Isle of Palms beach house owner confronts state officials over $289,000 seawall fine

Yahoo

07-05-2025

An outspoken and angry beachfront property owner appeared in a state court this week — without the legal team he recently fired — and began blasting away at South Carolina environmental officials over a $289,000 fine levied against him for construction of a seawall they say is illegal and should be removed.
Joined at the defense table by only his wife and a lawyer not directly involved in the case, Rom Reddy told the court Tuesday that he is a law-abiding citizen targeted by the state's environmental agency over work he conducted at his seaside home on the Isle of Palms.
Reddy, animated and periodically pointing his finger to emphasize his points, told Judge Ralph King Anderson III that the S.C. Department of Environmental Services is trying to take his property through regulation and enforcement actions.
He said the agency is being manipulated by the S.C. Coastal Conservation League environmental group. The league, a non-profit organization that advocates for beach protection, disputed that.
'I understand a little bit more than unelected bureaucrats,'' Reddy, a businessman and engineer, told Anderson during opening remarks this week. 'This is an unusual situation where we sit here with the citizens, my beautiful wife and myself .... against the police power to the state and a taxpayer funded charity.''
The Reddy case is being watched closely since it has the potential to curb state efforts to enforce beach protection laws that were established decades ago in response to the threat of sea level rise, a phenomenon that today is occurring along the South Carolina coast as the earth's climate warms. The state banned seawalls on the sandy beach 36 years ago because they worsen erosion when hit by waves and block the public's ability to stroll the public shoreline. Reddy claims an infringement of his property rights by the state's action.
Reddy, an affluent coastal newspaper owner and outspoken advocate against government regulation, took the unusual position of representing himself in a courtroom after firing his lawyers last week over what he called a fee dispute. A self-described person of means who contributed $2.5 million to a conservative political action committee he founded, Reddy said he could not afford to pay the attorneys any longer. Rarely do people involved in administrative law court cases represent themselves.
In court, Reddy, neatly dressed in a dark suit and wearing glasses, said state law allowed him to conduct work on the section of the beach where construction work occurred. He contends that if he's deprived use of the land, he should be compensated for the state's regulatory restrictions.
He said the Environmental department is treating him differently than other property owners who have established seawalls along the beaches, notably a group at Hilton Head Island the state went easy on. A department official who testified Tuesday denied that.
This week's trial brought a larger-than-normal crowd to the Administrative Law Court, a judiciary body that often hears routine cases about whether to issue environmental, health and business permits. Among those at the hearing was Wesley Donehue, one of the state's most well-known political strategists and public relations experts who is representing Reddy.
The court proceedings are going on through the week. Anderson likely would not make a determination this week on whether Reddy must pay the $289,000 fine and tear out the seawall.
Despite his fiery defense, Department of Environmental Services lawyers and staff said the case against Reddy for building a seawall on the beach is clear cut: It's illegal to do that in South Carolina, and has been for decades. And Reddy repeatedly dismissed state warnings not to build on the beach, they said.
'We're here today about a total disregard of the law,'' Environmental Services lawyer Sallie Phelan said in her opening remarks. 'We are here about two seawalls the Reddys constructed on the beach at Isle of Palms to protect their yard, despite the department's repeated warning that it was not authorized and the department believed it to be a violation of the South Carolina coastal tidelands and wetlands law.''
Phelan said Reddy had contractors put clay, rocks, concrete and other material on the beach to protect his house from the ocean, while eventually building a seawall to back up an aging wall that was failing. The area was being threatened by the sea, according to court records and testimony this week.
Reddy had attempted to fix the first wall, before having contractors establish a second wall behind it, she said before showing photographs of repair and construction work at Reddy's house. Some of the photos showed that the ocean had run onto his property, damaging the wall and a yard overtopped with artificial turf.
Isle of Palms property owner Rom Reddy has been in a dispute with state officials over construction they say was done illegally on the beach. This photo shows the property in Charleston County, where a seawall was built on the beach. Reddy says the work was legal.
Former Department of Environmental Services beach regulator Matt Slagel testified that he had visited the area near Reddy's home 18-20 times from the summer of 2023 to late 2024 because of erosion issues that were occurring on that end of Isle of Palms, a popular area near the inlet adjacent to Sullivans Island. Slagel said the ocean was eating away at the oceanfront land where the Reddys have lived since 2014.
At issue is where state jurisdiction begins and ends on the beach. South Carolina has a series of building restriction lines along the oceanfront, which often are near the back of the beach or in the dunes. They were established to discourage development close to the rising ocean.
In some cases, however, the beach has eroded so much that the sandy seashore has been exposed outside the building restriction lines. The Reddy dispute centers on that part of the beach. Reddy says the state has no jurisdiction outside the building restriction lines, but the state says it does.
Anderson, in a preliminary ruling last month, agreed the state has jurisdiction over the entire beach, but the full trial will determine how the judge ultimately rules.
Reddy contends changes in state law in recent years made the work he did on the beach legal, but state officials say the law still gives them authority to protect all of the sandy beach, not just the areas with building restriction lines.
During the trial this week, Reddy grilled Slagel over the agency's examination of his property following storms. He took particular aim at an issue on Hilton Head Island more than five years ago, when property owners built a seawall along the shoreline. He said he was treated more harshly and by a different standards.
But Slagel said he didn't think Reddy was being treated any differently than anyone else and that his former agency was simply enforcing South Carolina's beach protection law. While Reddy said he did not ignore state advice about constructing along the each, Slagel said 'you did not cease and desist.''
Though not a lawyer, Reddy asked multiple detailed questions about the state's beach protection law, trying to make the point that it did not restrict him from building the wall at his home. But the trial was also peppered with commentary by Reddy, who said, among other things, thathe's being treated poorly in stories by 'the fake news'' and is standing up against what he calls the agency state. Anderson chastised him for calling state regulators liars.
Among other things, Reddy questioned why the government had not pumped extra sand on the beach at Isle of Palms to protect his property and that of others. Had that been done, the dispute about construction and beach erosion would not have popped up in the first place, he said. He also said his stance has irked some people, who have threatened to 'burn down my wall.'' He said he contacted police about the threats.
Reddy, an ardent supporter of President Donald Trump whose political action committee supports candidates he agrees with, has been actively posting on X about what he calls government ''tyranny'' and a taking of people's land through coastal development regulations. He was so upset with the DES fine against him that he urged the state Senate not to confirm its interim director as permanent director.
Early in the week, Reddy said on X that he was prepared to fight.
'The unelected agency state is trying to apply a new interpretation of the regulation on property rights that would give them unlimited property rights that can vary by homeowner, depending on their judgment,'' he wrote of the S.C. Department of Environmental Services' coastal bureau.
In another X posting, Reddy said 'we kneel to God, not government.''