By Delayna Earley
The Island News
Beaufort County Council will be holding a Special Called Meeting on Monday, Sept. 16 to hear a presentation regarding Pine Island. The announcement was made following their executive session during their regular council meeting on Monday, Sept. 9.
Council member Logan Cunningham made the motion to hold the meeting to “allow each of the parties involved in Pine Island to make their case to County Council” regarding two lawsuits that were brought forth by the owner of Pine Island in July 2023.
The presentations will be made by lawyers representing the involved parties and will take place during executive session because these negotiations are part of a settlement, according to Cunningham.
Council member York Glover voted against the motion stating that “Council has taken a position that will represent the community and any other deviation from that right now would not suffice.”
Vice Chairman Larry McElynn also voted against the motion.
Several other council members, including Alice Howard and Mark Lawson, expressed that their minds were made up regarding the Pine Island matter, but they were willing to vote for the motion to give everyone a chance to state their case.
The owner of Pine Island, which is a more than 500-acre property in St. Helena, took legal action against Beaufort County in July 2023 essentially contesting the county’s decision to deny their efforts to build a golf course on the property.
Developer Elvio Tropeano’s proposal to build the Pine Island Golf Club – which he claims in the suit would have turned the land into a minimalist golf course meant to conserve 80% of the culture and historic areas on the island – was denied when County Council voted to uphold the Cultural Protection Overlay (CPO).
Earlier in the year, council voted to strengthen the language in the CPO to prevent the creation of an 18-hole golf course, but the vote was taken months after the application had been filed for Pine Island to be turned into a course.
He is seeking to appeal the planning commission’s ruling, stating that before it was strengthened the CPO did not allow for three six-hole golf courses.
The initial CPO defined a golf course as having nine or more holes.
The second is a civil action suit questioning the legality of the county banning the construction of hotels, resorts, gates and golf courses.
The suit questions if the ban on these types of projects is the best way to protect the natural and cultural resources of St. Helena and claims that the CPO should be declared inapplicable to Pine Island.
Mediation for the suits happened last week, but not all members of council were able to be present because if they were then it would have constituted as a quorum, so to give all council members a chance to hear the presentations directly and to answer questions they will be holding the Special Called Meeting.
Delayna Earley, who joined The Island News in 2022, formerly worked as a photojournalist for The Island Packet/The Beaufort Gazette, as well as newspapers in Indiana and Virginia. She can be reached at delayna.theislandnews@gmail.com.
