Third judge rules against Beaufort County in ferry fight. When will the site be relocated?
A third judge has ruled against Beaufort County in a years-long legal fight that citizens say shows the county violating its own zoning laws by operating a ferry to Daufuskie Island near a waterside neighborhood.
Buckingham Landing residents previously told the Island Packet they welcomed the temporary embarkation point initially, especially since the previous boarding area was destroyed by Hurricane Matthew in 2016. But temporary soon turned to total conversion of an abandoned seaside restaurant into a permanent dock site.
“They (Beaufort County) know it’s illegal, they know that judges have said it’s illegal, and they continue to fight,” said Alisa Ware, a Buckingham Landing resident and one of the lawsuit’s plaintiffs. “They’re just trying to outspend us, and they’re trying to do that with taxpayer dollars, because it’s not their money.”
How much the county has spent defending the lawsuit was not immediately available.
The residents’ lawsuit began in 2021, about five years after the Daufuskie Ferry relocated to Buckingham Landing. A constant stream of tourists and cars into the once-quiet area crowded streets, disturbed the neighborhood and ultimately reduced their quality of life, residents argued. On top of that, they said the ferry shouldn’t be a legal use of that land, which was specifically blocked off for residential use or small, in-home businesses by the Buckingham Landing Preservation District.
Last month, Judge Courtney Pope issued a preliminary injunction, ordering the ferry to cease operation at the site by Jan. 1, 2024.
“The neighborhood plaintiffs have lived with the commercial ferry operations in violation of the county ordinances for more than five years,” Pope’s court order read. “Other than a preliminary injunction, there is no certain, practical, complete and efficient remedy that these plaintiffs can pursue under the circumstances.”
On March 16, Pope denied a county motion for a new hearing. She also issued a stay of further proceedings in the case, which the plaintiffs attempted to contest. That motion was also denied.
Pope is now the second judge to issue such an order. In May 2022, Judge Bentley Price issued his own injunction ordering the ferry to pack up by Sept. 5, 2022, or provide evidence county officials were moving “expeditiously” to secure new landing sites.
Ware said the law has consistently ruled in favor of the neighborhood, even before Price’s first injunction. Beaufort County filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit in July 2021, which was struck down by Judge Diane Goodstein three months later.
A spokesman for Beaufort County could not be reached for comment. The Island Packet first reached out on March 13 to ask about the status of the condemnations, when the ferry is expected to relocate, and how much the county has spent in legal fees related to the current lawsuit, and did not receive a response.
In September 2022, a Beaufort County spokesman said officials were moving as quickly as possible to designate new boarding and disembarkation spots for the ferry — one on Hilton Head’s Helmsman Way, the other at Melrose Landing on Daufuskie Island. Both parcels have since been condemned by the county.
Paula Brown, the County Council representative whose district including Buckingham Landing, could not be immediately reached for comment.
“We have tried everything we can to negotiate and try to stop spending everyone’s money and time and they refuse to even contact us or allow contact at all,” Ware said.
