The Jan. 24 Island Eye News story, “Wild Dunes Sues Isle of Palms Over Zoning Changes reported that the Resort – in response to the five ordinances passed by the IOP Council last year – is asking the court to rule the ordinances “unconstitutional, invalid and ineffective.” In this same article, IOP Mayor Phillip Pounds is quoted as saying that the Resort’s lawsuit “wasn’t an unexpected turn of events,” adding that “mediation or negotiation would certainly be a piece of the next step.”
It seems the mayor is significantly misjudging the feelings of the residents. While I hope that this is a misunderstanding, if the mayor’s position is that we’re going to negotiate, he must understand that is diametrically opposed to what we, his constituents, want.
Considering we’re the only remaining beach community without defined limits, I predict that the whole short-term rental investor community is going to stake it all on IOP. As such, these groups have put a lot of work into getting the Council’s ear. But just like on Folly Beach, they do not understand or reflect the will of the voting populace and attempts to divide us will also fail.
Case in point: On Feb. 7, the residents of Folly Beach held a special election and voted in favor (1) of a referendum capping the area’s short-term rental licenses. While there are currently 1,200 STR licenses on Folly Beach, the people voted to reduce the legal cap to 800 (2).
All other area beach communities have capped STRs, but our City Council seems to be advocating against it. While I respect Council Member Blair Hahn and strongly support his position on S. 40 and home rule, I adamantly disagree with his approach as stated (3) at the Jan. 23 special Council meeting. I do not support the concept that we bifurcate the island and separate the residences inside Wild Dunes and the commercial area from the rest. I do not in any way agree with the suggestion that we delete those homes from the overall count on the grounds that they were “specifically built and designed for short-term rentals.” They were not.
The City Council may consider our neighborhoods commercial, but we don’t. It’s a residential area. Moreover, our PRD document defines it as residential.
In addition, it was disappointing to learn that after I left the Feb. 6 special Council meeting, Council Member Hahn made a motion (4) to “take a directional vote to give our staff guidance for a deliverable to be voted on at our Council meeting on Feb. 28, based on the data information we’ve received in these workshops. I move that we don’t implement any limits on short-term rental licenses at this time but add additional detail in the single-family resident category to show the total number of low-density versus high-density single-family residents.”
The issue was ultimately blocked by Council Member John Bogosian, who asked, “Are we voting? This is a workshop. As I understand it, the workshop is not for making motions,” but this rush to parse and manipulate the data reveals some council members’ loyalties and is a clear-cut effort to employ a “divide and conquer” strategy.
Ed Fitzpatrick, the owner of a home in Ocean Point in Wild Dunes, spoke at the Feb. 6 special Council Meeting. He stated (5), “When we built our house in 1999, there were maybe two rental units in our 71-unit HOA. Today we understand there are 31. That’s a huge increase. The trends are going the wrong way. We support an honest and realistic cap. We’re all in this together, and there are no winners or losers here. A cap is not punitive. It is normal in this area.”
Mr. Fitzpatrick is not alone in supporting a cap on STRs in IOP. Despite recent attempts to create division among the residents of this island, we are of one mind. This is already an unsustainable situation. We are already over capacity, and we know it.
In the summer and holiday seasons, we must do our shopping by 7 a.m. or 8 a.m., or we’re stuck in nightmarish traffic conditions. On Sunday mornings, you have to leave an hour and 15 minutes early to get to church on Sullivan’s Island. On Friday and Saturday nights, you can’t leave this island to go out to eat unless you depart at least an-hour-and-a-half before your reservation.
This widely held sense of being at our very limit is compounded by the fact that we now know there’s no support for a three-lane connector. More STRs bringing in more visitors and workers will only compound the problems we already have, yet the Council keeps telling us they don’t feel this and that there’s no issue. Perhaps this confusion is the result of the blatant finger-pointing and data manipulation done by the varying commercial interests.
A large cottage industry has sprung up around short-term rentals – real estate agents, property management companies, cleaning services, etc. – and many of those individuals have been very outspoken in support of leaving STRs uncapped here on IOP. The message from the STR cottage industry is that “they – meaning us, the registered IOP voters – want to take away your property rights,” and those companies are adamant that the traffic problems facing the island are the fault of the Resort and those “behind the gates.”
Conversely, when Wild Dunes LLC filed its Jan. 12, 2023, plea (6) with the Ninth Judicial Circuit, it purported that “19. Minimizing traffic and congestion on the island by reducing further development has been cited as a primary underlying motive for creating the subject ordinances. However, the significant increase of vacation rentals in the city, generated by other property owners and businesses unrelated to Wild Dunes, has contributed far more traffic and congestion to the island than any contributed by the Resort’s owners and visitors.”
The STR cottage industry is saying the problem is coming from the commercial area and those inside the gate – thus their effort to skew the numbers to only represent non-HOA homes in the middle of the island. The Resort claims that the issues are caused by the rentals managed by the STR cottage industry. Both are manipulating the narrative and trying to use inaccurate data to influence Council members, but fundamentally no one in those two groups cares about your property rights. It’s their rights they care about, not ours.
Speaking with Live 5 News, Folly Beach Mayor Tim Goodwin stated7 that he had both signed the original petition and voted yes on his city’s STR cap. “We know they bring in tax dollars,” Goodwin said. “We never want to see short-term rentals go away totally. It’s just where do you want your city to be in reference to a community versus businesses?”
Brian Hicks’ Feb. 12 opinion piece8: “With some compromises, Folly could have avoided that referendum,” noted that the Folly Beach City Council had an opportunity to compromise and pass a balanced short-term rental ordinance proposed last year.
Hicks Noted, “City Council refused to consider that ordinance, probably because it was controversial – and big real estate didn’t want it. So instead of addressing their neighbors’ concerns, cap opponents simply refused to negotiate. It was an all-or-nothing position. And they ended up with nothing.”
Notably, Mayor Goodwin took a resident-focused position, rather than side with the STR cottage industry, but, here on IOP, certain members of the City Council are not listening to us or our feelings. The members of the IOP City Council are going to have to figure out if they’re resident-first or commercial-first.
The voice of the residents is not being heard. We stand together on short-term rental caps, and that voice will be heard when we vote, either on a referendum or at the November elections. I am asking you, the Council, to do the right thing and not risk an “all or nothing” outcome like that on Folly Beach: Listen to us, your voting residents and approve option #3 presented by Councilman Pierce.
As I stated at the meeting, we are not the loud minority. We are the awakened, united majority, and that will be reflected in the upcoming elections. If you think you want to be in that City Council seat next year, I strongly suggest that you step up now.
Sources
charlestoncounty.org/departments/bevr/files/10020723-PrecinctResults.pdf
youtube.com/watch?v=aPk2BmQDEPw&ab_channel=CityofIsleofPalms (59:24)
youtube.com/watch?v=2REsWKev4aE&ab_channel=CityofIsleofPalms (1:13:47)
youtube.com/watch?v=2REsWKev4aE&ab_channel=CityofIsleofPalms (28:52)
live5news.com/2023/02/08/short-term-rental-licenses-folly-beach-officially-capped-800/
