Inthe early ‘90s, Hilton Head Island had few public parks to speak of, let alone a wish list of a dozen or so potential parks the town wanted to build, or even much of a parks program.
But a big debate over the future of the town was already unfolding and the forces that supported expanding beyond the idea of limited-services government and embracing a parks program to benefit the island’s families and visitors were on their way to victory. Enrollment at the Island Recreation Center’s sports programs was growing, and the island’s population boom was well under way.
That was how Frank Soule and other members of the recreation association ended up in the marshy, thickly wooded patch of undeveloped land near the opening of Broad Creek, watching then-Mayor Harvey Ewing’s car sink into a patch of notoriously unrelenting Lowcountry mud. They hooked a 4-wheel truck up to Ewing’s car and dragged him out of the mud.
The delegation had been touring the land and scoping it out after plans for a housing development for the site fell apart, meaning the land would soon be up for purchase. Recreation proponents had ambitious visions to create the town’s first big community park on the 84 acres.
“We had a big push for baseball felds,” Soule recalled. “The community was growing at leaps and bounds, our programs were growing at leaps and bounds.”
By May of 1992, the land was under the town’s control, becoming one of the first major parcels in the town’s public land inventory after officials dropped about $1.7 million to buy it. Soon after, construction began on Crossings Park, and now the site is an ecosystem of recreation, with several baseball diamonds, trails, bike paths, soccer felds and a skate park.
The purchase marked a policy pivot for Hilton Head as it shifted from a passive, small-services government dedicated to preserving what it already had, to an active one set on creating and developing new public amenities. It also was the point where the town began a vigorous involvement in growth control by using tax dollars to take land of the market.
“That was all kind of the beginning,” Soule said.
Seventeen years later, the town’s land-buying program has evolved into its favorite method of growth control and planning for the future. The town has now spent $151.6 million to buy 133 parcels, putting a total 1,177 acres into public control and of the market for new homes or commercial development.
Town officials and community organizations have heralded the program as a success. And voters, too, have consistently stood behind it. Every time the issue of whether to borrow more money to buy land has come up for a referendum, voters overwhelmingly supported it. Last year, 75 percent of voters approved borrowing $17 million to replenish the land-buying account.
This fall, the Town Council signed of on spending that money. Now, with new funds in hand, and the amount of undeveloped land on the island shrinking, the town is reviewing its options carefully as it crafts its land-purchasing future.
Supporting land-buying efforts
The town approaches the land market with a strategic philosophy, not necessarily a specific goal for each chunk of property. The town sticks to specific criteria, including water views and access, strategic land for pathway or utility construction, and land of historical or cultural value, such as the 16.55-acre tract of what is now Fish Haul Creek Park the town bought in 1998 for $1.66 million. The land was the former site of Mitchelville, believed to be the nation’s first village for freed slaves. Artifacts and other archaeological data were recovered from the site after the town bought it.
The town’s land-buying efforts have met with little resistance or criticism over the years, a sign town officials say shows the program has the public’s confidence. Voters have gone to the polls five different times to approve the town spending money on buying land.
“When we went through the last referendum, there was a very small number of people who were saying the town’s already got enough land, we need to stop,” town manager Steve Riley said. “Always there has been a small portion of people who oppose it…
“When I went out and did presentations with what we’ve accomplished with the land program, density reductions, land reductions, people, when you tell them the story, they get excited about it.”
In fact, voters last year approved borrowing the money even though it meant increasing their tax bills about $4 per $100,000 of assessed value.
The one complaint the town hears most often is that buying land takes too much away from the town’s property tax base – tax money that could go toward paying for other town needs such as staf salaries or debt payment. But Riley said critics forget about the infrastructure that would be required to support a new development: roads, water, sewer and emergency services such as firefighters.
Last year, as the county’s economy was slumping and the town was struggling with a budget crunch, some residents suggested the town sell some of its land to help balance the budget.
“There’s an idea – at the bottom of the market, let’s have a fire sale,” Riley said.
Instead the town made several more purchases last year, possibly using the slow local real estate market to its benefit. It closed on a 1-acre piece of land known as the Earl Smith parcel in the Stoney neighborhood and the nearby 2-acre Butch Floyd parcel, both which provide some frontage on Jarvis Creek. While the town has no specific plans for the site yet, the purchase is a prime example of how the town prospects land as it becomes available and sees ways to preserve water access and views.
“We’re still interested, we still have access to money,” Riley said. “The market is down but we still have willing sellers.”
Building and preserving
Having the local government as an active competitor in the land market might seem like an awkward situation for local businesses and developers, who are already in competition for the finite land on the island.
But it’s actually the opposite: business leaders say the two need to work in concert with each other to help bolster the image of the island as a desirable place to live and work.
“(Builders) all want this island to look beautiful and want to preserve the vision the Frasers had when they moved here,” said Ashley Feaster of the Hilton Head Area Home Builders Association. “You know you’re going to get quality land that’s built correctly, that’s reserved for parks, or reserved for athletic or recreational activities. And that makes people want to buy homes.”
Home builders know that the island is approaching build-out, when all the developable land in town will be used. They have plenty of work remodeling – and, now, reftting homes to be more environmentally efcient – without worrying about not being able to build new homes from scratch, Feaster said.
Builders and other businesses say they aware of the limited space on Hilton Head, and that too much development can be a strain.
“If the town’s going to take an active priority in keeping those things up, the home builders are behind that,” said Feaster.
For example, in 2001, the town bought a 2.76-acre piece of land that formerly housed a tire shop and sat as blight on the landscape, littered with old car parts and debris. The town spent $2.1 million to get the property, then cleared it, cleaned it and constructed Compass Rose Park there, which now serves as a stopover spot for bikers or walkers passing through to the island’s busy Coligny area. Eventually, it will become a multipart monument to Sea Pines and founder Charles Fraser.
Charlie Clark, spokeswoman for the the Hilton Head Island-Blufton Chamber of Commerce, said the town has done a good job balancing businesses’ desires to grow and with the town’s desire to take land of the market for development. “Land preservation has been integral to the image of Hilton Head as a resort destination,” she said.
One looming question is whether the larger availability of land and the lower level of growth control in Bluffton will eventually make Hilton Head the less attractive destination for new businesses.
But developers at least seem to have gotten the hint. Up until about four or five years ago, Hilton Head town manager’s office would get calls weekly from some interest — sometimes a developer, sometimes a civic organization — seeking to buy or use a piece of town-owned land. Those calls are down to just a few a week, Riley said.
Seventeen years after towing a mayor out of the muck, Soule again finds himself scouting land for a new project, a second island recreation center, something recreation officials have been gathering support and drafting plans for over the past two years. But instead of of-roading through muddy dirt trails trying to make a case about the value of the land, Soule can sit in an ofce and run down the list of the 133 parcels the town already owns to see which would be best suited for a second island recreation facility.
“It kind of helps organizations such as ours to (use) more creative thinking about what would a new facility would look like, where would it go,” he said.
Soule said the fact that he can browse the land — instead of having to shop for new locations — is something that sets Hilton Head apart from other communities.
