Judge issues ruling after neighbors fight Hilton Head go-kart track. Here’s what’s next
An appeal by neighbors to stop an outdoor electric go-kart track on Hilton Head Island has been turned down by a Beaufort County judge, giving the proposed track a green light to start development.
Judge Marvin Dukes decided Jan. 9 to deny the appeal brought by the Indigo Run POA and resident Tyson Miller, who said the Town of Hilton Head zoning board was wrong to allow the track.
The track for 15 to 20 go-karts was approved after a public hearing last July, and the Town Council declined to reconsider the decision after angry residents, many from neighboring Indigo Run, spoke against it at an August 2019 council meeting.
The go-kart track will go on a 16-acre property off Marshland Road. The track will join the Aerial Adventure Park, Up the Creek Pub and Grill, and Broad Creek Marina.
Dukes wrote in his opinion that the town’s zoning board was correct in allowing the outdoor go-kart track.
Residents in Indigo Run often cited the lights likely to accompany the track and the noise of people using the carts as detrimental to their quality of life. Others have argued the track is an affront to the Hilton Head Island pace of life.
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The town’s design review board will review the plans for the track Tuesday afternoon.
Its application says the part of the track closest to Marshland Road will be 205 feet from the road. The track will use electric go-karts, the application says, which are generally quieter than gas-powered carts.
“The proposed karts will be electric motorized and will reach speeds equal to or less than typical golf carts. Sound levels produced from the Go Kart Track will not exceed the sound level limits as specified in the Town’s Land Management Ordinance (LMO) for Noise Control,” the application says.
How did it get approved?
Prior to 2019, the town’s land ordinance allowed go-kart tracks only indoors. Town staff used that ordinance to recommend denying the project. But at a July 2019 public hearing, the zoning board unanimously voted to overturn the town staff’s decision and allow the track outdoors in the zoning district where the property sits.
The list of appropriate uses for land on Hilton Head was written in the early 2000s, according to Teri Lewis, deputy director of community development. She said it was deliberate to list go-karts as appropriate only indoors.
Zoning Board member Charles Walczak disagreed.
“I feel that there’s enough ambiguity to permit the use,” he said. “It’s probably the best site that we could find for something like this on an island. (It’s) not going to take the image of our island in a different direction.”
The board unanimously voted to add go-karts to approved outdoor uses in the ordinance
But the process came under scrutiny as Indigo Run and Miller believe the board erred, and in their appeal, they said the track should be prohibited outside since the town does not explicitly list them as an approved use.
Dukes’ opinion says that interpretation treats the land management ordinance as “exhaustive and exclusive,” which is inconsistent with the law.
The appeal cited residents’ concerns that the area “will turn into an amusement park over time.”
Cary Kelley, Indigo Run’s general manager, said in November that the POA agreed to appeal the town’s decision because of concerns about noise and lighting, and the POA had the perspective of the track as “a nuisance.”
This story was originally published January 14, 2020 at 10:30 AM.
