‘Protect the area’: Gov. McMaster weighs in on controversial proposed St. Helena development
Gov. Henry McMaster has expressed concern over a controversial local proposal to build a luxury golf course and gated housing development on St. Helena Island, urging Beaufort County to reject a zoning change sought by a developer to make it happen.
“With South Carolina’s population rapidly expanding, debates like this are happening across our state but few threaten the natural beauty, history, and rich culture of our state as this one does,” McMaster wrote in a Jan. 3 letter to Ed Pappas, chairman of the Beaufort County Planning Commission.
“It is my fear that changes to the CPO, which has protected St. Helena from this type of development since 1999, will signal ‘open season’ to other developers and create a domino effect on St. Helena Island and beyond.”
CPO stands for the Cultural Protection Overlay, a special zoning that protects much of St. Helena Island — a largely rural landscape east of Beaufort — from development. Pine Island GC, LLC is asking that nearly 500 acres be removed from the CPO so it can build what it describes in its application as a “world-class, legacy development” that would include a golf course, short-term rentals and “clustered” residential development.
Returning the property, which is not publicly accessible, to base zoning will actually allow for additional conservation measures to protect the area, including reduced housing and dock density, the developer says in its application.
“The development will displace zero local residents, add zero children to the school system, require zero County dollars, and generate minimal infrastructure stress all while generating significant tax revenue for the county,” Pine Island GC, LLC wrote. “Most importantly, the proposed development will create local jobs, sources [of] local goods and services, generate community investment, create local education opportunities, create a new public access point to local waterways and deliver an experience that helps raise awareness and sensitivity to local environmental and cultural climates.”
But the project has run into strong opposition from residents and the Penn Center, the former school for freed enslaved people that today shares and works to preserve the history of African Americans in South Carolina, the Coastal Conservation League (CCL) and Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition, which considers the project a threat to island’s environment, history and rural character.
And now McMaster, a Republican who easily won a second four-year term in November, is sharing his concerns about the 498-acre project planned on the Pine Island Plantation and St. Helenaville property.
The Beaufort County Planning Commission will discuss the project at 6 p.m. Thursday.
In his letter, McMaster asks the commission to take the concerns of the groups and residents to heart “and protect the area from this and similar future developments.”
“Furthermore,” McMaster said, “as our state continues to expand, I ask that you and other planning commissions across the state prioritize protecting and conserving our state’s uncommon beauty and rich culture from similar projects.”
Beaufort County has said previously the project, as currently proposed, will not be approved because of the Cultural Protection Overlay restrictions, which provide extra protections for St. Helena Island.
The property includes Pine Island, a 77-acre island, and a larger property known as St. Helenaville, which are connected by a causeway. St. Helenaville was once a small antebellum village and summer retreat for plantation owners. Pine Island was a hunting plantation. Owned by the Hannah family, it’s been managed as farmland and a family retreat for 50 years, but now is for sale and the developer Pine Island GC, LLC, has an option to purchase the property.
This story was originally published January 4, 2023 at 5:34 PM.
