Will Hilton Head taxpayers pay over $115K in attorney fees from Arbor Nature suit?
Landscape and tree grinding operation Arbor Nature may have settled its zoning dispute with the Town of Hilton Head Island in 2019, but the company is coming back to the town to ask for over $115,000 in attorney fees incurred during the 18-month-long legal battle.
Documents filed in the Beaufort County Court of Common Pleas show Arbor Nature retained two attorneys, Tom Taylor and Chester Williams, who say they logged over 400 hours on the case.
The expenses will be discussed by Hilton Head’s Town Council in executive session on Tuesday, according to the meeting agenda.
If the town awards the fees, Assistant Town Manager Josh Gruber said the payment would come from the town’s general fund, which is made up of tax dollars and licensing fees.
Attached to the motion is a breakdown of the hours spent on the case by Taylor and Williams. Taylor’s rate is $275 per hour, while Williams’ rate is $350 per hour. The breakdown includes discounts of attorney fees, but shows that Taylor charged Arbor Nature $25,142 and Williams charged $90,635 for representation during the suit and settlement.
Although the motion for attorney fees is new, it follows a complicated history of the town’s relationship with Arbor Nature. The opportunity to ask for attorney fees was left on the table in 2019, even though it was not part of the original settlement.
“It cost us a year and a half of litigation to force the town to live up to the agreements they made. We were in court three or four different times,” attorney Tom Taylor told The Island Packet. “These are attorneys fees, from my perspective, that never should have had to been incurred by Arbor Nature.”
Arbor Nature’s history on Hilton Head
The filing comes amid sustained tension between the town, Arbor Nature and the public.
The Arbor Nature dispute began in council around May 2016, when town land management ordinance official Teri Lewis wrote the company saying that it was out of compliance following noise complaints from neighbors in Indigo Run.
Arbor Nature appealed to the town’s board of zoning appeals, which stood by Lewis’ decision. When the company appealed to circuit court, the town reached a settlement, which was approved in June 2017.
The settlement required the town to lease 4 acres in the Summit Drive area to Arbor Nature for one year for $1. Arbor Nature then purchased the Summit Drive property for $300,000, where it was not required to meet minimum tree-planting requirements and buffer regulations.
After the settlement was reached, the Town Council voted to renegotiate it in an attempt to move Arbor Nature off the island.
As part of a court order in February 2019, Judge Marvin Dukes required the town to comply with the settlement agreement as it was and said he would “reserve the issue of attorney’s fees and costs until such time as the settlement agreement is fully implemented.”
It took over a year for the parties to implement all the terms of the agreement.
“This is one of those unique cases where a fair settlement agreement was reached… and one party decided they weren’t going to live up to the agreement. It cost a year and half of hard work to force the town to live up to the agreement,” Taylor, representing Arbor Nature, said.
Town Council Attorney Curtis Coltrane declined to comment on the request for attorney fees.
Following the movement to Summit Drive, residents in Port Royal Plantation were incensed by the noisy tree-grinding operation moving from one residential area to a location next to another neighborhood. They maintained that the town fumbled the lawsuit and was giving away land, spending more money and inconveniencing them.
The drama with Arbor Nature hasn’t let up.
In September, the company applied for a permit for a solid waste transfer station on Summit Drive.
A solid waste transfer station is different from a permanent waste dump — construction and demolition debris is stored temporarily at a transfer station before being brought to a dump off the island.
Residents strongly opposed the application to the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control, calling it a “nightmare” to store 240 tons of waste on the island’s north end.
Dozens, including Mayor John McCann, spoke out against the application this fall in public meetings.
“Our eco-friendly island would tragically suffer from this demolition site with its trucking mania,” Port Royal Plantation resident Pauline Leland told The Island Packet in October. “The amount of trucks that will be going back and forth on the road will be constant, not to mention that so much stuff will be left there.”
The public comment window for Arbor Nature’s permit has closed, but DHEC has not announced a decision yet.
