Beaufort poised to absorb Lady’s Island golf course, multiple businesses

The city of Beaufort is poised to get bigger with plans for a mass annexation on Lady’s Island.

Among the 67 properties to be annexed are the Secession Golf Club, its associated housing development and multiple businesses along Sea Island Parkway. The annexations and the accompanying zoning passed a first vote by Beaufort City Council on Tuesday.

“To my knowledge, this is the largest annexation the city has undertaken,” city manager Bill Prokop said.

The 56 properties in the Secession Golf Club area include the private golf course and 15 homes and vacant lots in nearby Blue Gray Estates. One of the properties is Secession’s office and some are wetlands and lagoons.

The business to be brought into the city include Wells Fargo and CBC National banks, the Fillin’ Station, Butler Marine, Zippy Lube, a dentist office, gas station, dive shop, former movie theater and a tomato-packing facility.

The new property would generate about $125,000 a year in new revenue through property taxes and business license and stormwater fees, Prokop said.

Numerous commercial properties have been annexed into the city along Sea Island Parkway, including Publix, sites of a planned Harris Teeter and Taco Bell and a Wal-Mart under construction near Beaufort County Airport. City officials have said they want to fill in gaps their service area — so-called doughnut holes — and offer incentives for businesses in certain areas to join the city.

In letters to the Sea Island Parkway property owners, city attorney Bill Harvey laid out the potential incentives for agreeing to sign the petition for annexation — an overall payment of three times the property’s projected property taxes or property tax reimbursement on a declining scale over seven years. Harvey told the property owners City Council could decide to annex them anyway under state law requiring signatures from the owners of 75 percent of the area’s assessed property value, a requirement the Secession owners would have satisfied.

“We said we have the ability to take you in,” Harvey said. “We’re offering you these incentives, and they said ‘we agree.’ ”

City officials began working on the annexation this past summer. Harvey noted that some property gaps still exist, but to change the petition would require collecting each property owner’s signature.

Final signatures were collected last week, Harvey said.

The annexation was recommended by a northern Beaufort County planning committee, and city planners received no public comments before Tuesday.

The golf course and most of the businesses would be zoned general commercial. Secession’s housing area would be zoned neighborhood commercial.

This story was originally published January 24, 2017 at 10:17 AM with the headline "Beaufort poised to absorb Lady’s Island golf course, multiple businesses."