September 2026 Waterfront Project Pulse

Method & limits

Public evidence, not a market-size estimate.

Shoreline normalizes official public permit/project records and classifies waterfront relevance using deterministic rules. The headline Pulse counts include records with direct waterfront evidence; broader municipal and planning feeds remain visible in Coverage without being assumed to be waterfront work.

When SCDES exposes the same application in both its bulk permit export and public-notice feed, Shoreline collapses the pair only after deterministic identity evidence proves the link: one public-notice site ID, one official nSITE site number, the same project address and site name, and one matching in-process BCM Direct permit record. Ambiguous cases stay separate rather than being guessed together.

Before the bulk permit has a source effective date, the dated public notice represents the linked application in the Pulse. Once the linked bulk permit carries its own effective date, the bulk permit becomes the displayed record. Both raw source records remain stored with provenance.

SCDES Critical Area records are included even when the public export does not reveal enough detail to assign a project subtype. Those records stay visibly labeled “subtype not yet classified” until direct document or application evidence supports a narrower category.

For County parcel evidence, Shoreline compares the official Charleston County parcel polygon with official County Marsh and Water Bodies geometry. Marsh intersection—or a gap of no more than 10 feet to account for mapping-boundary mismatch—is treated as confirmed tidal-waterfront parcel evidence. The 10–25 foot marsh band and water-body-only matches remain unverified and are not included in the supporting-waterfront-parcel count.

Charleston County BZA, Site Plan Review and stormwater records are supporting local approvals. A County planning or building record does not become a dock, seawall or other waterfront project unless its own evidence supports that classification.

Different jurisdictions publish different fields and update on different schedules. A record date can represent the source’s verified activity-date field; it is not silently relabeled as construction start or completion. Missing records do not imply no activity.

Residential geography is displayed only at ZIP level, jurisdiction level, or with coarsened public coordinates. Permit volume is not treated as proof that a contractor performed the work or as evidence of contractor quality.