By Louise Mathews
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone?
They paved paradise
Put up a parking lot
— Joni Mitchell, Big Yellow Taxi
Or, in this case, another apartment complex. By the time you read this, the beautiful woods near my neighborhood will be a memory.
On May 1, Lather Site Preparation started clearing the woods at the corner of Broad River Boulevard and Robert Smalls Parkway for Retreat at Port Royal LLC – yes, another apartment complex. That’s the information that the ladies in the Port Royal Town Hall front office gave me when I stopped by.
I cannot find a listing for the property on the Port Royal Planning Department Monthly Report either under the “Retreat” name or the address that is listed in the Beaufort County record of the property.
We who live near that intersection knew the day would come when the 25-plus acres would be sold and developed into something humans could use.
Somehow, we missed the property’s sale in 2024. Not until we saw the sign for “Site preparation by Lather…” did we realize bulldozers would soon attack the trees and wildlife.
When I saw the Lather sign and visited the town hall, I asked about the moratorium on approving more apartment complexes in Port Royal. The Port Royal ladies said this development was approved before the town council adopted the freeze. I have yet to verify that statement.
I sometimes wonder what the occupancy rate is for all the new apartments in Beaufort and Port Royal. Then I encounter something like a May 2 news article, reporting that the United States Census has called South Carolina the fastest growing state in the nation.
Between July 2024 and July 2025, South Carolina saw a net influx of 66,622 domestic migrants. At 3:30 on Tuesday afternoons, I think all of them are on Ribaut Road trying to get across the McTeer Bridge to Lady’s Island.
The same article reported the net loss of population in northern cities like New York and Boston. A neighbor who works in real estate described the influx of people in the Beaufort area since COVID as “like water from a fire hose.” Given the increasing tax rates in northern and far western states, that trend will probably continue.
Another realtor friend said people who want to move to the Beaufort area rent because they either can’t afford a house, or they are building their Lowcountry dream and renting until construction ends.
I have also read that Gen Z people desire apartments. They do not want to be bothered with the maintenance home ownership entails. I guess it’s much more fun to live in the virtual world than it is to take care of the physical one.
In the April 23 issue of this newspaper, Lolita Huckaby wrote of the clearing of 47 specimen and landmark trees in Port Royal because the Mariners Walk development was approved before the town adopted its tree ordinance on Oct. 9, 2024. A friend whose house and yard border this devastation said the property was clear cut, that is, all of the trees were removed. The only vegetation left between the new development and her home were scraggly trees along the property line.
From what I have seen bulldozed today, it is possible that Retreat at Port Royal will also clear cut. Given that this property was sold to its new Greensboro-based owners in August 2024, and the first reading of the tree ordinance was in June 2024, I am hopeful that town planners held off on approval until this development could fall under the new rules for protection of whatever specimen and landmark trees the contractors encounter as they mangle the woods.
Of course, even if this development is under the tree ordinance, trees can be removed and fines paid. Look at the Harris Teeter parking lot on Lady’s Island. Does anyone remember the gorgeous live oaks that were destroyed? It was cheaper for the company to pay the fines and demolish the trees than it was to work around them. They might have cost Harris Teeter a parking space or two!
I am hopeful that Retreat at Port Royal, LLC, which is part of Berkely Hall Companies, will leave at least some of the mature trees in those woods as Parc at Broad River and Views at River Bend (formerly The Oaks) did when they were constructed. I hope they contribute to the tree canopy that the Port Royal ordinance states the town is anxious to protect because a canopy takes a long time to establish.
I know developers replant trees, but many years must pass before a tree provides the benefits of “air quality, stormwater management, wind buffers, increased property values, and cooling effects to our homes and communities …” as the Port Royal Tree Ordinance states.
To paraphrase the poet, Joyce Kilmer,
Essays are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
Louise Mathews retired from a career in community colleges and before that, theater. A 13-year come-here in Beaufort, she has been a dingbatter in North Carolina and an upstater from New York.