Lawmakers Could Ease S.C. Beachfront Development Rules

In a state battered by hurricanes and rising seas, legislators are siding with oceanfront landowners in a fight against tighter controls on beach development.

The S.C. Senate voted 41-0 on Wednesday for a bill that abandons the state’s 30-year-old policy of retreat, an effort to push new development away from the state's storm-scarred beaches. Senators also agreed to block looming rules that would restrict development near the ocean.

Already approved by the House, the bill needs only a routine final Senate vote before it goes back to the House for its action on Senate-added amendments. It then would go to Republican Gov. Henry McMaster, who has expressed sympathy for property owners.

One prominent coastal geologist blasted the Senate’s action, saying it will help oceanfront landowners at the public’s expense. Blocking tighter oceanfront building rules could allow for more intense development close to the ocean — and that’s a problem, said Western Carolina University scientist Rob Young.

Buildings constructed on the beach limit public access for vacationers, while putting more pressure on the state to launch expensive, taxpayer-funded renourishment projects to protect the seaside investments, said Young, director of the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines.

Taxpayers also face the cost of bailing out oceanfront property owners after major storms damage homes and hotels.

“It’s a shame the state of South Carolina is not acknowledging the fact that there are portions of the beach where we need to encourage people to take a step back,’’ Young said. “That is what the retreat policy was all about.’’

The legislation, pushed by state Sen. Chip Campsen of Charleston and S.C. Rep. Lee Hewitt of Murrells Inlet, is intended to help property owners upset by new rules that could restrict development on their land. 

State regulators had proposed tougher building restriction lines in areas where beaches are eroding and the ocean is eating away the coast. Those areas included parts of the Grand Strand, Hilton Head Island, and Charleston-area beaches.

Full story at The State Newspaper