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ISLE OF PALMS, S.C. (WCIV) — There are less than 25 days until a big decision is made on the Isle of Palms.

Should short-term rental licenses be capped at 1,600?

"We moved here deliberately," said Billy Lempesis, a resident of IOP, "understanding that it was a beach community. I have family here. It's always been a wonderful place. It's hard to understand the necessity of restricting short-term rentals."

Isle of Palms residents to decide on capping short-term rental licenses in upcoming vote (WCIV)

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Many people say they're still unsure how they will vote.

"There's a lot more information that people need to find out if they're not clear because there's a gray area," said Debbie Strable, a resident of IOP for 22 years. "It is not what black and white, it's not quite clear to a lot of people. And it certainly isn't maybe 100% to me."

News 4 spoke with Mayor Phillip Pounds on Friday.

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He said the city already has a little over 1,600 licenses issued.

News 4 asked him if this passes, would it impact property value and property taxes.

To that, he said he didn't think there would be an immediate effect on either one.

he also made a comparison to other Lowcountry beaches.

"If you look at what's going on at Folly Beach, who put a cap in earlier this year, you know, their, their property values have gone down, you know, pretty significantly in just a few months," said Pounds.

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Mayor Pounds said it's most important to know exactly what it is you're voting for.

"I would just encourage our residents to get educated from whatever source they use, to get their facts," Pounds said. "You know, whether it's the city's website or their couple of neighborhoods sites that have popped up. You just make sure you're educated on what your choice is."

A petition was created to get this referendum on the ballot.

Right now, IOP is the only Lowcountry beach community without a short-term rental cap.

ISLE OF PALMS, S.C. (WCSC) - Isle of Palms city crews are working diligently to restore the beach after it experienced heavy erosion during Tropical Storm Idalia.

The loss of tons of sand to erosion means the drop off between the access points and the beaches can reach several feet, making it dangerous for people to reach the beach from these points.

Until the restoration of the beach is completed, Public Beach Access 1B, 2A, and 3A will be closed until further notice.

“The cleanup will happen over the next couple of days and then next week we’ll start doing scrapping at low tide to bring some of the sand back up,” Isle of Palms Mayor Phillip Pounds said. “And build a dune in front of these people’s houses to protect them for the rest of the hurricane season.”

Not only is it hurricane season, but it’s also sea turtle nesting season. Inclement weather can leave turtles exposed, but Pounds said the city is doing all it can to keep the turtles protected.

“You’re not in the dunes and hopefully not disturbing the nest,” Pounds said. “Our turtle team does a great as far as marking the nest or moving them when they feel like they’re in harm’s way. So, it’s very coordinated with our local turtle team as well as the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources to make sure they’re aware of what’s going, you know?”

Despite the city not receiving federal funding, city leaders have managed to receive an emergency permit from the Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management to begin restoration work Tuesday.

Pounds stresses the importance of maintaining safety before heading into Labor Day weekend.

“So, we just ask folks to be respectful of the workers that’ll be coming in and out of here. There’s going to be trucks and bulldozers and all kind of stuff going on. So just watch out and be careful,” Pounds says. “Our guys will be out here next week with the bulldozers when most of our summer crowd is gone. So, the timing is decent from that standpoint, we just need to get protection on the beach for these folk’s home as soon as we can.”

Copyright 2023 WCSC. All rights reserved.

ISLE OF PALMS, S.C. (WCIV) — Currently, Isle of Palms has no limits on the amount of short-term rental licenses on the Island, which is something neighbors have been concerned about for years.

“We’re the only community in South Carolina coastal communities without limitations, and that includes all of the surrounding communities," Randy Bell, a former IOP councilmember, said. "You have 40 short-term rentals on Sullivan's island, 400 in mount pleasant, and maybe 100 in Charleston, but you have 1,800 here."

Isle of Palms residents rally for cap on short-term rentals: Referendum to hit upcoming ballot (WCIV)

Earlier in the month, Isle of Palms neighbors formed a grassroots petition to cap the number of short rentals at 1,600. The petition was signed by more than 1,100 residents. This led to the county verifying the petition forcing the city council to put a referendum on the ballot.

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"The residents put forth a petition, and that’s how democracy works, and we'll put that on the ballot," Mayor Phillip Pounds of Isle of Palms said. "So it’s to cap what they call investment short-term rentals. So non-full-time rental properties to cap that at 1,600, and that will be the simple question on the ballot: a simple yes or no."

With the decision now up to voters, former Councilman Randy Bell hopes the council learns to listen to their constituents moving forward.

“We’re the dry sponge in the middle of a puddle, and we don’t want to be the dry sponge anymore. We would like to have reasonable limitations well thought out by council. It should have avoided a referendum, but here we are," Bell continued. “I was on council, and I don’t care what every councilperson’s opinion is, but you’re there to represent the people that put you in office."

For the next upcoming election, there are four council seats open.

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ISLE OF PALMS — Along most streets of this barrier island, daytime parking is limited to residents and short-term rental guests. But a beachgoers advocacy group has asked the state to make that parking available to all.

The Charleston Beach Foundation argues that with so many short-term rentals on Isle of Palms, vacationers renting on the island are parking on state-owned land that day-trip visitors are unfairly forbidden to use.

“The voters have spoken on the Isle of Palms, and there is no cap on short-term rentals,” said Beach Foundation co-director Myra Jones, citing a November ballot question that was voted down.

“Our theory, basically, is that a short-term rental is a business, there are businesses island-wide, and the businesses are benefiting from the residential-only parking,” she said.

In a Nov. 27 letter sent to S.C. Department of Transportation Secretary Christy Hall, Isle of Palms Mayor Phillip Pounds and others, the Beach Foundation claims “IOP no longer has legitimate ‘residential’ areas and the general public is being denied their constitutional guaranty of equality and privilege to access state roadways and rights-of-way.”

That argument echoes some comments made by Hall in a 2021 letter to the small coastal city during a wide-ranging debate about public parking on the island.

“I am of the opinion that the 2015 (Isle of Palms parking) plan has improperly designated a significant number of state-owned highway rights of way as ‘resident only parking’ potentially denying non-residents their constitutional guaranty of equality and privilege,” Hall wrote.

She added, “Accordingly, at a minimum, the state-owned roads intersecting SC 703 (Palm Boulevard) should be re-evaluated for the restoration of public parking along the first block.”

No changes were subsequently made on the roads connecting to Palm Boulevard. Instead, the state quashed an Isle of Palms’ plan to eliminate most free public parking on the island and installed angled parking along Palm Boulevard and added parking at Breach Inlet.

Both changes increased the amount of free parking for beach visitors, while resident-only parking areas remained as they were.

“I think where we left it, after we made those changes to Palm (Boulevard) and Breach Inlet, was that we would see how things would operate,” Hall said Nov. 28.

She said DOT would review the Charleston Beach Foundation’s request.

Pounds said the island is comfortable with the current parking regulations and said it’s absurd for the Beach Foundation to suggest Isle of Palms has no residential neighborhoods.

“I would love for that crowd to come out here and talk to the 4,000 residents who live on the island and tell them the entire island is commercial,” he said. “It’s not like our residential areas went away as a result of the referendum.”

In the Nov. 7 referendum, Isle of Palms voters were asked if they would support a 1,600-license cap for short-term rentals of commercially taxed homes. The measure failed with more than 54 percent voters in opposition.

Pounds said that while the referendum vote quashed one specific plan, discussions about limits on short-term rentals are ongoing.

As of the end of October, according to a city analysis, Isle of Palms had 4,610 residential properties, and 1,850 of them — 40 percent — had a short-term rental license.

Each of those short-term rental properties can have four permits allowing guests to park in resident-only areas.

“The Residential Parking Only Zones are being misused and abused by the STR businesses as their customers are allowed to park on the state-owned rights of way while excluding the general public,” the Charleston Beach Foundation said in its letter.

Under the city’s rules, the state’s right of way along most streets — strips of land adjacent to the roads — is available for parking to residents, their guests with permits and short-term rental guests with permits.

A short-term rental property owner can buy four permits yearly for $15, for tenants to use in residential-only areas where parking would otherwise be prohibited from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. during beach season.

ISLE OF PALMS, S.C. (WCSC) - A total of 1,173 people on the Isle of Palms signed a grassroots petition to cap the number of investment short-term rentals on the island at 1,600.

Petition creators, Catherine Malloy and Brian Duffy say it all started as a way to preserve the balance of people enjoying the town.

“We are absolutely in favor of short-term rentals. But we want to balance to maintain the equilibrium that we’ve had through the years. So it seemed like a good time to get involved with this,” Malloy says.

For former council member Duffy, it’s about being proactive, and he fears it’s already getting close to waiting too long to take action and be reactive.

“We’re just really asking the city to manage short-term rental licenses because you don’t know. Currently, there is no management of short-term rental licenses, there are no limits. So we could turn from the 1600 that we proposed in this ordinance to 3000 and no controls,” Duffy explains. “So that’s all that we were ever asking for. It is a little bit of management, a little bit of foresight, a little bit of planning.”

Under South Carolina Law, a petition signed by 15% of the voting population and verified by the county has to be considered by city council. The signatures on Preserve IOP’s petition represent about 27% of the island population, according to 2020 census numbers. City Council can approve the ordinance in the petition, or make amendments and put it to a city-wide citizen vote.

“The next steps really are in the hands of counsel. We as the group, Preserve IOP, have submitted this we are pretty much standing down, it’s their choice,” Duffy says.

Over the course of their work to gather signatures, Malloy and Duffy say they and the many volunteers who went door to door learned a lot about their island and their neighbors.

“They were so interesting the stories they told way before Hurricane Hugo before the connector bridge, and before even Wild Dunes when it was feature racquet club and that was all developed,” Malloy says. “So we’ve kind of really enjoyed it if you want to know the truth. Usually it’s not, it’s kind of labor. But it was a labor of love because these people were so fun, and so interesting.”

On July 11 at the Isle of Palms Recreation Center, the city council will hold a special meeting to address the petition.

On the agenda there will be public comment followed by discussion of the petition, consideration of sending petition to the Charleston County Board of Voter Registration & Elections for certification of signatures and consideration of first reading of the ordinance in the petition.

“It’s up or down vote, really it’s simple. It’s up or down. This is our wonderful gift to them because this is what residents want. And they all say when they got when they ran for office, we are for the residents. Well, the residents want this overwhelmingly so,” Malloy says.

Once the signatures are verified, council must accept the ordinance or put it to a island-wide vote. They have between 30 days and one year to schedule a public vote from the date city council takes any action on the verified ordinance.

You can read more about the roots of the petition and prior city council members’ reactions to the start of the campaign here.

Copyright 2023 WCSC. All rights reserved.