Safe Harbor hits Port Royal with new demands before budging on Spanish Moss Trail extension
Just when the rocky relationship between the town of Port Royal and Safe Harbor Marinas over the town’s waterfront development appeared to be improving, the partnership took a wrong turn this week. Shortly before a council vote to approve a deal, the Dallas-based marina operator submitted a list of eleventh hour demands before it would agree to the town’s ongoing request for an easement. Town leaders were counting on that easement to allow the popular Spanish Moss Trail to be extended, but Safe Harbor’s new, unrelated conditions have thrown a wrench into the works.
This latest road block has town officials so frustrated they are now investigating condemnation proceedings to extend the Spanish Moss Trail.
At Wednesday’s town council meeting, local leaders were prepared to celebrate the approval of an agreement that’s been in progress for two years. The deal would have allowed the completion of a section of the trail across Safe Harbor land along a former railroad bed, allowing bicyclists and pedestrians to reach downtown Port Royal and Battery Creek.
They thought they had everything worked out, Mayor Kevin Phillips said.
But just hours before the meeting, Phillips said, the town received an email from Safe Harbor “hitting us with a list of demands we just cannot accommodate at this time,” before it [Safe Harbor] would agree to the 20-foot easement needed to advance the trail.
“We continue to be met with obstacles, further demands, further concessions,” Phillips said.
Frustrated by the new contingencies, town council members voted 5-0 to remove the approval of the easement from the agenda. Instead, town staff was told to investigate and potentially initiate condemnation proceedings to, in the words of Phillips, “see if we can’t get it across that way.”
What’s especially frustrating, said Phillips, is most of the Safe Harbor’s demands have nothing to do with the trail easement.
Safe Harbor’s new demands
For example, Safe Harbor wants the town to give Harbormasters International a one-year temporary-use exception — with an option for a 6-month extension — to continue building docks that are being shipped to Charleston.. That type of dock assembly work has angered residents.
Another Safe Harbor demand: the placement of shipping containers, which are currently prohibited in the boat yard, be allowed.
Safe Harbor also wants the town to agree that any future extensions of Spanish Moss Trail through other areas of the waterfront development be less than 20 feet, particularly the Bluff Area, where residential housing is planned. Safe Harbor also asked that a bathroom trailer on the worksite be permanently connected to the Beaufort-Jasper Water and Sewer Authority system.
Two years of rancor, two weeks of hope. What’s next?
Over the past two years, the town has had a litany of concerns with Safe Harbor’s development along two miles of Battery Creek waterfront. Things got so bad that the town fired off a letter earlier this year demanding changes and more transparency surrounding the 150-200 slip marina project, which also includes a housing component. All was looking up in the wake of the Feb. 1 meeting when town and Safe Harbor officials met face-to-face to iron out the differences. At the conclusion of that meeting, both Phillips and Peter Clark, Safe Harbor’s chief development officer, described the results as positive and indicated a deal on the easement in particular was imminent.
Then came Wednesday’s email with the list of demands regarding the easement.
“Every time we think we’re about to get it done,” Phillips said, “we get one more demand, one more tweak.”
Councilman Jerry Ashmore said Safe Harbor agreed at the Feb. 1 meeting that they would have a representative at Wednesday’s meeting to talk to the town residents. No Safe Harbor official addressed the residents or town council at the meeting.
