Developers withdraw one lawsuit against Beaufort County, but federal fight remains
The owners of Pine Island, the coastal, 500-acre property that has been at the center of a contentious golf course development debate, recently dropped one of the two lawsuits they filed against Beaufort County in 2023.
Both publicly and in court filings, representatives for the developer made it clear they would drop the lawsuits if the county voted in favor of the development. But oddly, the withdrawal, which squashes the state-level lawsuit, came just days after Beaufort County officials once again upheld their position against the development.
On Dec. 9, the Beaufort County council voted in favor of upholding a Sept. 23 vote that halted negotiations and denied a development agreement between the developer and the county.
It was the result of a rarely used move to “rescind” or otherwise undo the vote, brought forward by one of the council’s own, Logan Cunningham. A vote in support of the councilman’s motion would have sent the county and the developer back into a negotiation period.
The dropped lawsuit
In 2023, the LLCs representing the developer filed two lawsuits against Beaufort County. Both motions centered on the legality of the county’s decision to deny the developer’s efforts to build a golf course.
The first was an appeal of the county’s planning commission’s decision that the zoning overlay did not allow for three six-hole golf courses. This was the lawsuit that developers withdrew on Dec. 12, just four days after the council stood by their original decision.
The withdrawal indicates that they were doing so because the developers are no longer seeking approval for three separate six-hole golf courses.
The federal fight continues
The second lawsuit was a civil action directly challenging the legality and constitutionality of St. Helena’s Cultural Protection Overlay itself.
The Cultural Protection Overlay, known as the “CPO,” is the zoning amendment that prohibits the development of resorts, gated communities and golf courses in an effort to preserve Gullah-Geechee culture. It has been in effect since the late 1990s.
Specifically, it calls into question whether the CPO’s restrictions on hotels, resorts and golf courses violated the developer’s constitutional rights to due process and equal protection, and whether the ordinance places an unconstitutional burden on the ability to conduct interstate commerce.
That action has since been transferred to federal court and is still pending.
A request for a partial summary judgment
On Dec. 22, the property owner’s legal team asked for a partial summary judgment, which is a formal request for the judge to decide part of the case now without a trial, claiming there’s no real dispute about the key facts of those issues.
They requested the federal judge to rule that the CPO is an unconstitutional and “race-based zoning” ordinance before the case goes on any further.
They allege that strict scrutiny should be applied to ordinances “intended to protect a race or racial culture,” that the county violated the constitution by adopting and enforcing a “raced-based” ordinance, that there is an “absence” of government interest that would validate the CPO and that the ordinance is much too broad.
The 23-page request asks three main questions:
- Is a race-conscious zoning ordinance, adopted for the express purpose of protecting a particular race and culture, subject to strict scrutiny?
- Does the Cultural Protection Overlay further a compelling governmental interest?
- Is the Cultural Protection Overlay narrowly tailored?
The parties met on a phone conference on Tuesday, and the judge set a new schedule for the case. The county has 21 days to finalize a new motion to dismiss the case. If the court denies the motion, the case will move forward, with a possible trial start date of Aug. 15, 2026.
