Beaufort County voters say to local leaders, ‘Now do your job. Protect the Lowcountry’

The people have spoken — again — about how important land conservation is to their Lowcountry lives.

This time they shouted.

On Tuesday, Beaufort County voters approved a referendum by a 53-to-47 percent margin, agreeing to tax themselves to the unprecedented tune of $100 million to rescue their precious Lowcountry from being swamped by over-development.

Voters are telling the elected leaders of Hilton Head Island, Bluffton, Beaufort, Hardeeville, Ridgeland, Yemassee, Beaufort County, Jasper County and Hampton County: “Quit pretending you’re Atlanta!”

The people have said — again — that they don’t want to be Suburbia Traffic Jam, Anywhere, USA. With rivers and creeks closed to shellfishing. And clear-cutting. And convenience stores and strip malls at every congested intersection.

Kudos to the Beaufort County Council for putting it on the ballot.

And to state Sen. Tom Davis, the Beaufort Republican who led a push in the state legislature to enable voters to use a 1 percent sales tax (excluding food, medicine and gas) to raise money for land conservation. And the local delegation in the House for getting the bill out of committee, to the floor and approved in the nick of time as the session wound down.

“A win on this referendum in a county that went for Republican candidates by 20 points is extraordinary,” Davis said.

Beaufort County voters are the first to take advantage of the legislation.

They’re saying to local governments: “We’ve given you every tool we have. Now do your job. Protect the Lowcountry.”

THE BEST OF TIMES

The new money comes at a time of great momentum in land conservation.

Dana Beach, the founding director of the Coastal Conservation League based in Charleston, said, “There is more money than ever (for land conservation) at the federal, state, local and private level; there’s more landowner awareness; there’s a more competent big-land conservation movement now.”

For example, he said, the Open Space Institute is knocking it out of the ballpark by enabling the “transformative” acquisition of 12,000 acres for conservation and public use in northern Jasper County.

That was made possible by the state legislature, the state Department of Natural Resources, federal money and participation by The Nature Conservancy and private landowners.

“So we’ve got more land being protected now, over the last couple of years, than we’ve ever seen, ever, in the history of land conservation,” Beach said.

Kate Schaefer of the Open Land Trust based in Beaufort sees “increasing cooperation with the military” as it seeks to protect assets like the Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort from the encroachment of development.

“They are increasingly well-funded,” she said.

Other veterans of the land conservation movement, like longtime ACE Basin Task Force leader Charles G. Lane of Charleston, look at a map of South Carolina and see how the new commitment of Beaufort County voters will help protect land.

He asks, “You want to write a story about conservation that doesn’t go on anywhere else?

“We have cooperation with all the public agencies, but more so the private individuals along with private landowners. We work as a collaborative team.”

He cites private land owners, Ducks Unlimited and the Lowcountry Land Trust as partners that can help change the mindset in the lower Lowcountry from strip malls to open spaces.

Michelle Sinkler of the Open Space Institute regional office in Charleston said, “It’s a complex web that this particular group has been able to navigate incredibly well.”

THE WORST OF TIMES

Tuesday’s vote also comes at a time of great peril.

When Chelsea Plantation was sold from 85 years of family ownership as a hunting preserve, it quickly resulted in plans for intense development in Okatie and rural Jasper County.

Schaefer of the Open Land Trust said, “It really woke the community up to all these very tangible, dinner-table type of concerns that they have never had to worry about before because of the nature of longtime ownership.”

Lane said that presents a second problem: sprawling development makes it harder to get voluntary land protection.

He said, “It will be very difficult to get a landowner – some landowner might do it – to say, ‘You know, I might put an easement on my property and yet everything around me is developed and look what I have given up.’ ”

But because our region still has large tracts of land intact, Beach believes “you could change the course of history with 10 landowners, and I think we will – I do think that’s going to happen.”

Dean Moss, who has a history of working with the Beaufort County Rural and Critical Lands program, says a challenging part of the equation will be “density buy-downs” from developers.

“If presented correctly, it becomes an economic question for that developer who could say ‘I can walk away with $5 million or $10 million and I don’t spend a penny. I just have to sign my name.’

“The question is, have we got people that are smart enough and capable enough to put those deals together and make that stuff work.”

He also knows it takes time.

But as a board member of the Port Royal Sound Foundation, he knows why it matters.

He knows that the rivers and creeks of Jasper County now threatened by development form the watershed for Port Royal Sound.

“And if we screw that up, we really screw stuff up,” he said. “Our objective is to keep that sound clean and productive. It is the asset.”

The people have spoken.

Is anyone listening?

This story was originally published November 9, 2022 at 12:39 PM.