Hilton Head Island, an Emerging Leader in Workforce Housing Policy?
The Town adopts a bold framework for expanding workforce housing on the Island.
Hilton Head Island is a destination. Its beaches bring tourists, its communities attract residents, and their spending grow businesses and their employees. Unlike many tourist economies, however, Hilton Head is – and aspires to be – a complete community. Despite all its growth and attraction, the Island has managed to make room for a wider spectrum of full-time residents when compared to similar tourist communities. Pockets of affordable housing enable local workers and multi-generational Islanders to live within or alongside sprawling planned communities. While pressures exist and the overall stock of affordable housing has decreased, the system has remained relatively stable until recently.
A Growing Challenge and a Time for Action
Through the 24-months of the COVID-19 pandemic and related economic shutdowns, trends within the housing market accelerated and the pressures on destination communities like Hilton Head ratcheted up considerably. This demand layered on top of a market that was approaching build-out. While investment continues at-pace, the population of the Island is changed little from 2010. Demand for existing housing, or indeed the land underneath, increased dramatically from 2020 to 2022. These trends have driven prospective investors to consider redevelopment, especially where property would not require re-zoning and may be cheaper per acre.
All this culminated in the public purchase and planned eviction of the residents of Chimney Cove Apartments. One of the few remaining, naturally affordable housing complexes left on the Island, Chimney Cove was home to around 300 full-time residents at the time. Most worked within the Island’s burgeoning tourism and hospitality sector – a sector sourcing nearly all its labor off Island. The displaced residents were not likely to find affordable, replacement housing and would be forced to cross back on the mainland to dispersed and distant options around the Lowcountry. The public nature of this episode inspired leaders within Town Council to develop a bold response. The Hilton Head Housing Framework was born out of this community discussion.
The accelerated process to develop the Framework began with a two-day Charrette hosted at the University of South Carolina Beaufort Hilton Head Campus. Thirty-five leaders were quickly assembled representing interests from across the housing conversation. The group included experts in low-income housing development, major employers, realtors, neighborhood advocates, Town staff, and others. Over the two-day charrette, the MKSK-led team facilitated a conversation around the challenge, and the Town’s collective response. The consensus from the group was clear: If the Town is serious about protecting its existing workforce housing stock and enabling new projects to develop, it must invest in the solution in a real way.
“If we lack the courage to act now, amidst all that’s gone on, the moment could pass. We need to get serious about our commitment and put forth a real and recurring funding mechanism to address this issue.”
- Housing Charrette Participant
MKSK Senior Associate, Kyle May led the facilitation of the two-day Charrette at USCB Hilton Head. The 35 participants represented interests from across the housing challenge.
Through two-days of intense discussion, the participants of the Housing Charrette arrived at a set of core commitments to addressing workforce housing in the near term. These were organized as "pillars" in the framework report.
A Plan Built Around Four Pillars
The Town of Hilton Head Island’s Workforce Housing Framework is a broad commitment by the Town to address the growing challenges around workforce housing. Without deliberate action, these challenges will continue to mount and the impacts to families, businesses, and the quality of life on the Island will compound. Town leaders believe there is opportunity to make a difference through the implementation of the Framework.
OUR GOAL FOR WORKFORCE HOUSING
The Town of Hilton Head Island shall ensure growing opportunities to provide more workforce housing options on the Island and participate – through real investments – in the local and regional solution.
To meet our goal, we commit to a Workforce Housing Framework supported by four foundational pillars: Community, Planning, Management, and Revenue. Collectively, these pillars establish the enabling structure to assign future policy, programs, organizational capacity, resources, and management. This in the pursuit of expanding workforce housing development opportunities in the Town.
Based on the Town’s fundamental commitment to action, leadership should pursue a wide range of partnerships, projects, policies, and other measures to determine which path has the most promise. The Pillars are a way of organizing this action into an encompassing set of Town-owned and/or Town-supported strategies. Each of the pillars assumes immediate next steps by the Town, and a longer-term goal to evaluate progress.
“What is so extraordinary … is the comprehensive [nature] of this commitment to solve the housing problem. Up to this point we’ve been shooting a single target, but now we’re addressing them all. Each of which are essential to making this work.”
- David Ames, Town Councilor, Ward 3
Next Steps and Anticipated Action
The Housing Framework was adopted unanimously by Town Council in November 2022, following dozens of supportive testimonials from charrette participants and other members of the Island community. By adopting the Framework, the Council accordingly committed to an ongoing funding of $1 million to support the implementation of the plan through direct investment in future projects and the management of the work. The Town will begin implementation in the first quarter of 2023.
Link to the Workforce Housing Framework: https://www.hiltonheadislandsc.gov/workforcehousing/framework/
