Bay Point development raises many concerns
Hilton Head Island’s proposal to annex Bay Point Island across Port Royal Sound is a problem for many reasons.
It is governance at its worst.
Most aggravating is that when pushback came, Mayor David Bennett stressed that no final decisions have been made and he and Town Council have an open mind with no agenda.
That is insulting. There absolutely is an agenda. The mayor pushed it as the surprise announcement came the day before a unanimous vote of support by Town Council. The agenda, according to Bennett, is the betterment of Hilton Head — better branding associated with a supposed five-star, ecology-minded, sustainable, international resort; better town income said to be $1.5 million per year; and better business and real estate opportunities fueled by five-star resort guests.
But it is like the arts venue proposal. Town Council says it has an open mind and no decisions have been made as it charges hard for it, even asking for $30 million for something it says it may not want and has certainly not planned.
The public is expected to get on board with governance by the old refrain: Ready, fire, aim!
Hilton Head’s Town Council sidestepped the public and its own staff before surprising citizens and other local governments with this bombshell. It would reach into northern Beaufort County — oblivious to the Northern Beaufort County Regional Plan — to annex what a Beaufort County Council member described as “essentially a sandbar” with a development agreement for construction of a high-end resort.
Prior to the bombshell, Town Council violated the spirit, and we think the letter, of the state Freedom of Information Act. Secret meetings in small groups to circumvent the definition of a public meeting does not pass the smell test. It goes against the specific prohibition of public bodies using tricks to shut the public out of public business.
To surprise Beaufort County is poor governance. It is legal, but it is unneighborly, and tone deaf. Town Council does not appreciate the cultural significance of what northern Beaufort County sees as an invasion of its turf and way of life by Hilton Head. Bay Point clings like a blue crab to the heart and soul of Beaufort, not Hilton Head. At the very least, the way this annexation proposal has been handled is a good example of how not to win friends and influence people in Beaufort County.
Surprising the public is not smart, either. It fuels misinformation, conspiracy theories and knee-jerk reactions with no due process.
Beaufort County did this in the 1990s. It secretly negotiated a deal to bring Sun City Hilton Head to Okatie, unbeknown to the group of citizens laboring to produce a document guiding future growth for the county. We learned then that secrecy was a problem and the county vowed not to do it again.
Annexation also raises red flags. It has been used for terrible governance, including “zoning shopping.” We have seen it used as a way to lock in high density as the county has been transformed from rural to one of the fastest-growing in the nation.
Its most exaggerated form is annexation of non-contiguous land. When this happens, the public must really be on its toes to figure out why such lengths were taken.
Environmental concerns in the case of Bay Point are legion. Erosion, bird habitat, stormwater and wastewater are a few issues that must be pored over in great detail — just as it should have been done years ago when the county approved the subdivision of Bay Point into 49 residential lots.
On the surface, the proposed “eco-friendly” development of Bay Point seems like an oxymoron. But to get to the root of this, the public must take its seat at the table, where it should have been all along.
This story was originally published October 2, 2016 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Bay Point development raises many concerns."