Will Hilton Head pay $100K more to maintain gated community beach? Here’s what we know
A change to Hilton Head Island’s budget for the upcoming year means tourism taxes, not property taxes, will fund beach renourishment inside a gated community on the island’s north end.
Pine Island, located in Hilton Head Plantation, has been partially re-nourished on the town’s dime each year since 2016. The town has budgeted $100,000 for each renourishment of the island’s beach, which involves dredging sand from the floor of the Port Royal Sound and depositing it on the beach.
On Tuesday, Town Manager Marc Orlando shared that he would remove the allocation to Pine Island from the budget ordinance and put it in the island’s wider beach renourishment plan, which must be approved separately by the Town Council.
Town leaders have long argued that Pine Island needs to be maintained by the town because if it’s breached during a storm, saltwater can flood the island’s stormwater system, which the town is charged with maintaining.
“My position has always been that the Pine Island beach area provides a barrier to the ecosystem behind it. The tidal marsh area that is rich in wildlife and when that beach is breached, it comes with force against the whole stormwater system,” Ward 2 representative on Town Council Bill Harkins said.
But residents, specifically those outside Hilton Head Plantation, have argued in the past that public dollars shouldn’t be spent on projects in gated communities.
“The people living in the plantation choose that ocean view and knew that they would someday have a problem,” Rochelle Williams, who ran unsuccessfully for mayor against John McCann in 2018, said at a 2016 meeting on the issue. “They should have saved for that.”
The change in next year’s budget is important because the beach renourishment program is funded by beach preservation fees, oft paid by tourists and visitors to the island through accommodations taxes. Previously, Town Finance Director John Troyer said the allocation was funded by stormwater fees, which are paid by property owners’ taxes.
With the change, Troyer said, Hilton Head Plantation will not need to apply for reimbursement for re-nourishment next year. The town will set aside $100,000 to spend on the project.
More than $400,000 has been allocated to Pine Island re-nourishment since 2016, according to town financial records.
The Town Council voted to approve the budget for fiscal year 2022 during its final reading on Tuesday. For more information about the $96 million budget, visit The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette’s websites.
This story was originally published June 2, 2021 at 2:22 PM.
