JASPER COUNTY, S.C. (WTOC) – A group of hangar owners at the Ridgeland\u2013Claude Dean Airport has filed a lawsuit against Jasper County, alleging the county unlawfully moved to take control of the airport and impose lease terms that could allow the government to take privately owned hangars without compensation.<\/p>\n
The case was filed on June 30 in Jasper County Court of Common Pleas. <\/p>\n
What the lawsuit claims<\/p>\n
According to the complaint, the dispute centers on who legally controls the airport and who owns the land beneath the hangars.<\/p>\n
The hangar owners argue that the Jasper County Aeronautics Commission (JCAC), created by the South Carolina General Assembly in 1949, is the entity that established, managed, and owned the airport property. <\/p>\n
The lawsuit alleges Jasper County tried to shift control to the county through two ordinances, but did not follow state law requiring ordinances to be read at three public meetings.<\/p>\n
The plaintiffs claim:<\/p>\n
A\u00a02019 ordinance (Ordinance 19-14)\u00a0asserted county control over airport rules and operations and described Jasper County as the airport owner.A\u00a02023 ordinance (Ordinance O-2023-02)\u00a0purported to abolish JCAC, create a county advisory airport commission, and adopt a county aviation leasing policy.The ordinances are\u00a0\u201cinvalid and void\u201d\u00a0because the county allegedly did not comply with the public-reading process required by\u00a0S.C. Code \u00a7 4-9-120.<\/p>\n
The complaint also challenges a quitclaim deed recorded in December 2023 that purportedly transferred roughly 312 acres from JCAC to Jasper County. The hangar owners allege the deed is invalid because it was signed by the county administrator as an \u201cex officio\u201d JCAC member \u2014 a role they argue does not exist \u2014 and was not approved or authorized by JCAC.<\/p>\n
Lease terms and \u201creversion\u201d clause at the center of the dispute<\/p>\n
Hangar owners say the fight has played out most sharply in lease negotiations.<\/p>\n
For years, some hangar owners paid 15 cents per square foot under multi-year leases. <\/p>\n
But hangar manager Casey Porter, who is not a plaintiff in the suit, said the issue isn\u2019t whether rates should rise, it\u2019s whether lease terms are fair and consistent.<\/p>\n
\u201cFair is the number one thing,\u201d Porter said. \u201cWe understand that the 15 cents a foot\u2026 that doesn\u2019t make any sense. It\u2019s fair here, like 22 cents a foot, 25 cents a foot; even if it were 28 cents a foot, that would be fine. What we don\u2019t want is for it to be $1.60 a foot.\u201d<\/p>\n
The lawsuit also targets a \u201creversionary\u201d policy referenced in the county\u2019s template lease and leasing policy attached to the 2023 ordinance. <\/p>\n
Plaintiffs argue the clause would allow the county, at the end of a lease term, to take structures and improvements, including hangars, at no cost and without compensation.<\/p>\n
\u201cGiven a five-year lease\u2026 and saying you have five-years to make your money back and then we get the hangar is not fair,\u201d Porter said.<\/p>\n
Allegations of refused rent payments and eviction threats<\/p>\n
The lawsuit alleges that after the county began acting under the ordinances, county-selected airport management refused to accept rent payments under some older leases that were entered into with JCAC. The complaint claims hangar owners were later accused of nonpayment and received demand letters threatening eviction.<\/p>\n
What the plaintiffs are asking a judge to do<\/p>\n
The complaint raises three main legal claims:<\/p>\n
Declaratory judgment:\u00a0asking the court to declare the ordinances invalid, determine whether JCAC still exists and has authority, and rule on who holds title to the airport property.Quiet title:\u00a0asking the court to clarify ownership of the airport land.Inverse condemnation:\u00a0seeking compensation if the county\u2019s lease and eviction actions amount to a taking of privately owned hangars without just compensation.<\/p>\n
The full lawsuit can be found here: <\/p>\n
What happens next<\/p>\n
The county is expected to respond to the complaint by the end of July.<\/p>\n
When asked for comment, Jasper County said it does not comment on pending litigation.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 WTOC. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JASPER COUNTY, S.C. (WTOC) – A group of hangar owners at the Ridgeland\u2013Claude Dean Airport has filed a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":99644,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[53,3154,182,11144,8182,51943,51942,5340,11142,51941,6964,51944],"class_list":["post-99643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anthropic","tag-anthropic","tag-anthropic-claude","tag-claude","tag-claude-dean-airport","tag-control","tag-county-government","tag-county-hangar-owners","tag-court","tag-jasper-county","tag-jasper-county-aviation","tag-lawsuit","tag-lease-agreements"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99643\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}