A spirited and, at times, angry crowd of well over 100 local residents swarmed the Bluffton Library Wednesday night to air their opposition to the proposed Bluffton Parkway Phase 5B project.
More than a dozen residents from neighborhoods surrounding the parkway spoke passionately against the project at a forum hosted by Beaufort County Council members Cynthia Bensch and Tabor Vaux, of Bluffton, and Rick Caporale and Steve Fobes of Hilton Head Island.
The project, a decade in the works and approved in concept by Bluffton Town Council and County Council, would realign a 2.5-mile stretch of the parkway between Buck Island Road and Buckwalter Parkway. However, funding for the project, estimated by local government officials to cost at least $30 million to complete, has yet to materialize.
The town of Bluffton is finalizing a funding application to the State Infrastructure Bank for the project, and the county has a standing request before the same body dating back to 2008.
While some town and county leaders have said the project would open up opportunities for economic development along the route and provide continuity with a planned hurricane evacuation route stretching to Interstate 95, many residents from surrounding communities are staunchly opposed.
Arguments made against the project Wednesday ranged from it being wasteful, to being an encroachment on their privacy and safety, to the hurricane evacuation route aspect being vastly overstated.
“An expenditure to build an unneeded road that will save only two minutes of time for evacuation is not in the best interest of Bluffton or Beaufort County taxpayers,” said Dan Duryea, president of the Rose Hill Plantation Property Owners Association’s Board of Directors.
Other residents made accusations that the latest realignment route, approved by town and county councils in 2013 resolutions, was drawn up to benefit certain developers along the route.
The issue has also become more divisive among County Council.
Last week, Bensch, Caporale and Fobes sent a letter to the infrastructure bank and South Carolina Department of Transportation declaring their opposition to the realignment.
In the letter, the three council members called for “a complete review of the rationale for 5B and all the details related to the planning, construction, impacts costs and alleged benefits of the 5B project.”
The discord also led to neighboring Jasper County withdrawing its formal support of the town’s funding application. Jasper County Council voted Monday to rescind its support Monday, county administrator Andrew Fulghum said.
Fulghum and Jasper County Council chairwoman Barbara Clark had previously authored letters of support for the project that were requested by the town.
However, in a letter to the infrastructure bank and SCDOT Tuesday, Fulghum echoed a concern from Bensch, Caporale and Fobes that the town’s application for 5B would jeopardize potential funding for Jasper’s application for construction work at the future Exit 3 at Interstate 95.
Jasper has already received $3.9 million from the infrastructure bank for studies and design work on the new interchange. It is seeking an additional $68 million for construction to help with the roughly $122 million project that will provide supporting infrastructure for the Jasper Ocean Terminal and future economic development projects near RiverPort.
Fobes said at a governmental committee meeting this month the infrastructure bank is not likely to fund two projects so geographically close to each other.
When asked several times Wednesday by residents about his position, Vaux said he would not support the 5B project without future phases being built from S.C. 170 to I-95 first.
He added that 5B “eventually will have to be built.”
“I don’t know if I would support it if it was just the county fronting the bill,” Vaux said. “If the infrastructure bank came in and supported it, I probably would. It makes sense to complete 5B when we complete Phase 6 to Hardeeville because this area is growing and our roads are becoming overcrowded.”
Councilman Brian Flewelling of Beaufort, who attended, but did not participate in the forum, said he agreed with Vaux. Flewelling said he would support 5B being put in front of voters in a referendum as a standalone item.
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