By Erich Hartmann
Last week we found out that Port Royal’s largest apartment development, The Preserve, will no longer pay local taxes.
That’s right. Thanks to a glaring loophole in a state law, Beaufort County is now out roughly $260,000 in tax revenue; Beaufort County School District is out roughly $726,000, and the Town of Port Royal is out around $350,000, about 6% of its total tax collections.
It cannot be overstated: this is a huge deal.
But this is not just a story about a loophole in a bad law. It is a life lesson about the importance of community, character, and corporate responsibility. And how good intentions go awry when government and selfish business interests become entangled.
Simply put: although The Preserve apparently had a legal right to do what they did, they’re terrible people for actually doing it. And we simply can’t abide these kinds of destructive interests here in Beaufort and Port Royal. We’re too small. And the stakes are too high.
The Preserve, a 400-unit apartment complex, was built in 2006, and in 2020 was sold to Sundance Bay, a powerful Salt Lake City-based real estate private equity firm with more than $2.5 billion in assets.
Sundance Bay proudly presents itself as a kind, equitable, values-driven company laser-focused on community, putting integrity before profit, and being responsible and ethical citizens of our global community.
Their website boasts multiple “Values” sections and reads like a masterclass in virtue-signaling PR platitudes: they “strive to make a positive impact on all our stakeholders,” are “passionate about bringing people together and fostering community,” and consider community their “greatest investment” because, of course, “it’s simply the right thing to do.” (Insert vomit emoji).
And yet everything they’ve done here is the exact opposite of all that.
Let’s be clear. Sundance Bay is not a group of free market capitalists. They are corporatists: a parasitic investment vehicle designed to seek out and exploit public monies to maximize their private returns.
No company that truly cared about “community” would zero out its local tax bill and dump the cost onto the very people it claims to serve. Sundance Bay pretends to enrich communities. But in reality it destroys them.
The South Carolina Legislature deserves immense blame here too. This was not some tiny clerical oopsie. This was a full-spectrum institutional failure. A loophole this large passed through lawmakers, legislative staff, attorneys, lobbyists, bureaucrats, and all the supposed “experts” who touch these bills in Columbia. And it passed with little to no resistance.
What’s more, this is not even a new issue. This loophole first reared its ugly head in Rock Hill two full years ago, resulting in headlines like “Rock Hill plans to raise property taxes, blames the state and ‘horrendous’ legislation.” Yet nothing was done about it.
And now we are told, implicitly, to accept it. That it’s a “done deal.” The Preserve will be grandfathered in. Better move on.
No.
That is exactly the wrong response. It is defeatist and short-sighted.
The worst thing we can do is assume this is settled. That the money is gone forever. That repeal is impossible. That Sundance Bay will inevitably keep every penny they have hijacked from our community. This kind of thinking is how bad laws become permanent and how stolen money stays stolen.
The goal here is simple. First, repeal this dumb law. Then claw back every red cent that The Preserve and Sundance Bay have taken from Beaufort County, Port Royal, and our schools, and we don’t stop until we’re made whole.
Can that be done? Of course it can. Bad laws are repealed all the time. Exemptions can be challenged. Political pressure can be applied. Public outrage can matter. And clever lawyers can be very, very clever. All it takes is imagination and courage.
Sundance Bay should be publicly shamed for what they’ve done. They are the Hollywood epitome of profit-at-all-costs corporatism: a polished brand image of caring and corporate responsibility wrapped around a cold willingness to exploit a trusting community for maximum monetary gain.
We live in a small and very special place, and we need to act like it. What we tolerate today determines what happens tomorrow.
So the real question here is simple: are we going to let predatory developers dictate the future of Beaufort and Port Royal? Or are we going to defend the place and the people we love?
Erich Hartmann is a creative director, brand strategist, and writer. He lives in Beaufort with his wife and two sons.