The Palmetto Bluff (PB) community is at a critical inflection point. With a dramatic 37% increase in annual Club dues, 450 homes or more in development, and no significant new Club amenities on the horizon, many homeowners are questioning the future of our community.
As a strong and growing group of neighbors with shared concerns, the PB Community Advocates (PBCA) knows that good governance, stewardship, and transparency are of paramount importance to the long-term success of our community. It is clear from the January 17th Town Hall Q&A and community conversations afterwards that many community members have serious concerns about those important aspects. This is disheartening to see in a place we all cherish.
As the community becomes more monetized, it feels less like a home. As many of you have observed, red flags include: the evident commercial nature of the Developer’s club amenity business, significant dues and joining fee increases, the uncertain future for Golf members, dramatic dues and fee increases of the Shooting Club, possibility that the remaining lots could be sold to a national tract homebuilder, long-standing worries about Trust management (transparency, disruptive weddings, landscaping issues, etc.), and the inadequate transparency into whether amenities belong to the Club for homeowners’ benefit or are actually the Developer’s commercial, retail enterprises.
The growing list of issues has a common root cause: the ownership and governance structure at PB is out of alignment with South Carolina public policy and law and includes practices such as:
Calculating dues in a manner that does not conform to the governing document requirements.
Mandating “membership” in what is actually the developer’s commercial enterprise
Requiring that prospective buyers of our homes pay an increasingly large closing transfer fee to Palmetto Bluff Club LLC, a Developer-owned for-profit business—which carries the real risk of a chilling effect on the marketability of our homes
Managing the Trust as fiduciaries to homeowners despite conflicts of interest with the developer’s commercial objectives
Apparently ignoring the right of first offer clauses that prevented member ownership of both the PB Club and the Golf Club
As the current developer, South Street Partners (SSP) has a fiduciary role in our special community – to invest in the amenities that the Developer has promised to us as buyers, to support real estate sales and corresponding infrastructure and amenities, and to responsibly manage the Trust. Yet, the Town Hall revealed that SSP plans to put much of the financial burden of its own business decisions on the homeowners. For example, SSP appears to have no intention of investing in significant future Club amenities while it clearly intends to sell hundreds more lots. SSP appears to have split management of the Club from Montage, dramatically increasing costs, and has given Hotel guests access to Club amenities (despite its representation to homeowners that it would not do so). It seems clear that SSP wants us as homeowners to pay for SSP’s own expensive business decisions and corporate objectives.
As many Community Members learn more, they want to protect this amazing place and are now challenging the same governance and stewardship problems raised in the lawsuit.
In our multi-year journey, PBCA has spent thousands of collective hours developing knowledge and expertise from documents, public records, legal filings, case studies, Club/HOA best practices, and advice from law firms and consultants across the nation. If you’d like to learn more about our what we uncovered – and why we feel it’s more important than ever to protect the Palmetto Bluff we’ve all come to love, please just reach out. We welcome the chance to talk anytime!
Sincerely,
PB Community Advocates
pbcommunityadvocates@gmail.com