Camp St. Mary’s will become a protected county park. Is former land swap idea off the table?

In the face of a strong ‘no vote’ from the Rural and Critical Lands Board, the county council instead is saying yes and is moving forward using special tax funds to purchase land already on the county’s books. The silver lining in all of this municipal finance complication is that Camp St Mary’s will get protected status and become a public park. The eight-acre parcel will be added to the Rural and Critical program’s portfolio of protected land as $2 million dollars of the board-controlled funds will be transferred to the county to complete the transaction.

This also signals the end of the debate over last year’s proposed controversial land swap, where the parcel (containing Camp St. Mary’s) was discussed as part of a trade for another parcel.

The Rural and Critical Lands Board recommended against this deal, not because of their objections to the protection, but because many felt that using their special tax-funded budget was outside the scope and purpose of their charge of protecting valuable lands, not creating parks.

The saga has taken months

In November, mere weeks after Beaufort County voters approved the green space penny sales tax, County officials rushed a resolution to council that proposed removing 60 acres of protected land from The Beaufort County Rural and Critical Land Preservation Program to build a library and baseball fields near Sun City. The resolution, which would have required only one super-majority vote of eight to pass, was not brought to the Rural and Critical Board for a recommendation before the being brought to the full council, as would be customary.

To both the program’s board and County Council, the swap was largely unfavorable, despite the county’s insistence that the values of the properties were near equal.

“I personally view that program [Rural and Critical] as sacred,” said outgoing council person Chris Hervochon at the time. “I think, even if we’re doing the right thing, even if the values are one for one, even if the stormwater impact is exactly the same, the public perception of ‘you took a property, you swapped it out, did it with one vote and didn’t send it back to Rural and Critical,’ potentially breaks the trust of us with the public, with that program.”

The Rural and Critical Board ruled that even if the monetary value was equitable, the protection value wasn’t. The board found the 60 acres, which were part of a 106 acre purchase to protect the headwaters of the Okatie River, more important for protection.

A new fate for Camp St. Mary’s

Now, county officials are proposing preserving the waterfront property without taking property out of Rural and Critical. The catch? They’ll take $2 Million dollars out of the program’s budget to turn it into a passive park.

“It would be a huge benefit to the citizens of Beaufort County,” said Chuck Atkinson, Assistant County Administrator for Development and Recreation.. “We can capitalize on money we already have and we can reinvest it in that property and turn it into something that everyone can use and be proud of.”

They’ll take the money and use it to purchase the needed improvements to turn it into a passive park including a gate, fencing, bathrooms, parking, walking trails and picnic tables under a covered pavilion.

Like other passive parks, the improvements will be minimal and the park will only be open during the day. Other examples of the county’s passive parks include Widgeon Point Preserve, in Okatie, and the recently opened Whitehall Park, in Beaufort.

This time the proposal was brought to the Rural and Critical board before County Council, but again, the board was skeptical.

The Rural and Critical board recommenced against the proposal for three main reasons: the program’s limited remaining funds, the conservation score of Camp St. Mary’s and the fact that the county already owns the property.

“I just don’t see that we should take the little bit of money that we have left, and buy something that the county already owns,” said board member Beekman Webb. “It just doesn’t make sense.”

The program has $14.3 million remaining in their balance, according to Interim County PIO Sarah Brock. If all of the program’s upcoming projects go through, including Camp St. Mary’s, it would expend the fund balance of the program, according to Stephanie Nagid, Passive Parks Director.

“Our mission is to conserve land,” said board member Arthur Baer. “I don’t think our mission is to create parks. And how does it stack up?”

When Rural and Critical rated the property they gave it a 5.2 out of 10. The scores are based on four criteria: property characteristics including the threat of development and uniqueness, financial considerations like price and if its a bargain, the public benefit and environmental benefit to its protection.

Presenting the proposal to the county’s Community Services and Land Use Committee. Atkinson said the rating skewed low for two key reasons – Threat of development was low because the property is county owned and the price was based on the purchase price, which was $500,000, not the four-times-higher appraised value of $2 million.

The committee recommended approval and the proposal was sent to council proper immediately after, who voted 8-2 to pass it on first reading. The two no votes came from Council people David Bartholomew and Logan Cunningham.

Cunningham, a vocal proponent of the land swap, didn’t want to move forward with protecting the land until discussion on the land swap had concluded.

The proposal for the camp will need two more readings before being passed.

The county is still “shopping” for land for a library, according to Atkinson, but has yet to identify a specific parcel. In the future the county may find and purchase property for the library directly or could propose another land swap.

“I don’t know what that’s gonna materialize into based on the pieces of property that we want,” Atkinson said. “But we’re still looking.”