The Post and Courier reported today that the Isle of Palms received a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers last week, the final step before beginning the beach renourishment project. Sand from 3 miles offshore should begin coming ashore in the next couple of weeks. Read the full story.
The Post & Courier reports this morning that the offshore shoal that exacerbated the erosion on Isle of Palms is apparently moving ashore. State coastal managers recently stood atop the wall of sandbags now protecting condominiums and houses at Wild Dunes Resort and measured an increase in the beach sand.
"There is indication that the erosion due to the shoal bypass event is subsiding and the beach is starting to build back naturally," Dan Burger, communications director for the S.C. Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management, said in an e-mail. The beach renournishment project will however move forward as scheduled. To learn more, read the full story
In a related story, the newspaper also reported that Wild Dunes homeowners have agreed to pay a fine of $18,000 for sandbag litering. Read More
As reported by: The Charleston Regional Business Journal Staff
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The Charleston School of Protocol and Etiquette has announced that, once again, Charleston has been voted America's Most Mannerly City of 2007. The general public determined winners with votes cast online and by mail to the school over the past year. Savannah, Ga., and New York City placed second and third, respectively. The competition has been ongoing for more than 30 years.
After winning the America's Most Mannerly City designation for the 11th time, Charleston received the Lifetime Achievement Award last year. "Charleston is firmly established as a stronghold of manners," said Cindy Grosso, owner of Charleston School of Protocol and Etiquette.
The founder of the competition, etiquette expert and author Marjabelle Young Stewart, died in March at age 82. Grosso secured the endorsement of Stewart's family to carry on the contest. "It fits. It seems proper for (someone from) the Most Mannerly City for all these years to take it over," said Stewart's husband, William Stewart of Kewanee, Ill.
Charleston won by a landslide with 219 votes. Forty-four votes came from South Carolina residents, including 19 from Charleston. Votes for America's Most Mannerly City 2008 will be accepted by the Charleston School of Protocol and Etiquette from Feb. 1 through Dec. 31, 2008, on its Web site at http://www.charlestonschoolofprotocol.com or by mail at P.O. Box 41113, Charleston, SC 29423-1113. Voters are invited to submit mannerly cities and to convey stories in support of their chosen locales.
The Charleston School of Protocol and Etiquette was established in 2000 and specializes in corporate etiquette programs for groups and coaching for individuals.
Wild Dunes property owners will decide on special fee
ISLE OF PALMS — Wild Dunes property owners will receive a ballot this week asking if the homeowners association should impose a special assessment to pay a portion of an offshore dredging project to renourish their eroding beach.
Wild Dunes Community Association members met in the Sweetgrass Pavilion Saturday for an overview of the proposal that asks for $1,500 for every dwelling unit and for owners of beachfront property to pay an additional voluntary amount.
Sixty percent of property owners would have to participate in the referendum for it to be considered valid. And 66.67 percent of those voting would have to approve of the assessment for it to go into effect.
Payments would be due in April so that the city could move forward with contracting with an offshore dredging company. Pumping sand could be done in June and July.
The eroding beach has affected the Wild Dunes Resort, said community association board member Gary Lauderdale.
"The reality is, we're all in this together, and when the resort is financially healthy, we're financially healthy," Lauderdale said to property owners. "When they get sick financially, we get sick financially."
If the referendum issue is approved, property owners and the Wild Dunes Resort would pay $5.8 million of the expected $9.7 million renourishment project.
The Wild Dunes Community Association board of directors expects public funds to support the remaining cost. Isle of Palms City Council already has approved spending approximately $2 million. An additional $900,000 has been requested from Charleston County and $1 million from the state.
"Those numbers are not firm, to say the least," Lauderdale said.
The city requested the funds.
Mayor Mike Sottile said the city has applied for a $1 million grant from a S.C. Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management fund and will ask the county for $900,000. Charleston County has discussed setting up a county beach renourishment fund that all beach communities in the county could draw from.
Current state law requires public beach access before entities can tap into the OCRM beach management fund. And the county has yet to approve its proposed renourishment fund.
Sottile said the city is waiting for answers before deciding what to do next.
"Right now, we've asked for a certain amount of funds," he said, "and we have to wait and see if they give it to us."
Reach Jessica Johnson at 937-5921 or jjohnson@post andcourier.com.
ISLE OF PALMS — The gated Wild Dunes community might evolve into public beach access.
The state would consider the resort community's beach to have complete access under a bill prefiled by Sen. Chip Campsen, R-Isle of Palms, for the January 2008 session. Rep. Ben Hagood, R-Sullivan's Island, plans to file a parallel bill in the House by January.
The community is private; the beach is public but no open access is provided inside the gates. What should be allowed on public beach to protect private property is an ongoing dispute in coastal management.
The bill would rework the state's beachfront management act to designate all the beach public in municipalities that have more than half of the beach outside of communities that restrict access. The municipalities also must offer twice as much access as the state requires. That would include Wild Dunes but exclude largely private islands such as Kiawah.
It would clear one of the first hurdles Isle of Palms has to winning federal money for a $9 million or more beach renourishment plan to save six condominium complexes and other properties from storm tides washing under the buildings. Army Corps of Engineers rules require a consensus among local governments about public need.
A bigger hurdle is the $9 million itself. Even if federal money could be won in time, it would pay for only two-thirds. Campsen and Hagood also will push bills to allow future accommodations tax revenue to pay for bonds for renourishment and let the worst-off beaches keep all their accommodations tax revenue to do it.
The city has more than 50 public walkways and accesses, Isle of Palms Mayor Mike Sottile said. Access at least every half-mile is another Corps requirement.
"I feel Isle of Palms has more than enough beach access and public parking than we need to meet the letter of the law. We're a seven-mile beach and we have enough parking for a 20-mile beach," he said.
The legislators plan to fast-track the bills to help Isle of Palms meet a June deadline for completing the work that OCRM wants.
Legislative approval isn't a given, Hagood said. "There certainly will be some issues to discuss."
The Post & Courier reported today that a Colorado-based company plans to build a 210-unit garage complex near the airport and plans to sell parking spaces to frequent Charleston visitors so they never need to pay for parking again. The purchase comes with access to a clubhouse that will offer updated flight schedules and beverage service, as well as the ground transportation.
The concept is aimed partly at second-home owners who have property in places such as Kiawah Island, downtown Charleston and Isle of Palms, said Scott Rotermund, one of the partners in Airport Garages.
Prices range from $39,900 for a single stall to $109,900 for an 18-by-50-foot space that can hold about six sport utility vehicles. Owners also would pay a monthly maintenance fee of about $40. The company compares its airport parking concept to the "dockominium" trend at places like Wild Dunes in which marina owners have sold off boat slips instead of renting them.
Terri Haack, the person in charge for Destination Wild Dunes, is taking a job in California after five years at the helm of the Wild Dunes Resort. She will leave at year-end to head up Terranea, a property being built by the company that owns Wild Dunes, Destination Hotels & Resorts, a 6,500-employee branch of Lowe Enterprises.
The newest concern over beach erosion at Wild Dunes Resort is the hundreds of five-gallon sandbags used as emergency erosion fighters have been seen floating at sea and in estuaries. Property owners who used the bags are being fined, but they say regulators told them to use the bags. Environmentalists worry the bags will be mistaken as food by turtles and other marine life, leading to deaths.
Property owners were cited Friday for violating an enforcement order to remove the smaller bags by the state agency that regulates their use. Homeowners say the state Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management is the agency that told them to use the bags in the first place.
A permit is on hold indefinitely as loggerhead turtle nesting season began last week. Representatives from the state Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service advised the Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management in April not to issue the permit until nesting season for the threatened species is over. The nesting season is from May 1 to Oct. 31.
Elsa Brenner, in a NY Times article, had some great things to say about Isle of Palms and Sullivan's Island. The article, which was published in the paper on March 16, 2007, highlights the lure of the never-ending beaches and sense of being remote, yet so close to all that Charleston, SC has to offer. The author went on to highlight the many amenities of Wild Dunes Resort on the north end of Isle of Palms. [View the full article]
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