Hilton Head Town Council moves forward with workforce housing plan. How to submit comment
Hilton Head Island has inched one step closer to creating affordable housing for the thousands of people that flock to its restaurants, resorts and shops each day — not as patrons, but as workers.
At its regular meeting Tuesday afternoon, Hilton Head Island town council voted 6-0 to change the town’s code to allow the development of workforce housing on the island and to create a formal program with incentives for developers to build housing for the island’s workers, many of whom drive hours to and from work for their jobs.
Tuesday’s approval on first reading of the proposed amendments means the council will vote a second time, with opportunities for public comment, at its next regular meeting Oct. 20.
Those seeking to submit public comment can do so using the Town’s Open Town Hall HHI service on their website. A comment section for the Oct. 20 meeting has not been set up yet.
Hilton Head town staff and the council’s public planning committee have been drafting a workforce housing policy for nearly a year. The final one, forwarded to the council in August, included creating incentives to help convert underutilized commercial space and offering a density bonus that would allow developers to build more units than usually permitted in a given space.
The council removed the density bonus initiative on the recommendation of Ward 3 council member and public planning committee chair David Ames. Council members noted that they wanted the program to focus on commercial conversion for now.
“Basically what we did last night is create a win-win situation — we’re hopefully going to repurpose commercial space that is deteriorating because of lack of use,” Ames told The Island Packet. “Dilapidated underutilized commercial space is a big issue for the public.”
He said he did not anticipate major changes in the policy between the first and second readings, noting that offering a second reading gives both council members and the public a chance to bring up any other concerns.
“It really is a safeguard both for the council and for the community,” he said.
Three areas across the island have been highlighted by town staff and the public planning committee as best for the development of workforce housing — the Squire Pope area on the northwest side of the island, the Palmetto Bay area on the south side of the Cross Island Parkway, and the Main Street opportunity zone in the north-central area of the island.
In August, the town mailed letters to 4,300 affected homeowners, notifying them that the town wanted to change the rules so workforce housing could be built in certain zoning districts. Currently, official “workforce housing,” regulated by the town, cannot exist anywhere on the island due to zoning laws.
