Owner of fence blocking Hilton Head bike path gets 5 days to take it down, town says

The Town of Hilton Head Island has given the owner of an office park whose fence is blocking a bike path from Hilton Head Plantation five days to remove it, according to an email from leaders to the community.

Main Street Office Park is directly outside the gates of Hilton Head Plantation, and for 28 years its parking lot has been at the end of a Plantation-owned bike path. Earlier this month, the office park installed a fence to block bicyclists from riding through the parking lot — effectively pushing bike traffic into Whopping Crane Way and the nearby traffic circle.

On July 10, town officials said the fence wasn’t adequately permitted and must be removed by July 15.

Citing liability, office park representative Katie Thompson said the fence was installed because “the parking lots and roadways of our complex have become increasingly busy ... The fact that nothing has happened in the past is no guarantee that something will not happen in the future.”

Thompson said the property owner offered two solutions to Plantation general manager Peter Kristian shortly after the fence was installed:

1. Main Street Office Park would remove the fence if Hilton Head Plantation would assume any liability from Hilton Head Plantation cyclists or pedestrians entering the parking lot.
2. The office park would donate the property or the right of access needed to extend the path safely parallel to the road.

Kristian said those offers should have been discussed before building a fence, and the owner “made no attempt to contact (Hilton Head Plantation) about any liability concerns, or that they were considering such drastic actions.”

Hilton Head Plantation owns the bike path and the nearby traffic circle.

Perhaps, Kristian said, Hilton Head Plantation should block access to the traffic circle that connects Whooping Crane Way and Main Street, where the office park is, to keep from assuming liability for the traffic coming from that street.

Kristian said he would be conveying Thompson’s contact information to residents so she could “experience the sentiments of our residents regarding your actions firsthand.”

Katherine Kokal

The Island Packet

843-560-9158

Katherine Kokal graduated from the University of Missouri School of Journalism and joined The Island Packet newsroom in 2018. Before moving to the Lowcountry, she worked as an interviewer and translator at a nonprofit in Barcelona and at two NPR member stations. At The Island Packet, Katherine covers Hilton Head Island’s government, environment, development, beaches and the all-important Loggerhead Sea Turtle. She has earned South Carolina Press Association Awards for in-depth reporting, government beat reporting, business beat reporting, growth and development reporting, food writing and for her use of social media.