COASTAL OBSERVER

When beachfront property owners at Prince George first filed suit, their houses were still south of Pawleys Inlet.  Now,  12 of the 19 houses are north of the inlet. At high tide, they are creekfront houses, some guarded by stacks of sandbags.

Their suit against the town of Pawleys Island, its contractors and two state agencies over a 2020 beach renourishment project has been on hold since last April while they tried to reach a settlement.

“A settlement was not reached,” they said in a filing last month.

Next week, the property owners and the Prince George Community Association will ask a Circuit Court to let their case move forward.

The town placed 1.1 million cubic yards of offshore sand on the beach from the south end parking lot to just above Second Street on the north end. Pawleys Inlet began to migrate south toward Prince George.  It had moved 300 feet when Bud and Melesa Watts filed suit in May 2022. They own the northernmost beachfront lots on Prince George and 1,065 acres on the west side of the creek that they placed in a conservation easement. Other property owners also sued, asking the court to order that the inlet be restored to its location before the renourishment project and repair the erosion damage to the beach at Prince George.

The town denied that the renourishment was responsible for the shift in the inlet. So did the state Department of Health and Environmental Control, which issued the permit for the project. Even if there was damage to property at Prince George, the agency argued, it was not foreseeable.

“The methods, standards, and techniques utilized in managing the beach renourishment in question were in conformity with the generally recognized, reasonably available, and reliable state of knowledge in the field at the time,” the agency said in its response.

The parties began working on a settlement in 2023. At the end of the year, the Prince George Community Association applied for federal and state permits to dredge a new inlet about 400 feet south of the public parking lot. The sand would be used to rebuild the beach at Prince George along with upland sand hauled to the property.

The permit request also proposed that the inlet be maintained in a 1,100-foot wide “management corridor” south of the parking area.

A judge agreed to stay the proceedings last April so the parties could continue to try to reach a settlement.

Mayor Brian Henry told the Pawleys Civic Association last summer that there was “some optimism” that an agreement could be reached. 

The key issues, he said, were who would pay for the work, where the new inlet would be located and how Prince George owners would respond to future renourishment projects on Pawleys Island.

The property south of the county-owned parking lot is owned by the Graham family. It is bounded by the ocean, the creek and the high water mark of the inlet, according to property records.

The Grahams gave the town an easement in 1998 to allow it to dig 300,000 cubic yards of sand from the inlet for beach renourishment. The easement expired the next year.

Earlier this year, Pawleys Island proposed changing its development code to allow the subdivision of property for “a public use or purpose” with approval of the town administrator, even if it didn’t meet the subdivision requirements, such as its dimensions or having access to a public street. 

That would also apply to easements.

Administrator Dan Newquist said it could be used for “beach management.” Asked to provide an example, he said that would require discussing legal matters.

“It’s very helpful, considering some of the things we’re dealing with at the moment,” Henry told the Planning Commission last month.

Town Council delayed a vote on the change in January after meeting in closed session with Will Dillard, the attorney who drafted it. A public hearing on the change was canceled last week.

In between, the Prince George property owners asked the court to lift the stay on their suits and schedule them for trial.