Owner who sought subdivision sues county over work at boat landing – Coastal Observer

Owner who sought subdivision sues county over work at boat landing – Coastal Observer

The owner of five lots in Murrells Inlet was looking to break even on his $1.48 million investment by subdividing them to allow 10 houses. When that plan looked to run afoul of Georgetown County’s new wetlands protection ordinance, the attorney for ABC098 LLC said the owner might have to go back to his original plan for a 36-room hotel. In a suit filed in Circuit Court, the LLC said the hotel was “impossible and/or commercially infeasible” because the county took some of the LLC’s adjoining property when it reconfigured the driveway to the Murrells Inlet Boat Landing parking lot. ABC098, whose principal is Robert C. Harrison of Bennettsville, is seeking damages for inverse condemnation, trespass and negligence from the county and its contractor, PSI of Conway. It is also seeking punitive damages from the contractor. The LLC’s five lots front on Macklen Avenue. The adjacent property, which it calls the “amenity parcel,” is separated from the lots by a tidal creek and adjacent to the driveway to the parking area. All the property was acquired from Belin Memorial United Methodist Church. The county obtained a 50-foot right of way in a land swap with the church that moved the driveway that had run through the middle of the Belin property to its northern edge. The county and its contractor “came onto the Amenity Parcel with heavy equipment, machinery, and construction materials and constructed a portion of the County Facilities on the Amenity Parcel,” according to the suit.  The work included infrastructure to handle stormwater from the parking lot and driveway, and was done without permission, the suit claims. When told they were doing work on the LLC’s property, the county and its contractor “refused to halt construction and continued with the project,” according to the filing. ABC098 sought to rezone the five lots from “general commercial” to “resort residential” in order to create 10 lots. Phil Murdock, attorney for the LLC, told the Planning Commission in July that planning for the hotel was halted due to the “economics of the world,” but was still an option. He suggested that the 10 houses would be a less intensive use than the hotel and would allow the owner to recoup his investment. “Ten lots would allow him to get out at par value,” Murdock said. But a change from the five “lots of record” would trigger the provisions of the wetlands ordinance adopted earlier this year. The tidal creek would require a 25-foot undisturbed buffer and a 15-foot setback for any structures. It was unclear how that would impact the proposed development, so Murdock asked the commission to defer action. “This is about economic viability,” he said. “This is not an economically viable property with five houses.” The suit states that ABC098 “had obtained a number of approvals for his project,” which was to be called the Inn at the Inlet. It had also spent money on planning. It seeks “just compensation for the value of the real property taken, the diminution of value of Plaintiff’s Amenity Parcel and other real property” and the impairment of its development rights.