Guest Viewpoint: Affordable workforce housing is essential infrastructure for everyone

There is a serious missing link in Hilton Head Island’s essential infrastructure. Our community is doing a good job of keeping up with most of our infrastructure needs — roads and utilities, drainage and pathways, medical facilities and emergency services, parks and beach renourishment. Those are all vitally important to a vibrant economy and a high quality of life for all our citizens and visitors.

But there is one critical piece of infrastructure that has diminished over the decades: affordable workforce housing. Due to market forces and the limited availability of land, the supply of suitable workforce housing on Hilton Head Island has not kept pace with demand.

We have all seen increasing signs of distress due to a shortage of qualified employees — difficulty in keeping teachers; long waits at restaurants and stores; delays in scheduling medical appointments; closing or relocation off-island of businesses. This is a nationwide problem; however, it is more pronounced in areas such as ours where land sells at a premium. In fact, the problem will get worse until we act to solve it.

We are an Island with limited access, and good employees now have plenty of choices for good jobs off-island.

In order to remain competitive for the workforce, Hilton Head Island needs to offer better housing options closer to work. Of course, this problem cannot be totally solved on the Island — about 14,500 employees now make the daily commute across the bridges, and a town study has indicated that perhaps 2,000 of those employees could be accommodated with housing on Hilton Head Island. That is a very worthy and realistic goal — reaching that goal will make a very significant positive difference in the quality of life for all residents of the Island.

This is an issue of great urgency. Our town manager and members of the Town Council have demonstrated strong support for this initiative, and now it’s time to transition to the next phase. We applaud the town for taking positive first steps, and we strongly suggest continued expeditious movement on these four fronts:

▪ Giving our town manager and staff the directive, support, and resources they require to keep the ball rolling.

▪ Identifying suitable sites for attainable housing without compromising our green space commitments.

▪ Developing effective public-private partnerships that will maximize town resources.

▪ Intelligently crafting new housing plans that will create sustainable neighborhoods, which add value to the community.

These are simply the right steps for the long-term viability of our community. We have spent many years attracting and welcoming visitors and retirees to Hilton Head Island. Now is the time to attract and welcome essential employees and their families with decent housing they can afford. This part of our infrastructure deserves the support of the entire community. We will all be the beneficiaries of smart solutions for affordable workforce housing.

This letter is offered by the following individual Town Council representatives and citizens who are focused on Hilton Head Island’s sustainable future:

Jack Alderman, Mary Stuart Alderman, David Ames, Steve Birdwell, Joe Black, Kaye Black, Alex Brown, Eric Esquivel, Herbert Ford, Bill Harkins, Peter Kristian, Tom Lennox, John McCann, Alan Perry, Lance Pyle, Andrew Schumacher, Andrea Siebold, Glenn Stanford, Jennifer Winzeler, Alan Wolf

This story was originally published April 15, 2022 at 11:46 AM.