‘A mistake from the start’: Two Hilton Head chairs resign in wake of rejected housing plan
Frustrated with having their colleagues’ investment of time and solutions rejected by Hilton Head’s town leaders, the Housing Action Committee’s chair and vice chair, Jack Alderman and Sandy West, resigned Wednesday.
Two town employees involved in the project have also resigned, but have not commented on why: Quincy White, the town’s first Chief Housing Officer, and Missy Luick, Director of Planning.
When and why was the committee formed?
The committee was formed two years ago, not long after the Chimney Cove mass eviction scare that would have displaced 300 affordable housing residents.
Housing for Hilton Head’s lowest-income residents has long been a topic of concern in one of the areas of South Carolina with the highest cost-of-living. Much of Hilton Head’s workforce lives off-island, leading to extraordinary long commutes, increases in bridge traffic all resulting in worker shortages and difficult conditions for those who continue to travel daily.
As part of a multi-pronged strategy to create and protect housing for Hilton Head’s workforce, town leaders tasked a newly formed Housing Action Committee in March 2024 to create a plan to support residents faced with being pushed out of their homes on an island where affordable housing is hard to come by.
A year later, town leaders rejected the plan that the committee had worked on for the better part of a year, arguing that adopting the solutions proposed by the committee would be an overstep of the town’s role and add yet another layer to the town’s already complicated development process.
“I am absolutely shocked,” vice chair West said at a March meeting. “The issue of having workforce housing means ... we also need to deal with displacement issues.”
Hilton Head’s plan to address future displacement emergencies and other housing issues for service workers has now fallen into limbo.
What was proposed?
If the plan had been approved, future developers would be presented with a voluntary 29-part questionnaire during the development review process to help the town identify if it would displace residents. The town’s Chief Housing Officer could then activate the plan and pass information along to a slew of social services agencies that would provide assistance to the residents and connect them with affordable housing.
The plan faced pushback at a March 17 meeting of the Community Services and Public Safety Committee.
Town council member Tamara Becker called the questionnaire “invasive,” arguing that it would create too many hoops for developers to jump through and use up staff time to review.
Becker also feared the plan could open the door for more town resources, such as funding, to go towards helping people find housing.
“We are not in the housing business,” Becker said at the meeting. “Every single time we do something like this, we become more of a social service network and less of a government agency.”
Alderman called that a “gross misrepresentation” of the proposal.
“The town’s primary role is to keep agencies well informed,” the former Housing Action Committee chair said.
With a 2-1 vote in the Community Services and Public Safety Committee, the proposal was bounced back to Housing Action Committee, with council member Steve DeSimone siding with Becker. Becker stated she might take a different view if the questionnaire was rewritten and the limited role of the town was clarified.
The Housing Action Committee voted 6-2 at their Wednesday meeting to pass a revised version of the plan to town council. The new version doesn’t place the town as they key agent to activate the displacement response process and makes no mention of a Chief Housing Officer. The revised plan will go before the town council at their Tuesday meeting.
‘A mistake from the start’: Housing leaders resign citing lack of movement
Alderman and West both announced their resignations at the committee’s Wednesday meeting, citing lack of movement on solutions to Hilton Head’s housing issues.
The town put the group together two years ago to help address the town’s lack of affordable housing for much of its workers. However, they griped that the group’s role has mostly been relegated to “reviewing reports.”
West called the March meeting “a complete embarrassment,” and questioned whether the formation of the committed was “a mistake from the start.”
“Forming HAC without real commitment wastes everyone’s time and it damages the town’s reputation and credibility,” she said.
Alderman called town actions on housing issues “painfully slow and delayed.” Workforce housing was identified a key priority for the town six years ago, but the problem has only gotten worse, Alderman said.
“Housing for our workforce is directly connected to the future quality of life for all of us on Hilton Head Island,” Alderman said. “This is without doubt the most pressing priority facing our community now and in the coming decades.”
Clarification: The original version of the story stated that the plan was in “limbo.” This story has been updated to clarify that a revised version of the plan will go before the town council next week.
This story was originally published May 16, 2025 at 12:22 PM.
