Court rules for developer on coastal marina

In an opinion issued Monday, the Georgia Supreme Court ruled 5 to 2 in favor of a developer who has proposed building the largest marina complex on the Georgia coast near the Cumberland Island National Seashore.

In Center for a Sustainable Coast vs. Coastal Marshlands Protection Committee, the justices decided the state committee that issues permits for marinas, community docks and bridges does not have the authority to determine how development occurs on the adjacent mainland, or upland.

In the opinion, written by Justice P. Harris Hines, the court said state law does not show “any intent on the part of the General Assembly to establish the Committee as the ‘super regulator’ of any and all development in the coastal areas of the state.”

Environmental groups, including the Center for a Sustainable Coast and the Southern Environmental Law Center, argued that the Coastal Marshlands Protection Act gave the state the responsibility to protect the tidal marshes from damaging storm water runoff created by developing the adjacent land with houses, condominiums, parking lots and roads.

The case focused on Cumberland Harbour, a 1,014-acre vacation home development in St. Marys near the Florida border. But in its decision, the court for the first time ruled on the 38-year-old state law that affects the entire, 100-mile Georgia coast, and upheld the status quo.

Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears and Presiding Justice Carol W. Hunstein dissented. Sears wrote that the case was premature because the state Department of Natural Resources had not taken final action. Sears also wrote that the Coastal Marshlands Protection Committee would still have to determine whether building the two marinas and three docks would “result in unreasonable interference with the conservation of right whales, manatees and sea turtles.”

The developer, Land Resource LLC, received the state permit to build the marinas and docks in 2005. Because of the legal challenges, the work has not been done. At least two people who bought land in the development have sued the developer, saying they were not told that the marinas might not be built. Others have threatened to sue.

In the meantime, Land Resource, which has been developing vacation home communities around the Southeast since 1997, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last month in Orlando.