COASTAL OBSERVER

The town of Pawleys Island moved forward last week with an agreement to settle lawsuits over its 2020 beach renourishment project and to allow Pawleys Inlet to be relocated closer to the public parking area on the island’s south end.

Town Council voted in July to accept the terms of an agreement and pay $150,000 toward the cost of restoring the beach at Prince George, which began eroding as Pawleys Inlet migrated south following the renourishment project. The payment is in addition to any insurance payment.

Since then, there has been “back and forth” with Prince George property owners, Mayor Brian Henry said. “It’s discussion to get to the settlement agreement.”

The terms and the agreement itself have not been made public, but he said they would be once the settlement has been signed and filed with the court.

Property owners at Prince George filed a series of lawsuits in Circuit Court starting in May 2022 after Pawleys Inlet, which separates the development from the island, reached the beachfront houses at Prince George. The suits named the town, its contractors and the two state agencies that had issued permits for the project and provided funding.

The suits claim that the 1.1 million cubic yards of offshore sand placed along the island’s beachfront in the winter of 2019-2020 caused the inlet to migrate. The inlet has moved so far south that houses at Prince George that once faced the beach now overlook Pawleys Creek. Several received state permits to place sandbags to protect the dunes from further erosion.

While the town has disputed that the renourishment led to erosion at Prince George, the parties began working toward a settlement in 2023. At the end of that year, the Prince George Community Association filed an application with state and federal agencies to relocate Pawleys Inlet and renourish the beach at Prince George with a mix of sand dredged from the island’s south end and trucked in from off the beach.

Under the plan, which has not been put out on notice for public comment, a new inlet would be dredged about 700 feet south of the parking lot, where the inlet was located in 1983. The inlet would be maintained within a corridor about 1,100 feet wide.

The property south of the county-owned parking lot is privately owned. Town Council this summer approved an amendment to its unified development ordinance that allows property to be subdivided or easements granted without the required frontage on a public street if there is a “public use or purpose.”

Along with the settlement agreement approved last week after a closed-door session with the town’s attorney’s, Town Council approved an easement agreement. The details were not disclosed.

Henry said he couldn’t discuss what, if anything, had changed since the council approved the terms of a settlement in July and the settlement itself.

“I think you could say we were pleased enough to authorize him to sign it,” Council Member Rocky Holliday said.

Henry told the Pawleys Island Civic Association at its annual meeting last month that the settlement is a good deal for the town.

“It mitigates the risk and exposure associated with a loss in court, which would probably be in the $10 million to $20 million range, which would absolutely bankrupt the town,” Henry said.

The town will be able to use 100,000 cubic yards of sand from the inlet management zone for periodic beach renourishment, he said. Prince George will agree not to oppose future renourishment projects on the island, such as the one being drafted by the Army Corps of Engineers to replace sand lost to Hurricane Ian in 2022.

“If the inlet moves, we’ve got a plan and a way to put it back,” Henry told the civic association.