Town of Hilton Head Island Housing Framework Hilton Head, South Carolina
Services Provided
Strategic Planning
Engagement
People Involved
Kyle May
Brian Kinzelman
Andrew Overbeck
Trevor Traphagen
Planning Document
Housing framework provides goals for a town finding balance as a destination community and a home to residents year-round
Hilton Head Island, South Carolina 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 had remained relatively stable until recently.
In recent years a number of factors have propelled town leadership to reassess the trajectory of its current housing situation. Through the 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. 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. At the same time came a 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. The displaced residents were not likely to find affordable, replacement housing on the Island 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.
“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
The Housing Framework was developed through a collaborative and accelerated process with Town Staff, Town Council, and a 35-member charrette team made up of local experts in low-income housing development, major employers, realtors, neighborhood advocates, Town staff, and others. The accelerated process began with a two-day Charrette in which the MKSK-led team facilitated a conversation around the challenge, and the Town’s collective response.
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.
The Framework – which was unanimously adopted in November of 2022 – establishes a four-pillar approach to protecting and expanding workforce housing options on the Island in perpetuity. Perhaps most critically, the Framework commits the council to more than $1 million in annual funding toward the challenge. The Town will begin implementation in the first quarter of 2023.
