Should workforce housing be built on former Hilton Head golf course? Council to debate
The town of Hilton Head Island is preparing to build a massive park on the roughly 103-acre mid-island tract — the former Planter’s Row Golf Course off U.S. 278.
The town bought the property for $5 million in 2013 and has awarded a $494,000 contract to a land planning consultant, MKSK, to work on the park and other redevelopment issues in the area.
“I think this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the island to build a very, very special world-class park,” said Brian Kinzelman, a principal at MKSK.
But Town Council member David Ames is urging his colleagues to consider using a portion of the mid-island tract for a workforce housing project.
Ames, of Ward 3, has proposed using possibly 20 acres off Dillon Road for such a project.
“103 acres on this piece of ground should incorporate affordable housing in one way or another,” Ames said during a Town Council workshop earlier this month.
Other council members disagree.
Glenn Stanford, of Ward 6, said he believes that Hilton Head’s affordable housing shortage needs to be addressed somehow, but thinks that instead of the mid-island tract, other town-owned land should be considered for a workforce housing project.
The debate may come to a head Tuesday during a 9 a.m. Town Council workshop.
Alex Brown, the council’s Ward 1 representative, said the clock is ticking on Hilton Head’s efforts to address its housing problem.
Regardless of the location, Brown said, the town must pay as much attention to creating public-private affordable housing partnerships as it has to building a park on the mid-island tract.
“We’ve got to be aggressive about it,” Brown said Thursday.
‘It hasn’t worked’
A long-awaited report on Hilton Head’s housing needs offered a bleak picture in April 2019: The study found that over 80% of rentals on the island were priced at more than $1,500 per month.
Not many workers on Hilton Head, the report said, could afford those prices.
The seven-month study, which began in 2018, found that nearly 18,000 people working in 11 different industries on Hilton Head earned between $20,850 and $51,359 each year (median wages).
That meant affordable rent for those workers was between $521 and $1,284 each month, according to the report.
Since then, the Town Council has used its legislative powers to try to entice developers to build affordable housing on Hilton Head, including with a new density bonus program.
But council members last week said there’s been little interest in that initiative, which allows workforce housing developers to double the number of units they can offer in a given space, under specific conditions, according to previous reporting from The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette.
“Frankly, it hasn’t worked,” said Ward 5 council member Tom Lennox.
“The dirt is so expensive here,” added Ward 6 representative Stanford.
What’s another way, then, for elected officials to combat the island’s affordability crisis?
Ames thinks the mid-island tract could help.
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Another housing option?
The mid-island tract is bordered by U.S. 278, Dillon Road and Union Cemetery Road near the gates of the Port Royal community.
In the town’s Parks and Recreation Master Plan, which was adopted in 2020, consulting firm Lose Design recommended that officials create a new park on the roughly 103-acre property.
The town later hired MKSK for the project. Kinzelman, a principal at the firm, recently told the Town Council that the future park could include an event lawn, cafe, food truck court, open air market, observation tower, boardwalk, ecology center, playground, picnic pavilions, cultural gardens and nature trails, among other things.
He also said the St. James Baptist Church can be relocated to the property, close to Union Cemetery.
“It is our recommendation ... that we do not use this open space for housing. We’ve got other opportunities” for that, Kinzelman said.
Ames, of Ward 3, has pushed back on MKSK’s recommendation.
“I have been pleading for this community to address, confront the immense crisis of affordable housing and the needs of our employees on the island,” Ames said this month, “so when I see 103 acres of property owned by this community with very few restrictions I ask the question, isn’t there a place to satisfy employee housing?”
The town in a recent survey found that, of roughly 900 responses, at least 28% of responses said workforce housing was missing in the mid-island area and at least 68% of responses said a park was missing.
Jennifer Ray, the town’s capital program manager, did not respond to a phone message Thursday.
Ames in a letter to the editor set to be published in The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette on Sunday wrote that some Hilton Head residents near the mid-island tract have seemingly opposed any housing on the property “at the expense of broader community interests.”
“Employee housing on this site should be a town priority for the island’s sake,” Ames wrote.
Brown, of Ward 1, said he supports the “direction” of Ames’ idea, but added that building affordable housing near the future park, or on town-owned land close to the north-end Post Office, could also work out well for the community.
Lennox, of Ward 5, meanwhile, said he thinks the mid-island tract should be used to create a park without affordable housing, and the town should explore the idea of building workforce housing near the Post Office.
“I’m going to push that site pretty hard,” Lennox said.
Post Office site
The town owns several parcels of land west of the Post Office, including around Northpointe Circle, totaling over 12 acres, property records show.
Lennox said Thursday he likes that area better for a potential housing development, in comparison to the mid-island tract, because it’s close to the island’s schools campus, is walking distance from the Island Recreation Center and is not too far from Hilton Head’s single entry and exit point on U.S. 278.
Stanford, of Ward 6, added that he does not know the details of the land that Lennox has referenced, and whether there are accessibility issues at the site, but he said he’s generally in favor of pursuing some type of public-private workforce housing partnership on town-owned land (just not on the mid-island tract).
“That’s the model that makes the most sense to me right now,” Stanford said Thursday.
The town, he said, could lease property to a developer with restrictions specifying that it has to be used for workforce housing.
Mayor John McCann earlier this month said he wants to discuss Ames’ idea during the Town Council workshop Tuesday.
Ames recently said that if the town makes an “equal commitment” to building workforce housing on another tract that’s not the former Planter’s Row Golf Course, “that’s fine.”
Brown, meanwhile, said he hopes the town will have a public-private housing partnership on the table by the end of the year.
“Now is the time to act,” he said.
What’s next?
The Town Council’s Tuesday workshop will be held at 9 a.m. in Town Hall. The workshop also will be livestreamed on the town’s public meetings Facebook page: bit.ly/HHIMeetings
This story was originally published February 19, 2022 at 11:03 AM.
