‘We the people, not we the turtles’: Hilton Head to revise beach lighting rules again
A sea turtle protection beach lighting ordinance is heading back to Hilton Head Island staff for clarifications after nearly two years of drafts and revisions.
The Town of Hilton Head Island’s public planning committee sent it back to town staff for a few changes to accommodate beachfront property owners who complained that the proposed rules represented government overreach.
Sea turtles typically nest and hatch on Hilton Head from May 1 through Oct. 31. Local wildlife advocates have pushed to limit lighting on the beach to keep hatchlings from becoming disoriented in their trek to the ocean. This year, there were instances of disorientation in about 35 nests. That’s about 4,000 hatchlings, marine biologist and Turtle Patrol leader Amber Kuehn told The Island Packet.
The rules that had been proposed required lights to be directed downward. They would have mandated tinting or solar screens on first-level windows, as well as curtains, blinds or sea turtle-friendly amber light bulbs on windows that shed light on the beach.
Council members thought those requirements needed more refinement. They’re responding to an increasingly vocal group of beachfront property owners who oppose the reach of the proposed rules.
Howard Ackerman, who lives in Port Royal Plantation, told the committee last month that he opposed the new lighting rules because they would “allow you to enter our homes and basically dictate how we live in our own homes.”
Activists, including the Hilton Head Island Sea Turtle Patrol, dispute that.
“We’re not trying to regulate what you do in your house, but your property is adjacent to a public area,” Kuehn said last month. “We’re concerned about the light that trespasses through the window into the public space.”
Still, Ackerman said the ordinance “is not acceptable to us,” referencing a citizen group, the Property Owners Protection Committee, that has formed to oppose the lighting rules and has retained lawyer Ben Shelton.
Shelton wrote to the public planning committee ahead of its Thursday meeting, saying the ordinance “criminalizes homeowners’ normal day to day activities within their own homes,” and “retroactively infringes upon these homeowners’ individual liberty and property rights.”
Although most opponents have agreed with Town Council members who have said they support sea turtle protections and Hilton Head’s emphasis on preservation, they say the lighting rules emphasize the wrong population.
“The Constitution’s preamble starts with ‘we the people’, not ‘we the turtles,’” Ackerman said.
What’s next?
The public planning committee sent the beach lighting ordinance back to town staff to incorporate the following changes:
- Allow residents have a regular lamp lit after 10 p.m. as long as it has a lampshade, which Town Council member Glenn Stanford said would be an inexpensive way to comply.
- If 50% of the glass area on the facade of a beachfront home, hotel, or condo needs to be replaced, then all of the glass must be replaced with reduced light transmission glass.
- In any addition to a house, condo or hotel, all windows would have to be replaced with reduced light transmission glass.
- Clarify that “point source of light” is most likely a light bulb.
This story was originally published November 21, 2020 at 4:30 AM.
