Beaufort denied couple chance to build their dream home. Was it ‘mob rule’ or the right call?
The city of Beaufort has denied an annexation request that “got extraordinarily personal” and divided the City Council and neighbors while raising questions about fairness, future growth and the environmental impacts of docks on marshland.
A 4.7-acre property at 7597 Patterson Road, situated on a high bluff overlooking the Whale Branch River and Middle Creek, caused the controversy. It is located seven miles from the heart of Beaufort, near Clarendon farms, which the city annexed in 2006.
David Greer and Amy Wylie of Spartanburg, who were proposing to buy the land, asked the city to annex the waterfront property into the city limits and rezone it. It’s currently in Beaufort County’s jurisdiction. They hoped, David Greer said, to build their “forever home” on the land a real estate notice described as “magical.”
Instead, the property turned into a battleground over annexation. Neighbors worried about the potential uses — including a plan by Greer and Wylie, who are married, for a 343-foot-long dock into the marsh in order to reach deeper water — if it was annexed into the city and rezoned. The maximum length of a dock in a riparian area under Beaufort County’s rules is 300 feet.
Greer and Wylie and their attorney, Cody Lenhardt, argued that, technically, the issue at hand was solely annexation — not a request for a dock, which involves other permitting authorities.
By voting down the annexation request because of a proposed dock, Greer said, the city was creating a questionable standard for future requests. He and Wylie did not skirt any laws, they added, and worked with the state Department of Health and Environmental Control regarding the dock.
The dock, Lenhardt said, would have been extended to a navigable creek. The neighbors, he added, have docks, too.
“This is very clearly a situation,” Lenhardt said, “where you have those who have, do not want one more.”
But neighbors, including Patrick Matthews and Margie Bright Matthews, who is a Democratic state senator from Colleton, who live immediately next door to the property, accused Greer and Wylie of seeking the annexation and asking for the land to be rezoned to take advantage of the city’s less stringent waterfront building rules to construct the longer dock through the marsh to reach the creek. They called it zoning or jurisdiction shopping.
“This thing doesn’t have the right flavor,” said Daryl Ferguson, one of the neighbors questioning the annexation and the dock plans.
The environmental impacts of the longer dock through marshland concerned him, Ferguson said, including what it would do for access for dozens of kayakers who he says enjoy the area.
Annexation denied in close vote
The City Council, by a 3-2 split vote, denied the annexation last Tuesday. The decision came, Mayor Stephen Murray noted, on the same evening the council unanimously OK’d a similar type of annexation at 139 Chowan Creek Bluff Road. Nobody, Murray pointed out, objected to that request.
“So I fear we make a decision based on mob rule,” said Murray, “not on planning” and what’s in the best interest of residents and the city’s vision for growth over the next 30 or 40 years.
To be sure, Murray said, the decision was “a tough one. “Leapfrogging” out to the remote area, to annex a property, and the idea of zoning shopping, Murray said, bothered him.
But, Murray added, as the city continues to grow, it has a responsibility to taxpayers, who already are subsidizing services to outlying areas, to incrementally annex properties with owners who wish to join the city and take advantage of its services. The land, he added, is within the city’s growth boundaries and service delivery area.
The annexation, and a proposed rezoning of the land, Murray noted, would actually have provided more protections for the neighborhood because only single-family homes would have been allowed, whereas commercial uses are allowed now.
But others could not stomach the idea of the annexation request if the purpose was to change the jurisdiction in order to get a longer dock, even if the city has no control over dock permits.
It was clear to Councilman Phil Cromer that Greer and Wylie only wanted to join the city to build the dock, which he equated to extending private property rights through the public marsh. “And,” Cromer said, “I can’t go along with that.”
Councilman Mitch Mitchell called the annexation request a “work around” to get the dock approved, and Councilman Neil Lipsitz also voted against it. Murray and Councilman Mike McFee voted for the annexation.
Greer and Wylie had wanted to build a legacy property for their family on the land, which is owned by Inez Johnson of New York and advertised for $399,000, said Lenhardt, their attorney. They’ve not finalized any decisions on what they plan to do in light of the annexation denial, which had been a condition of the purchase.
“Nobody in the neighborhood ever expressed any interest in purchasing the property until my clients found the property and fell in love with it and wanted to make a forever home,” Lenhardt said. “What they’ve done is pretty surprising.”
Offer to buy property withdrawn
Phil Nagley, a Realtor, said the offer from Wylie and Greer for the Patterson Road property has been withdrawn. A backup offer was in place, he said, but he could not say from whom because the sale has not closed yet.
While not denying their intent to seek a permit for the dock, Greer said he was working with DHEC and called other accusations that were made about their intent for the property in general “pretty hurtful to myself and my wife.”
John Sandfort, another neighbor, said there were real concerns about the delivery of emergency services if a single property was added to the city while other properties remained in the county’s jurisdiction.
There already had been one instance in the area, Sandfort said, when a barn burned down at Clarendon farm because of uncertainty between fire departments about who was responsible for covering the area.
“Our concern is if we end up with one piece of city property under residential restrictions, and everyone else is county, would we have the same problem?” Sandfort said.
The Coastal Conservation League unsuccessfully lobbied the city to hold off making decisions on the annexation requests for both 7597 Patterson Road and 139 Chowan Creek Bluff Road.
CCL’s Grant McClure noted both properties are on the water’s edge and subject to Beaufort County’s more rigorous rules protecting riparian buffers. Those buffers are critical, McClure said, because they reduce erosion, provide wildlife habitat, help maintain water quality and increase property values.
The city, McClure said, should pass regulations that match the county’s. CCL sought the delay until those new regulations could be acted upon.
This story was originally published November 24, 2022 at 5:30 AM.
