By Mike McCombs
The Island News
Some heads may have turned and deep breaths were drawn with an announcement last week by IHG Hotels and Resorts that “an eco-conscious resort, spa, and residential community will soon be coming to a beautiful stretch of the South Carolina shores, including Hilton Head Island, Daufuskie Island, and Bay Point Island.”
The press release under the dateline “Bangkok,” announced the project would open in 2026 and be conveniently located “just a short distance from the Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport.”
According to the release, the management agreement was signed by Timothy Pitcher, President of Whitestone, along with partner Redrock Portfolio, Inc., and Six Senses Chief Executive Officer Neil Jacobs and Chief Development Officer Omar Romero.
The project’s future on Hilton Head Island and even Daufuskie Island notwithstanding, its viability on Bay Point raises instant red flags.
“Any reference to development on Bay Point Island, a vulnerable barrier island at the mouth of the Port Royal Sound, is extremely concerning,” The Coastal Conservation League said in a statement released Thursday, Feb. 29. “The island has no infrastructure — no roads, water, sewer, or power — and is only accessible by boat or air. It is a dynamically shifting piece of sand, and siting new development there is irresponsible. Indeed, it is questionable whether the plans described in IHG’s press release are even allowed under current zoning.”
Indeed, it is questionable.
“Oh yeah, that one,” Beaufort County spokesperson Hannah Nichols told The Island News on Tuesday, March 5. “We have not, at the County, received any applications in regard to that project.”
According to Jessie White, South Coast Office Director of the Coastal Conservation League, the short answer – are the plans allowed under current zoning? – is “no.”
“The island was subdivided in the late 1990s for single family lots, so there is an existing subdivision on the island,” White said. “So, technically, they can apply to build individual structures on each of those lots. But it doesn’t mean that the lots are actually buildable.”
According to White, all one needs to do is look at the County’s GIS maps of Bay Point to discover that a lot, if not most, of those lots are now under water or literally on an active beach.”
“It’s a barrier island,” she said. “The island has shifted away from the areas that were in existence when those lines were drawn.”
Environmental advocates, as well as the Gullah/Geechee people, fought developers over plans for an ecotourism resort on Bay Point back in 2020. They, at last, declared victory on July 21, 2022, when Judge Marvin Dukes upheld the Beaufort County Board of Zoning Appeal’s Sept. 24, 2020, decision to deny a building permit for Bay Point.
In 2020, plans for a $100 million, 50 cottage development faced stiff opposition from groups like the Gullah/Geechee Fishing Association, the Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition and the Coastal Conservation League.
The organizations argued that the Bay Point area was fragile and was one of the few pristine, undeveloped areas in the Gullah/Geechee Nation. They argued the land and surrounding waters were critical for the subsistence of native Gullah/Geechees of St. Helena Island.
Marquetta Goodwine, better known as Chieftess Queen Quet of the Gullah/Geechee Nation, amassed the signatures of 30,000 people in opposition to the development.
According to an Oct. 1, 2020 story in The Island News, conservation leaders cited severe erosion, rising sea levels, increased hurricanes and storms in an area with an already fragile ecosystem as reasons for denying such a development.
After more than a year of trying to make their case for a high-end, ecotourism resort, developers from Bay Point Island were eventually shut out, denied unanimously by the county’s Zoning Board of Appeals at a public hearing.
At the time, Mindy Lucas of The Island News wrote, “Board members found it inconsistent with the county’s plan to protect rural resources, incompatible with land in the local vicinity, not designed to minimize the impacts on wildlife, not designed to minimize the impacts on local services, such as emergency or fire protection, and did not meet the definition of ecotourism.”
According to White, developers at one time applied for permit on just one lot and a cottage, used by those involved in the resort planning was constructed. Two months after that September 2020 zoning decision, that cottage literally fell into the ocean when a king tide rolled in in November.
White says developers applied to build structure on that same lot again in 2021, getting a zoning permit for that lot. But the septic permit they needed for that lot was challenged by the S.C. Environmental Law Project on behalf of the Gullah/Geechee Fishing Association, and is still under appeals. Development has not moved forward since.
White says Pitcher is the same developer from 2020. He has since bought out his partner and his ownership in the Bay Point property is in Bay Point LLC.
According to the IHG release, “As a dedicated and unrelenting steward of the environment, Whitestone has built its reputation on its eco-credentials and has upheld a decades-long pledge to maintaining this pristine, one-of-a-kind island. It’s through these efforts that Six Senses has come on board to support a small community of like-minded, environmentally forward homeowners committed to preserving the island’s unique ecosystems for generations to come.
“With its ‘Southern Island Coastal’ inspiration, the modular, Category-5 hurricane-resilient, biophilic, and self-contained branded residential villas of Bay Point Island will feature state-of-the-art infrastructure and waste handling, renewable energy, reverse-osmosis water supply, and helical piling to limit soil disruption and lighten their footprint. The villas will be a year-round home-away-from-home, whether gathering on the porch to enjoy the breeze or spending afternoons sun-soaked and sandy. A limited number will be available for sale in 2024.”
White believes this is simply a developer and IHG trying to drum up their brand.
“They cannot build this today,” she said. “(The permits they need) they don’t have them in hand.”
“This seems to be the new model,” White said. “They try to manifest their dreams into reality.”
The Island News was unable to reach Jamie Cwalinski of IHG on Tuesday for comment.
Original reporting by reporter Mindy Lucas was included in this story.
Mike McCombs is the Editor of The Island News and can be reached at TheIslandNews@gmail.com.
