COASTAL OBSERVER

The Planning Commission rejected calls to defer action on a wetlands protection ordinance Georgetown County has been working on for almost two years, voting 5-1 last week to recommend County Council adopt the measure.

The vote followed a joint workshop between the commission and the council at which council members said they wanted to have another workshop on the ordinance that will establish a minimum 35-foot buffer between wetlands that cover more than half an acre in new residential and commercial development. It would also require new developments to get county approval before placing fill in wetlands larger than a quarter of an acre.

The ordinance is one of the goals of the natural resource element of the county’s comprehensive plan, and work began after the element was approved in 2024. It is seen as a way to preserve freshwater and saltwater ecosystems, reduce flooding and maintain the quality of drinking water supplies.

A variety of conservation groups have endorsed the ordinance, saying it will put Georgetown County at the forefront of environmental protection that has been scaled back by a series of U.S. Supreme Court rulings.

“Nationally, we have lost over half our wetlands,” Grace Gasper, executive director of Friends of Coastal South Carolina told the commission at a hearing last week. “Losing even a single acre of wetlands means that over a million gallons of stormwater has nowhere to go.”

Objections to the ordinance came from the Coastal Carolinas Association of Realtors, which hired a land use attorney to review the ordinance.

“The ordinance as drafted today has too many drastic inconsistencies and gaps in the text that will negatively impact property owners,” said Madison Cooper, the group’s external affairs officer. “Chief among them, the ability of staff to provide objective and clear direction to those who wish to make changes to their property.”

The buffer and permit requirements won’t apply to existing structures and construction on lots of record. They wouldn’t apply to forestry or farming or industrial development.

Cooper told the commission she appreciated the exemptions, but she urged them to delay a vote until the council could hold a workshop, “where experts will be speaking.”

Commission Member Zannie Graham asked if they would be included in that workshop. Holly Richardson, the county planning director, said she wasn’t sure.

Council members said at the workshop earlier this month that they wanted to hear from people who delineate wetlands about the costs involved.

At last week’s commission hearing, Pam Martin, a professor at Coastal Carolina University who specializes in sustainable development, said there are economic benefits to protecting wetlands.

She cited research that she recently completed for the state Department of Insurance and Office of Resilience that a square kilometer of wetlands in the coastal United States provides $1.8 million in annual flood protection.

“This is according to published science,” she said.

Translated to Georgetown County, “if we were to protect 1,000 acres of wetlands, we’re looking at avoided flood damages of between $1 million and $3 million a year,” Martin said. “Why are they critical? They are risk management for us.”

Wetland protection under the current county zoning ordinance is a 15-foot setback from saltwater wetlands. In addition to the 35-foot minimum buffer for new development, projects next to wetlands adjacent to water bodies would have a 50-foot buffer and those next to wetlands adjoining state parks, preserves or wildlife refuges would be 100 feet.

Commission member Marla Hamby confirmed that would mean an increased buffer for development on Murrells Inlet’s salt marsh as well as the fresh water Waccamaw River.

“It depends on the use and whether it falls under any of those exemptions,” Richardson said.

Hamby noted the commission already held two workshops on its own, including one with wetlands professionals.

“I don’t see why we’re waiting to pass what we already did,” she said. “I think what we’ve got is good. I don’t know why we’re sitting around twiddling our thumbs.”

Commission member Amy Armstrong agreed. She was appointed to the commission in February after working with staff to help draft an ordinance in her role as executive director of the S.C. Environmental Law Project.

“I think I heard the word ‘balance’ raised. I definitely got a strong sense that there’s been a balance and compromise,” Armstrong said.

She moved to recommend County Council adopt the ordinance with an amendment that projects that have been placed on public notice by the Army Corps of Engineers  for wetlands permits be exempt from the county permitting. That was one of the recommendations from the real estate association.

Commission member Bill Hills, who has said he opposed the ordinance as an unnecessary duplication of state and federal permitting and as a possible taking of private property without compensation, was absent.

The lone vote against the recommendation was from Robert Davis, who chairs the commission. He said afterward that he would have preferred to defer because he still has questions about the cost to property owners.

The ordinance now requires three votes from County Council, which has not yet scheduled its second workshop.