By Tony Kukulich
A lawsuit filed by developer Graham Trask against the City of Beaufort and Beaufort-based development company 303 Associates can proceed after an attempt to get the suit dismissed was unsuccessful.
The defendants in the case filed a Joint Motion for Summary Judgment in February of this year in which they sought dismissal of a suit brought by Trask in April 2021. In her ruling, Judge Jennifer McCoy of the Court of Common Pleas 14th Judicial Circuit stated that the plaintiff, Trask, only needed only to submit a mere scintilla of evidence in order to withstand the defendant’s motion.
“This court finds that the plaintiff submitted at least a scintilla of evidence sufficient to deny defendant Beaufort City’s Motion for Summary Judgment at this time,” wrote McCoy.
At issue is the city’s approval of two development projects managed by 303 Associates. They include a hotel project by the Beaufort Inn LLC at the corner of Scott and Port Republic Streets and a parking structure on Craven Street.
Trask’s April 2021 lawsuit alleged that both buildings, the hotel and the parking garage, were large footprint buildings as defined by the city. As such, they required the issuance of a variance by the Zoning Board of Appeals according to city regulations. According to Trask, 303 Associates did not apply for that variance, and the approvals issued up to that time by the city’s Historic District Review Board were invalid.
The HDRB issued final approval on those two projects in June 2021, after Trask had filed his lawsuit. Trask appealed the HDRB decision to the Court of Common Pleas 14th Judicial Circuit. In April 2022, the court ruled against Trask and upheld the HDRB decision.
Trask has filed an appeal of the Circuit Court’s decision with the South Carolina Court of Appeals. That decision is pending.
The city and 303 Associates filed their motion, arguing in essence that Trask’s lawsuit, which has yet to be heard, makes the same argument as his appeal of the HDRB decision.
“Judge Bentley Price heard arguments on the HRB appeal on January 6, 2022,” wrote the attorneys for the defendants in a court filing dated April 25, 2022. “Judge Price’s January 20, 2022 order denying appeal in the HRB appeal specifically rejected the same contentions made now by the Trask plaintiffs.”
Because Trask lost the appeal, they argued, his position had already been heard and been denied. Therefore, there was no need to continue the lawsuit, and it should be dismissed.
“The Trask plaintiffs have filed multiple lawsuits attacking the projects in every way they can contemplate,” argued the defendant’s attorneys in the same court filing. “Summary judgment should be granted, as the Trask plaintiffs lost the penultimate lawsuit on these issues with respect to the Parking Garage Project and the Hotel Project, and judicial economy now demands that this lawsuit, inexorably intertwined with the HRB appeal, be ended.”
However, McCoy didn’t agree with the position taken by the city and 303 Associates, and she dismissed their motion.
“For the reasons set forth in these supporting memoranda, we felt that the Motion for Summary Judgment was strong, and well-supported, and we were disappointed in the court’s ruling,” said City of Beaufort Attorney Bill Harvey.
Trask was unsurprised by the ruling.
“It was a real stretch, and we knew it was a stretch because those issues had not been heard,” Trask said. “Because that appeal went in their favor, what they were hoping was they could squash everything by saying, ‘This has already been heard and decided. And, it doesn’t need to be heard again.’ That was rejected.”
With the dismissal of the motion, Trask’s lawsuit is free to move forward, and a judge will ultimately rule on the case.
“Now that this has been cleared up, we can begin our discovery efforts in earnest – depositions and asking for information, which we have not been able to do yet because this has been hanging over us,” explained Trask. “So the city council and 303 Associates, they’ll be hearing from us.”
Tony Kukulich is a recent transplant to the Lowcountry. A native of Wilmington, Del., he comes to The Island News from the San Francisco Bay Area where he spent seven years as a reporter and photographer for several publications. He can be reached at tony.theislandnews@gmail.com.
