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Committee backs recommendation to authorize $300,000 SCDOT design agreement for Sea Pines Circle with revisions
Summary
The committee voted to recommend sending an intergovernmental agreement to full council that would transfer $300,000 to SCDOT to take the Sea Pines Circle design to 30% with conditions: clearer cost‑overrun language, town review points and maintenance clarifications; committee requested staff incorporate use of prior consultants where feasible.
Assistant Town Manager Sean Gillen presented a proposed intergovernmental agreement that would transfer $300,000 from the town to the South Carolina Department of Transportation for the Sea Pines Circle project design work through approximately 30% design.
Gillen said the agreement includes protections intended to limit scope creep and require SCDOT to pause and return to council for approval before scope or funding increases beyond the contract limits. He noted most of the intersecting roads fall under SCDOT jurisdiction, making DOT involvement administratively efficient.
Council members and members of the public pressed staff on several points: whether the town would retain meaningful review of options, whether the town could insist on using prior consultants who had local knowledge, whether Greenwood Drive (a private road) would become a town maintenance responsibility, and how the contract's cost‑overrun clause reads. One committee member said the overrun clause's current language could be interpreted to obligate the town to remit additional funds without adequate discretion; the committee asked staff to tighten that language and to clarify maintenance responsibilities (page references were discussed during the hearing).
After discussion the committee moved, seconded and voted to recommend approval to the full council "subject to those revisions that we have just discussed," according to the motion on the floor. The council chair called the vote in committee and the motion passed; the agreement will be revised per the committee’s direction before being forwarded to full council.
