Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Repair in Isle of Palms, SC

ISLE OF PALMS, S.C. (WCSC) - The Charleston Beach Foundation is asking the city of Isle of Palms and South Carolina Department of Transportation to revoke current parking plans along beach access points.

The group disclosed its concerns in a letter on November 27, claiming the “general public is being denied their constitutional guaranty of equality and privilege.”

Isle of Palms City Council put the regulations into place in 2015 with the goal of making the beaches functional and safe.

The 2015 parking plan, amended in 2017, cost $250,000 in taxpayer dollars and is modeled off similar plans in both Charleston and Columbia.

The city claims the plan was made to manage “unbridled growth” in the region, both nearby in Charleston and further out in the Lowcountry.

Activists say it does not match up with the increase in commercial use of the island or overall population growth.

“Revoke the 2015 parking plan on Isle of Palms, return all residential-only parking spaces on both Sullivans Island and Isle of Palms back to the general public,” Michael Barnett says.

Barnett says the plan eliminated a number of free spots and instead gave them to short-term rentals in nearby neighborhoods.

The Charleston Beach Foundation also claims the area has since become a hot spot for commercial use, with the city voting in a referendum on Nov. 7 to not limit short-term rental licenses.

“They were really the first to do it. They started to do it piece by piece, which really got my attention because I was a surfer,” Barnett says. “Businesses are operating in these areas. Not basically, they are. They’re not residential neighborhoods anymore.”

City officials weighed in on the matter.

“We are very much a residential community. Certainly, in season, we have a lot more visitors than we do residents. But we provide eight times the among of parking required by the state,” Isle of Palms Mayor Phillip Pounds says.

Pounds says the island offers an abundance of free parking with the current plan, scattered around 56 beach access points.

“It’s not about increasing revenues, being punitive. It’s about making sure every spaces available can be used properly.”

The foundation mentioned encroachment and “excessive fines” as to why the plan should be reworked.

“Why would a parking ticket for parking in a residential area, or having your tires on the road, be 3x the state average on Isle of Palms?” Barnett says.

Pounds says the plan is set in place for now.

“We can’t do anything without approval and oversight, and we have a really good relationship with SCDOT. If there were any changes we were looking to make, we’d certainly have to work in conjunction with them,” Pounds says.

The SCDOT and Isle of Palms City Council both say they are starting the initial review process for the Charleston Beach Foundation’s request.

Copyright 2023 WCSC. All rights reserved.

ISLE OF PALMS, S.C. (WCIV) — The Lowcountry saw its fourth highest tide on record Sunday after a Nor'easter hit the South Carolina coast.

Neighborhoods on the beach, like Isle of Palms (IOP), were hit hard by coastal flooding and beach erosion. Most spent Monday trying to recover.

IOP residents cleaning up after Sunday's storm hit harder than expected. Dec. 2023. (WCIV)

People living on IOP are in clean-up mode; they’re filling bags with debris and trash found all over their property. They say they weren't expecting Sunday's storm to hit them so hard, including those who remember dealing with much worse.

"We went through Hurricane Hugo here at the same location," said Mike Sottile, who has resided on the same IOP street for 46 years. "This was not as bad as Hurricane Hugo, obviously, but it was a lot of cleanup. It's probably the most cleanup we've had since Hurricane Hugo."

Read more: Nearly 100 residents in McClellanville trapped after road collapses during Nor'easter

The clean-up took an entire day. Sottile says he started cleaning at 5 a.m. and the pile of 10 of bags spilling over at the end of his driveway wasn't full until 3 p.m. And the debris scattered around his property wasn't all the storm left behind.

"I had water in my garage that was probably two feet deep," Sottile said. "My backyard was in knee deep water and it was just a combination of storm surge and seven inches of rain."

Those two feet of water filled his garage while destroying the family's washer and dryer. The family says they're now in a hurry to replace those appliances during the busy holiday season, with Christmas festivities quickly approaching for them.

Read more: Edisto Beach feels impact of Sunday Nor'easter

According to Sottile, people living on IOP are used to flooding every year, but the recovery from this storm is taking longer.

"We normally don't have this kind of cleanup," he said. "When I say we've had storms in the past, usually it's just what you see in the street and it drains off as soon as the tide goes back out."

Most of the flood waters have receded from the streets. Still, Sottile said his work is far from done. His cable television service is out, but the heat is working. He feels lucky the damage wasn't worse, like the kind he's experienced in the past.

Read more: Flooding continues after Nor'easter causes record rainfall, 4th-highest tide level in Charleston

Neighbors say they're now waiting for the city to come and collect the trash before they can get back to normal life.

"I put in a call to the public works, let them know it was here," Sottile said. "I'm sure they're inundated by a lot of people on the island, so hopefully it'll get picked up before Christmas."

ISLE OF PALMS, S.C. (WCBD)- Parking on the Isle of Palms continues to be a contentious topic.

Some saying that a parking plan approved by the South Carolina Department of Transportation in 2015 which established resident-only parking zones needs to be revoked.

The parking plan that was approved in 2015 eliminated a significant number of free parking.

The approval was unpopular among the Charleston Beach Foundation, a group that advocates for more public access to the beaches, when it was first approved.

Now, this plan is now receiving renewed pushback.

“For Isle of Palms to eliminate parking in those right of ways is wrong to begin with and probably unconstitutional,” Parking advocate, Michael Barnett said.

Barnett, who started a petition over beach restrictions in the Lowcountry, says this parking issue has come up again after Isle of Palms voted to deny the short-term rental cap.

Barnett said, “The Isle of Palms is allowing short term rentals throughout the island, essentially making the residential only districts, commercial districts.”

Monday morning, Myra Jones with the Charleston Beach Foundation sent the City of Isle of Palms a letter, asking for the plan to be revoked, arguing IOP no longer has legitimate “residential” areas since the resolution to cap short-term rentals on the island failed.

“So, the SCDOT needs to now go back, review the 2015 parking plan, request that the Isle of Palms redo the parking plan, and they need to give back all residential only parking, they need to give back all 3,000 parking spaces that they took in 2015,” Barnett said.

Isle of Palms city council members are fighting back.

Councilman Blair Hahn providing a statement reading, “In response to Myra Jones’ letter to City council dated November 27^th, 2023, full council has not had an opportunity to discuss. However, Ms. Jones’ continued attempts to characterize the Isle of Palms as not resident friendly, not tourism friendly, not visitor friendly is nonsensical. Isle of Palms provides 8 times more public beach parking than is required by the SC Beach Front Management Act and more public parking per mile of beach than any other community in South Carolina.

Ms. Jones has previously taken her grievances to the South Carolina Courts and has lost. In my opinion, this is nothing more than another attempt of Ms. Jones to ignore the laws of the State and attempt to force her will on Charleston beach communities.

IOP city council members say they plan to discuss this more in future council meetings.

ISLE OF PALMS, S.C. (WCBD)- Erosion on the Isle of Palms continues to be a big concern for IOP city leaders and property owners.

Council members, the mayor and coastal engineering experts met Tuesday afternoon to discuss short term solutions.

The issue is so urgent that city leaders took action, approving more than a million dollars to fund short-term solutions for the erosion.

Beach erosion has long been a problem on the Isle of Palms

“There’s a lot of concern,” City councilmember Rusty Streetman said.

However, the city says it’s starting to get worse.

“Some of our residents down there have hit the critical line of 20 feet, water within 20 feet of their structure,” Mayor Phillip Pounds said.

The city has no control over one of the major causes of the erosion, king tides.

“Tides were supposed to be 6 and a half feet and with the winds and waves, it was about 8 and half, so pretty significant difference than what we were expecting,” Pounds said.

However, what leaders say they can control, is their response to the issue.

Pounds said, “We need some immediate relief and some immediate guidance to our residents down there on what they can and can’t do.”

“Beach erosion will always be here, it’s a fact of life. We live with it so we just have to try and plan as well as we can to handle that,” Streetman said.

The city approved about one and a half million dollars to continue digging sand from the shoreline for dune renourishment.

It’s a project that has been ongoing since tropical storm Idalia hit in August.

They also say they’ll use that money to bring in more sand if needed and provide sandbags for residents who need them.

Streetman said, “We also have a beach renourishment fund that is taxed onto the accommodations tax, that is targeted just for beach renourishment.”

In January, a long-term renourishment project in partnership with the Army Corp of Engineers will begin.

They’re going to rebuild some of the beach in hopes of mitigating erosion for years to come.

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.