Developers slice down ‘hundreds’ of trees as Hardeeville waits on stormwater rules
As developers whack trees and tear up land to add 218 more homes to the sprawling Latitude Margaritaville Hilton Head neighborhood, an environmental advisory group is asking local governments to approve stricter development rules to prevent the wholesale clearing of trees like Hardeeville is experiencing.
More than 18 months after a team of representatives from nearly every major municipality in Beaufort and Jasper counties (Hilton Head Island did not participate) drafted a regional approach to stormwater and development standards, which include offering credits to developers for keeping trees on site, only two local governments have officially signed on.
So although a mechanism exists to unify development policies across the region, governments in Jasper County, Beaufort, Hardeeville and Port Royal are not yet on board.
In Hardeeville, where there are 13 ongoing development projects, the lack of regional oversight over stormwater and development projects has the S.C. Coastal Conservation League and area residents worried about the practice of cutting down large swaths of trees.
“There is just an especially heightened sense of urgency for Hardeeville in particular, given the pace and scale of development projects seeking approval in the city,” said Jessie White, south coast office director for the Coastal Conservation League.
Many residents are particularly concerned about the Margaritaville development off U.S. 278.
A group of Hardeeville residents has asked the city to halt developers from clearing land in the growing neighborhood built for residents 55 years old and older — one of three developments in the southern United States named for the 1977 hit by singer Jimmy Buffett.
Residents accuse the city and developer Minto Communities of violating a tree-cutting agreement baked into Margaritaville’s concept plan.
“We...believe that the clear cutting of the Lake Latitude shore buffering trees will irreparably and forever erase the natural habitat of the existing wildlife and create a susceptible environment for unnatural shore erosion,” the group of six residents wrote to the city last month.
Hardeeville staff refutes that accusation and says the development company is following the agreement as well as city and state laws.
However, after seeing the Margaritaville project themselves, Hardeeville City Council members have called for a meeting with the developer to discuss how to mitigate the cutting.
So far, only Beaufort County and the town of Bluffton have adopted the Southern Lowcountry Stormwater Design Manual, a 466-page document that, among other development rules, offers developers credit for retaining trees on development sites.
By not adopting the rules, Hardeeville is allowing developers to continue to clear-cut large tracts of land, according to White with the Coastal Conservation League.
Clear-cutting exacerbates problems caused by stormwater runoff like erosion, sedimentation, pollution and desalination, White wrote in a June letter to Hardeeville City Council.
“Clear-cutting is absolutely not necessary in order to develop in the Lowcountry,” White wrote. “There are many examples of developments that do not cut down all onsite trees (Habersham in Beaufort is a great example) and those that do are simply seeking to more easily maximize buildable area with no regard for existing site conditions.
“The practice of clear-cutting not only lacks creativity, but also demonstrates a lack a sensitivity to the impacts on the quality of life of the communities they’re building in and its future residents.”
Calls for Hardeeville to adopt the regional stormwater and tree retention standards have renewed recently as Minto Communities embarks on a plan to start the fourth phase of the Margaritaville community and build 218 new homes.
What’s being built?
Jerry Owen, who lives next door to the Margaritaville community in Latitude Lakes, said he’s watched as construction crews cut down the trees that once surrounded the man-made lake in his neighborhood.
“They’ve cut hundreds of trees,” he said. “It’s huge.”
Owen said his main concern, and that of his neighbor, is protecting the trees around the lake. At the very least, he said, there should be a tree buffer around it.
In the letter addressed to Hardeeville City Council, Owen and five other residents argued that Minto Communities is not developing Margaritaville in line with the city’s requirement that a licensed landscape architect must certify each phase of a development.
That certification is intended to ensure that 15 trees per acre are preserved after development, according to the letter obtained by The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette.
The Hardeeville residents called on the city to delay the cutting until the city’s attorney delivered an opinion on their concerns.
During a Nov. 18 presentation to Hardeeville City Council, Planning Director Brana Snowden said the city does not have the ability to make changes to a development agreement unless the developer asks for an amendment.
She added that Minto Communities is following the rules agreed to by the city and developer.
“Once a PDD is approved, all we can do is enforce those documents,” she told the council.
At the meeting, Hardeeville City Council requested that staff members sit down with the developer and negotiate how to mitigate the tree cutting.
Council member Carolyn Kassel said she had seen photos of oak trees that were sliced down.
“We need Minto to help us right now to save these trees and save this shoreline for this lake,” she said. “We need to step in. I was out there ... I thought ‘oh my gosh this has got to stop.’”
Snowden agreed to meet with the developer to discuss the council’s and community’s concerns. In an email to a reporter Thursday, Snowden said that Minto Communities is meeting with City Council members this week.
At the heart of the issue, says White, of the Coastal Conservation League, is the lack of a strong, regional stormwater ordinance.
SOLOCO Stormwater Rules
The Southern Lowcountry Stormwater Design Manual is intended to tell residents, land developers and government agencies how to address construction and post-construction projects.
The goal of the manual, which was drafted by representatives from Beaufort County, Jasper County, Beaufort, Bluffton, Hardeeville and Port Royal, is to create a regional approach to stormwater management.
Regional rules are important because water does not follow jurisdictional boundaries, said county spokesperson Chris Ophardt.
The stormwater manual requires the recording of maintenance and inspection agreements, which are enforced by local governments. It also calls for better site designs, green infrastructure and low-impact designs, Ophardt said.
But so far, only two local governments have officially signed on to the new rules. Bluffton and Beaufort County approved the ordinances earlier this year.
In an email to a reporter, Rhett Lott, Hardeeville’s public works director, said the city is in the second year of a three-year process of revising its municipal zoning and development ordinance. The city is also waiting to hear from the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control about whether it meets the criteria of a MS4 stormwater designation — a municipal stormwater regulation system overseen by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
As part of these programs, the city plans to include the SOLOCO stormwater rules, but is waiting for feedback from DHEC to make sure the MS4 requirements are included in the ordinance, he said.
Lott said the city expects to hear from DHEC about the MS4 designation in the “very near future.”
However, White, of the conservation league, said she is concerned about how long that could take.
“I understand Hardeeville’s desire to get their (MS4) designation in place and to have sufficient staff onboard to manage and administer a program, but my understanding is that process takes several years.
“We don’t have time to wait, because that’s several more years of significant development projects, and the resources that are at stake don’t have that time.”
