Can this company do business in Port Royal? Controversial dock building takes center stage

Karl Puckett
·1 min read

UPDATE at 4 p.m. Tuesday: The hearing, which was scheduled for 11 a.m. Wednesday, has been continued until later this month. An exact date had not been set as of late Tuesday afternoon, hearing officer Terry A. Finger said.

A hearing will be convened in Port Royal concerning a company’s appeal of the town’s suspension of its license to do business in the town.

Harbormasters International, which specializes in the design and construction of floating dock systems, has been manufacturing large docks at the Port of Port Royal for several months on a site owned by Safe Harbor Marinas, which is planning to construct a large marina on Battery Creek. Those docks have been controversial, with residents and the town complaining about what they contend is an unauthorized heavy industrial use of the property. The docks being built at this point, the town adds, are not intended for the Port Royal marina project but for use at other Safe Harbor facilities.

On March 20, the town sent Safe Harbor a “determination letter” that ordered it to stop building the docks. The letter said that dock manufacturing was not “light industrial” and potentially dangerous, and not allowed in the “planned unit development.”

The agenda for the hearing at the Town Council chambers at 700 Paris Ave. says the topic is the appeal of the suspension of Harbormasters’ business license. The hearing officer is Terry A. Finger, a mediator and arbitrator certified by the South Carolina Supreme Court.

The town also filed paperwork in Beaufort County Fourteenth Judicial Circuit last month asking a judge to issue an injunction to block Safe Harbor Marinas from the dock work. A judge has yet to make a decision regarding the injunctions.

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