Hilton Head closed Burkes Beach Road parking 1 year ago. It never reopened. Why?
Metered parking along Burkes Beach Road has been closed for more than a year on Hilton Head Island.
Yet even as the island’s tourism season kicks into high gear this summer, there’s no end in sight for the parking ban.
Why?
Hilton Head Town Council members have expressed safety concerns about the small parking area, which has 13 metered spots and a regular stream of people walking toward Burkes Beach.
“God forbid some little kid gets hit or killed there,” Ward 2 council member Bill Harkins has said.
The town’s community services and public safety committee voted 4-0 on Monday to maintain the closure of the road’s metered parking and continue to block off the road’s shoulder adjacent to Chaplin Community Park, where beachgoers and soccer players’ families have been parking for years.
The committee also asked Town Manager Marc Orlando to find a temporary way to better address the matter through improved signs. Ward 4 council member Tamara Becker suggested that the town try to direct some visitors to the nearby 136-space Castnet Drive Overflow Lot off Singleton Beach Road, which normally has spots available, she said.
Steve Riley, the former town manager, originally closed the county-owned road’s metered and on-street parking last May under the town’s coronavirus state of emergency, citing illegal parking at Burkes Beach over the Memorial Day weekend, records show. (The on-street parking was established over 15 years ago after youth soccer players requested spaces closer to Chaplin Park, according to the town.)
The Town Council on Oct. 20 voted 7-0 to keep the parking closed to the public.
Not everyone has supported the closure.
Julie Lawson, who lives near Folly Field Beach, wants the spaces to be reopened.
“This area has been available for parking for many years, used during the youth soccer season, for beach access parking ... so, why now is it now all of a sudden unsafe? Why not keep it open and available until a solution is available and it’s built and done? Parking on the island for beach access continues to decline at (an) alarming rate for the general public, the extremely large new park at Coligny took out many spaces,” Lawson wrote in an email to Town Clerk Krista Wiedmeyer on Thursday.
“For many families, a day at the beach is (a) huge deal. I’m fortunate that I can walk to the beach, but many people don’t have that luxury.”
Becker and other council members, however, have previously argued that hundreds of “day-trippers” and other visitors from around the island walk down the road. The parking area remains dangerous for them, Becker said Monday, with limited space for cars to back up and turn around toward U.S. 278.
What’s next?
Orlando wants to include permanent Burkes Beach parking improvements in a larger plan to upgrade Chaplin Park.
That plan, however, has not been fully developed. The town is close to hiring a consultant for the project, said Jeff Buckalew, interim director of infrastructure services.
The park upgrades could begin in nine to 12 months, Orlando said.
