the stands is required to be in an area farthest from the roadway, and the stands are required to have safe entry and exit.

Stokes-Marshall said the Legislature needs to address the issue of whether sweetgrass basket makers have to pay sales taxes. “I don’t believe it’s ever been resolved,” she said. In 2005, sweetgrass basket making was designated the official state handcraft.

The Sweetgrass Basket Overlay District is the result of an effort involving the town, the county and the Highway 17 Task Force, which suggested a sweetgrass basket makers’ district. The Task Force’s only unanimous recommendation was to protect the tradition of selling sweetgrass baskets along U.S. 17 by having the county and the town create the special district. The Task Force also recommended that the town and county pursue designation for original sweetgrass basket stands as state and federal historic sites. The town, the county and the Coastal Community Foundation in February entered a memorandum of agreement to strengthen and preserve the integrity of historic neighborhoods along U.S. 17, which led to the Highway 17 Task Force.

The Sweetgrass Overlay District includes a 1.5 mile stretch of U.S. 17 from Long Point Road to Porcher’s Bluff Road. Last week, County Council gave preliminary approval to the Overlay District. The district includes other provisions, such as no more than three single-family homes per acre.

Experts said that 20 years ago it was thought that the main threat to sweetgrass basket makers was the decreasing supply of sweetgrass. That problem remains, but development is now considered the larger threat to the tradition. Residential development cutting through historically black communities that have been inexistence for three centuries is viewed as a bigger threat to the tradition’s survival. The Sweetgrass Overlay District, by combining the efforts of the town and county, is intended to help sweetgrass basket makers preserve their historic niche amid rapid development, officials said.