75 Sun City residents debate at City Hall over ‘public toilet’ planned next to homes
More than 75 Sun City Hilton Head residents packed a town meeting at Hardeeville City Hall this week to condemn plans for a “public toilet” the Community Association wants to build for golfers. The restroom would be closer to homes in the development than to the Argent Lakes golf course it would serve.
Despite several Hardeeville board of zoning appeals members sympathizing with the residents on Kings Creek Drive, the board ultimately struck down the appeal Tuesday — approving the Sun City Community Association’s plans to build a 13-foot-wide, 17-foot-long and 10-feet tall comfort station.
“I would be deeply disturbed if something like this was going to be sprung up next to my house,” Vice Chairman Jerry Garner said.
“I would not want that type of facility near my house, especially if I had bought into a development without the knowledge that this would be near my house today,” Chairman Sharon Ferguson said.
The proposed facility— including a water fountain and restrooms — would be built for the Argent Lakes golfers, but it wouldn’t be on the golf course.
Instead, it is planned to be built adjacent to the cart path that connects the 12th and 13 holes, across the cul-de-sac from David and Jane Disney’s home, and next door to Rich and Elizabeth Gawrysiak’s house.
The Disneys, the Gawrysiaks, and several other neighbors on Kings Creek Drive stated their cases to the board Tuesday evening.
“The very thought of living next to a public toilet for the rest of my life is unbearable,” Elizabeth Gawrysiak said. “Toilet stations are ugly, smelly, nasty, noisy and they need daily maintenance.”
Elizabeth Disney said the families who live in the 21 houses on Kings Creek Drive “bought into the same dream” when purchasing their golden-year homes.
“We are good, honest people who believed the Del Webb real estate agents, Pulte, and the Sun City Community Association were fair and would follow the Golden rule,” she said. “We were very, very wrong. “
Sun City Hilton Head is a Dell Webb community, which is owned by developer Pulte Homes. Because the community is still being developed, four of the six members on the Board of Directors — who make decisions for homeowners through the Sun City Community Association — are Pulte employees.
A Pulte problem?
While zoning board members empathized with the residents on Kings Creek Drive, they were deciding only whether the development permit application submitted for the comfort station meets the requirements of the Hardeeville municipal zoning and development ordinance.
“We are compassionate, but we are stuck with the fact that no error was made,” board member Roy Wood said after attendees proposed several codes they suggested had been violated.
“Your issue is not with the city and the zoning board, it’s with Pulte and their sense of being a good neighbor,” Garner said.
The homeowners on Kings Creek Drive argued that they wouldn’t have purchased their homes if Pulte/ Del Webb representatives had disclosed the plans before they built their homes. Instead, they believed the wooded lot at the end of the cul-de-sac would stay vacant.
Board of Directors Secretary Anna Maria Tabernik spoke at the meeting, along with several other golfers, advocating for the comfort station she said would benefit residents for a number of reasons. With comfort stations located near holes 1, 6, and 10, Tabernik said golfers expressed the need for another on the back 9 of the course.
She previously told the Island Packet the residents wouldn’t feel deceived had they read Sun City’s rules.
“If they read our covenant and restrictions, we have the right to build on common area property,” she said. “The association owns it, and we have the right to build on it. When you buy a home, there is no guarantee that the view will stay the same. We, as the association, have the right to build there.”
Garner, the zoning board vice chair, asked the crowd whether they were given any notice before buying their homes that “the developer “could simply say we’re going to put this next to your house without your consent, proper notice, etc.?
“None,” several residents in the crowd yelled.
“Why would I have bought my house if I knew this?” Elizabeth Gawrysiak asked.
Garner referred to Pulte as the “kingpin” in the issue.
“Why, with so much opposition, would you continue to want a facility put somewhere when you have so many unhappy homeowners?” Garner asked, referring to the Community Association’s decision to go through with the restroom. “It seems like there could be another meeting to discuss other options.”
Tabernik previously told the Island Packet that Pulte had already looked into other options but that the site on King’s Street was “the most logical.”
What’s next
Rich Gawrysiak and David Disney said the residents of Kings Creek Drive haven’t given up the fight to keep the restroom off their block.
“We have exhausted the City of Hardeeville, we gave the due diligence and we’re appreciative of their efforts,” Disney said. “But we understand our issue is with Pulte.”
Gawrysiak and Disney said they have not heard any word from Pulte or Sun City Community Association representatives about the possibility of working out a compromise, as Hardeeville officials recommended during the meeting.
“We are waiting to hear from them,” Gawrysiak said. “We would definitely want to listen. Right now this is so unacceptable to people in our neighborhood. We would want them to see that we are greatly affected by this and would like them to come to something that would meet everybody’s needs. “
The neighbors said legal action could be an option if they can’t reach a compromise.
Pulte representatives did not speak at the meeting.
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