The Master Plan for Port Royal is a visualization of what the Town should physically become as it grows and changes. It is intended to be understood primarily through drawings and other graphics. The central document of the Plan is  the Idealized Buildout map for the traditional town core. This map shows:
- - how key private properties may be lucratively developed;
- - how the existing settlement may be made more complete, more economically vital and its tax base more sustainable;
- - how existing and future rights-of-way are to be aligned or reconstructed; and
- - how other significant public spaces, civic buildings and open space are to work together as an integrated system.
The Plan is about growth and change, but it is also about preservation and conservation. The drawings and policy recommendations are intended to reconcile the pressures for development of the Town's economic potential on one hand and the desire to protect the features which make the place special on the other. This "balancing" is to be accomplished by channeling development into physical forms and locations within the natural and historic setting which continue the urban traditions and time-tested forms found in the best that the community has inherited. Decisions about new development should be based, both architecturally and urbanistically, on the historic examples found in Port Royal and the other small towns of the Low Country.  Grow more, but grow more of what Port Royal is; in t his way the Town will become more complete and improve without losing its identity.
The Plan also responds to the challenge facing all of Beaufort County as a result of phenomenal growth in both population and housing demand. Sprawl is the worst enemy of both town and countryside. The Master Plan for Port Royal should therefore also be seen as one part of a region-wide growth management strategy: by making infill acceptable and desirable once again in the already-settled areas, the Town does its part to discourage sprawl.
The Plan responds to and integrates the many projects already underway. This booklet is intended to accompany the drawings as a guide to the concepts, and also contains text material not found explicitly on the drawings. | 
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