Land transaction could help Okatie River preservation
The Okatie River may get a 111-acre, $2-million cushion between it and pollution.
Bluffton and Beaufort County officials are working through a plan to purchase and preserve the property known as Kent Estates along S.C. 170 near the river that would create such a buffer.
Owned by New Leaf LLC, the tract had previously been slated for commercial and residential development including 449 homes and 119,00 square feel of commercial space.
Twenty acres were sold to National HealthCare Corporation for development in 2008.
Since then, there has been no development on the property due to what town documents call a "severe and prolonged downturn in the (economy)."
Lisa Lord, the county's Rural and Critical Lands Program administrator, hopes to keep it that way.
"This piece of property has been on our radar for a long time. It's always been a target because of where it is situated near the headwaters (of the Okatie River)," she said Wednesday.
The river is classified by the state Department of Health and Environmental Control as an impaired waterway. Any reduction in development nearby could help change that status, Lord said.
"The more (new homes and businesses) you have, the more stormwater runoff you have. And the more runoff you have, the more pollutants you get in the river."
"It's not only the ecology that impacted," she said. "Because there are people that make a living (harvesting shellfish), the economy is impacted, too."
Rather than sell the property to another developer, New Leaf wants to terminate its development agreement with the town and sell the property to the county.
The County Council voted late last year to purchase the property for $2 million.
Bluffton must end the development agreement and rezone the property as a preserve district.
"The town is working with the current property owners, their representatives, Beaufort County, and the (county's) Open Land Trust to facilitate the transfer and preserve the property," Shawn Leininger, Bluffton's director of growth management, said in an email Wednesday.
Bluffton's Planning Commission discussed the issue Wednesday evening. The town council will then vote on the zoning change. No date has been set for that vote.
If the sale is ultimately approved, Lord said there are plans to connect the parcel to the nearby Okatie Regional Preserve with a series of publicly accessible walking trails.
Follow reporter Lucas High on Twitter at twitter.com/IPBG_Lucas.
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This story was originally published August 26, 2015 at 3:40 PM with the headline "Land transaction could help Okatie River preservation."