IT IS NOW TIME to revoke The Isle Of Palms 2015 parking plan

BEACH PARKING UPDATE - November 2023

            It is now time for The SCDOT to revoke the Isle of Palms parking plan (originally approved in 2015) and here is why:   

On Tuesday, November 7, 2023, the City of the Isle of Palms held municipal elections.  A referendum was on the ballot asking voters to either ban or allow short term rentals at residential properties.  The voters approved allowing short term rental businesses throughout the City of Isle of Palms.  The City’s web site provides requirements for setting up and running a short-term rental.  

            Persons wishing to run a short-term rental must secure a license from the City.  The maximum occupancy allowed is two people per bedroom plus two people.  And with people coming to rent those bedrooms, there will come cars, trucks, trailers, RVs and other vehicles.  The City limits the number of vehicles at a short-term rental to the greater of one vehicle per bedroom or one per every 2.5 people allowed in its maximum occupancy.  In no case, the City says, will the number of vehicles allowed be less than two at the residence where the short-term rental business is operated. 

            Consistent with its rule requiring stickers for residents who park in the City’s designated "residential only parking" spaces, the City requires operators of short-term rental businesses to purchase up to 4 “portable parking permits” good for a year from the City Police Department.  In this way, the short-term rental owner is authorized to reserve parking in resident only parking areas for up to 4 visitors to the island who pay to stay in their licensed short term rental unit.

            Of course, all of the streets where these paying visitors will be parking are the property of the State.  Isle of Palms is only able to designate state roads as “resident only parking areas” because the SC Department of Transportation lets them do so by virtue of the parking plan which was submitted by the City to the Department and which was approved by the Department in 2015.

            Now that the Isle of Palms has authorized short term rental businesses throughout the island, the parking plan approved by the Department must be reconsidered.  It is unconscionable that island property owners should be allowed to use state owned and maintained roads, exclude the non-resident public from using these roads to park and visit the beach, all for their personal profit.  It was bad enough, that the city was allowed to set aside State-owned roads for residents, thereby significantly limiting public access to the Isle of Palms beach.  It is far more outrageous for the city to let residents use resident only parking areas along State owned roads to make money for themselves.  

            The Department of Transportation must immediately revoke the parking plan they approved for the Isle of Palms and forbid the continued misuse of State roads to deny access to beaches by the public.

I strongly encourage ALL signers of this petition to once again share it with friends, family, and neighbors, BUT TO ALSO REACH OUT TO YOUR LOCAL REPRESENATIVES and the SCDOT and tell them it is now time to take back all of the parking that was eliminated in poor faith by Isle of Palms, Sullivan's Island, and Folly Beach. 

CONTACTs copy paste and then email:

Vonkoleb@dhec.sc.gov; hallca@scdot.org; hendersotr@scdot.org; bodean@dhec.sc.gov;