Hilton Head needs workforce housing but won’t put it in gated neighborhoods. Why?
While Hilton Head Island needs affordable housing for its workforce of nearly 17,000 people, almost 70% of the island appears to be off-limits.
That’s according to Hilton Head town council members and staff at Thursday’s public planning committee, where plans to promote more workforce housing to developers counted out all of the gated communities including Sea Pines, Hilton Head Plantation, Palmetto Dunes, Port Royal Plantation, Indigo Run and others.
Last month, that same committee identified three areas to prioritize for workforce housing and offer the biggest incentives to developers: Around 550 acres between Squire Pope and Gum Tree roads, 1,600 acres near the Fish Haul and airport area that extends to Wood Lake and Main Street, and just under 400 acres near Palmetto Bay Road and Pope Avenue down to Cordillo Parkway.
On Thursday, director of community development Shawn Colin came back with plans for those areas. Although still in development, they include offering developers extra units per acre if they are priced lower for working families and requiring rentals to stay affordable for 99 years.
The targeted areas fall neatly around the island’s gated communities — which contain the largest number of single family homes and 70% of the land.
Colin said workforce housing could be allowed in the town’s zoning district for gated communities: PD-1.
But he added that gated communities are “unique on the island because most have an underlying master plan so … every rezoning that (is) involved in a PD-1 will require some special treatment.”
Essentially, while the town could apply higher-density zoning to communities such as Wexford, Shipyard and Palmetto Hall, the individual communities’ master plans may overrule it. A zoning map amendment would have to be approved by the community, Colin said.
Chester Williams, a Hilton Head attorney whose firm focuses on zoning and land planning, added from the audience that the town’s zoning can’t violate those communities’ restrictive covenants.
“You have to comply with whatever is most strict,” he said.
Inside the gates and outside
Tamara Becker, representative for Ward 4 and the only Town Council member on the public planning committee who lives outside a gated community, peppered Colin with questions about the priority areas.
She asked whether the town knows the number of people who would take advantage of affordable housing, how many people who work on Hilton Head and want to live there.
“I emphasize this outside of the gates because that’s who this impacts. That’s a big thing to lay on the rest of us,” she said.
Colin said he didn’t have immediate answers but pointed to the workforce housing study completed in 2019 that recommended the island build 200 housing units every year for 10 years to keep up with demand. Apartments, consultant Lisa Sturtevant said, should be priced around $875 per month.
Colin said the ball is in the gated communities’ court when it comes to building affordable housing there.
“We’re not excluding the ability of any of those communities to come forward with a proposal to take part in the workforce housing program,” he said. “We can’t control the private side of that.”
Becker said those living outside gated communities should be treated similarly.
“People who live outside the gates have the same expectations and pay the same taxes,” she said.
Why should gated communities care?
Peter Kristian, the general manager of Hilton Head Plantation, said it would be difficult to find space for higher density housing and still follow the requirements for open space that many gated neighborhoods have.
“Most of the (gated communities) are built out. I don’t have that many pieces of property that are vacant. ... It would probably be better if you were going to ... use a parcel of land currently vacant and develop that.”
And if the town government doesn’t encourage building affordable housing behind the gates, why would those communities go out of their way to do it?
“If you get to the point where you can’t get workers to come work on your property or work in the economic centers of the entire island, you’re facing a different issue,” Kristian said.
What’s next?
Next week, the public planning committee will vote on the policy presented by town staff on workforce housing.
After that it will go to the full council for discussion.
This story was originally published January 17, 2020 at 9:44 AM.
