Developer pays Bluffton $71,500 to settle Willow Run tree-cutting lawsuit
The town of Bluffton has settled a lawsuit with a developer who cut more than 6,000 trees on property along U.S. 278, according to Beaufort County court records.
Indian Hill Associates LLC has agreed to pay the town $71,500 to settle the suit, which claims the company cleared trees on more than 107 acres of the 162-acre Willow Run Tract. The land -- across from Eagle's Pointe and west of Rose Hill -- has been the target of several failed development projects.
The lawsuit, filed in September, alleges Indian Hill violated its development agreement, which requires the company to comply with landscaping laws and protect trees on the property. The lawsuit also says Indian Hill breached a conservation easement the town held on the land by cutting the trees.
Willow Run property owner Paul Schlosser declined to comment. Schlosser signed the 2008 development agreement with the town as a representative of Indian Hill Associates, according to the lawsuit.
In the settlement, reached in November, the company admits no wrongdoing but says it ended the dispute to "avoid the time and expense of litigation."
Attempts to reach Bluffton town manager Marc Orlando and town attorney Terry Finger were unsuccessful.
The settlement allows the town to replant trees within wetland buffers. It also requires the company to clean debris left behind from the logging.
The town and Indian Hill first signed a development agreement in 2003 after the company asked the town to annex the Willow Run tract. As their five-year agreement was expiring in 2008, the town and Indian Hill agreed on a second contract, incorporating Willow Run into the larger Buckwalter Tract to the west.
Under the terms of the new contract, Willow Run had to follow the town's tree and landscaping ordinances, which prohibit the removal of trees larger than 8 inches in diameter without approval. About 5,800 of the trees cut exceeded that size, and 350 more trees were 24 inches in diameter or larger, the lawsuit said.
According to the lawsuit, 98 percent of the trees on the 107.5 affected acres were cut. That included wetlands and 50-foot wetland buffers, the lawsuit said. Some of the trees were also part of a 19.8-acre section of the tract donated to the town.
Schlosser, who has owned the property since 1985, tried several times to develop the land. The most recent attempt, a proposed 550,000-square-foot shopping center called The Shoppes at Willow Run, ended two years ago over environmental concerns and a lagging economy, former town manager Anthony Barrett said in December 2013.
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Related content:
- Bluffton sues Willow Run developer for removal of over 6,000 trees , Sept. 22, 2014
- Plans scrapped for Bluffton shopping center near Buckwalter Parkway , Dec. 3, 2013
This story was originally published May 6, 2015 at 6:51 PM with the headline "Developer pays Bluffton $71,500 to settle Willow Run tree-cutting lawsuit."