Moratorium? Don’t use that word around County Council
By Lolita Huckaby
BEAUFORT
A couple of citizens showed up for Monday night’s County Council meeting thinking there was going to be a discussion about a possible development moratorium.
It didn’t happen, … well, it hardly happened.
The matter was on the agenda of the Council’s Community Services and Land Use Committee whose members had recently suggested the idea following the lead of Jasper County Council which imposed a nine-month moratorium in June against major developments in the lower part of the county. The hold on permits is designed to give the Jasper Planning Commission time to review its development codes and come up with guidelines for future development.
The committee members had been thinking about imposing the moratorium for property along S.C. 170, one side of which is in Beaufort and the other, Jasper County.
But the county administrative staff pointed out most of Beaufort County’s property has already been developed or has approved plans for development. In addition, Beaufort’s zoning requires County Council approval for property to be “up zoned,” (to allow greater development) which, the staff contended, gives the County Council more control.
Two citizens did speak in favor of a moratorium, with one Lady’s Island resident urging the county elected officials to consider it for the whole county, at least to give transportation planners and school officials a little time to try and catch up with the growth the area is already experiencing.
Councilman Tom Reitz of Hilton Head was the only committee member who supported the idea, reminding his colleagues they all had pretty much run on campaign platforms to do something about development.
Oh well …
Port Royal folks got different view of Ribaut Road revision
PORT ROYAL – Once again, it was a “tale of two cities” last week when the Port Royal Town Council gathered to discuss the proposed plan “Reimagine Ribaut Road.”
It was the same county plan engineer, Jared Fralix, making the presentation that went to the Beaufort City Council last month. It had the same 5.5-mile stretch of state-owned highway with an estimated multi-million dollar price tag (including the burial of utility lines.) But the mood in the room was different.
The crowd of citizens who filled the Beaufort City Council chambers earlier to offer their comments were, let’s say, not happy with what they saw, as a majority. They didn’t like the three roundabouts proposed for the city’s portion of the project, and those who spoke didn’t like the idea of narrowing the four lanes of traffic through the residential section to create wider sidewalks and, theoretically, as a device to slow traffic on the major corridor.
Folks in the Port Royal Town hall – who didn’t have any roundabouts or road narrowing proposals in their section of the plan – were predominately focused on the Lady’s Island Drive intersection with Ribaut, one of the busiest in northern Beaufort County. The plan calls for a new, extended right-turning lane from Ribaut to the McTeer Bridge and Lady’s Island.
Mayor Joe DeVito, who had just been defeated the day before in his campaign for re-election, made it clear he hoped – when and if the plan ever becomes reality – the Port Royal segment of the corridor, which sees the heaviest amount of traffic, will be built before the Beaufort section.
The plan still must be presented to the County Council, and then decisions will be made on a design to be used in grant applications for the millions of dollars which will be needed to redesign the road. It’s certainly not a matter of “build it and they will come.” They’re already coming whether the road improvements get built or not.
HRB without HBF
BEAUFORT – The city’s much publicized Historic Review Board had its first meeting last week without a designated member from the Historic Beaufort Foundation.
A small, dedicated audience gathered to watch the five-member citizens panel review the four projects on the agenda and how that panel would function following the high-profile maneuvering the City Council conducted this past summer and fall just to get the group together. (Remember, council members decided to revise the ordinance designating an appointee from HBF as a nominee for the review board. Citizens came to the meetings to protest but those protests went nowhere, the ordinance change was made and then Mayor Stephen Murray resigned.)
The two newest appointees to the board – an architect and a developer – joined their colleagues in approving new stairs for the Succession House on Craven Street, a new house on a .09 acre lot on Prince Street and final approval for a major two-block residential redevelopment on Wilmington Street. They sent back for further redesign a proposed plan to consolidate two small cottages on Federal Street which the majority agreed looked like a governmental institution or a high-end retail store.
Although the HBF no longer has an official appointee on the board, the Development Director Lise Sundrla was there to comment and offer the Foundation’s preservation committee’s opinions on each project.
In the quick two hours they met, members agreed to elect Mike Sutton, who’s running for mayor next month, as chair of the panel and one of the new members, architect Grady Woods as vice-chair. Sutton, as chair of the panel, invited local representative of the Beaufort-Jasper Housing Trust and retired 303 Associates developer Dick Stewart to the podium to speak about the need for affordable housing and how the proposed Wilmington Street redevelopment would address that need.
It was an interesting meeting, if you like that sort of thing, and as Beaufort continues to grow, there will assuredly be more.
About that long-awaited Harris Teeter
LADY’S ISLAND – Yes, the community’s been waiting for a new Harris Tetter grocery store on the island for a couple of years.
But last week’s additional tree removal was something of a surprise.
The issue of trees on that high-profile intersection of Sea Island Parkway and Sams Point Road has been a part of the community’s history for the past 25 years, since Publix started cutting trees in 1997 after a three-year court battle involving tree protection. When Publix left that site in 2014 and moved across the road, they did it again, turning a formerly forested tract into a parking desert.
Word came in 2016 that Harris Tetter had its eye on the site and there was much rejoicing. Until now, when the final standing tree buffer was bulldozed so passing motorists could watch the construction.
The initial response from the city, which has jurisdiction over the site thanks to aggressive annexation in the 1990’s, is that the latest tree removal was permitted.
They followed the rules. Same as what was said about 303 Associates’ plans for a three-story hotel with a rooftop bar and parking garage in the downtown area. The same that was said for the demolition of the former neighborhood grocery on Duke Street which represented a community no longer in existence.
They followed the rules.
Lolita Huckaby Watson is a community volunteer and newspaper columnist. In her former role as a reporter with The Beaufort Gazette, The Savannah Morning News, Bluffton Today and Beaufort Today, she prided herself in trying to stay neutral and unbiased. As a columnist, these are her opinions. Her goal is to be factual but opinionated, based on her own observations. Feel free to contact her at bftbay@gmail.com.
