CHARLESTON — City officials are eyeing a small vacant lot beside the South Carolina Aquarium parking deck on Calhoun Street for workforce housing.

The city-owned site has been identified as part of Mayor William Cogswell’s ambitious effort to address soaring housing costs and add 3,500 new affordable units by 2032 — a goal post that has already moved back two years since it was first set last year.

While nothing has been designed yet, the city’s Planning Commission on Oct. 22 paved the way by rezoning the land, totaling less than an acre, to allow for up to seven stories of mixed-use workforce housing.

Workforce housing units are typically reserved for renters who earn no more than 80 percent of the area's median income. Those figures are set by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urb

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