Coastal Services Center

There are about 3,500 marsh islands of varying size along South Carolina's coast that provide critical habitat for wildlife. But there also is interest by developers and landowners in building bridges or other forms of access to some of these islands as a first step towards their development.

After the South Carolina Supreme Court threw out part of the state's regulations for providing access to small islands in 2005, the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control's Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management assembled a six-member committee representing diverse interest groups to provide regulatory recommendations for providing protection and reasonable access to coastal islands.

The resulting regulations provide "very concrete guidelines to apply to applications for an island bridge or dock," says Elizabeth von Kolnitz, director of coastal planning for the coastal program. "It takes the guesswork out and allows permitting staff to more effectively administer our regulatory programs."

Legal Challenge

Of the state's marsh islands, about 2,395 don't have access or some form of legal protection. The state had two regulatory approaches in place for permitting bridges to coastal islands—the transportation-projects regulation for larger islands, and the more stringent access-to-small-islands regulation for smaller, more environmentally sensitive islands.

In 1998, the coastal program received an application from LandTech of Charleston, L.L.C., for a permit to build a bridge to the 30-acre Park Island in the town of Mt. Pleasant. Deeming Park Island a small island, the coastal program considered the permit application under the access-to-small-islands regulation, and granted the permit.

The decision was subsequently appealed by nearby residents and environmental groups, who argued that although Park Island was a small island, the criteria for granting a permit for bridge access had not been met. LandTech claimed that Park Island was not a small island and that the project should have been considered under the transportation-projects regulation.

The appeal ended up with the South Carolina Supreme Court, which surprised many by nullifying the access-to-small-islands regulation, citing its "vagueness" and lack of definition of  "small." The court ruled that the evaluation of all bridge permit applications defaulted to the more lenient transportation-project regulation.

Taking Initiative

The coastal program recognized that the state would benefit from comprehensive regulations for permitting coastal island access, which would require legislative approval. To prepare for this, the program examined the issues and conducted an inventory of the state's islands.

The state Department of Natural Resources conducted a study on the islands' ecological importance, finding that coastal islands provide critical habitat for diverse wildlife—including being home to several species of rare plants.

Coastal program staff members worked with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Coastal Services Center to do an inventory of the state's marsh islands and develop a geographic information system (GIS) data layer that accurately delineates geographic features of marsh islands greater than 0.125 acres in size.

Von Kolnitz notes that island bridges also create aesthetic issues and often cross lands held in the public trust.

After the supreme court's ruling, a concurrent resolution by the South Carolina General Assembly encouraged coastal regulators to collaborate with stakeholders in developing and proposing permanent regulations.

By the People

The state coastal program assembled a six-member committee comprising diverse interest groups, including conservationists, developers, and legal professionals. The group met six times from July through September 2005 and hammered out regulatory recommendations for the state Department of Health and Environmental Control board and general assembly.

"It was tough," recalls Matt Sloan, president of the Daniel Island Company, developers of a 4,000-acre coastal island community in Charleston. "It got very heated, but we quickly found that there was a lot of common ground on this topic."

Going the Distance

The committee used the island inventory GIS layer to create a marsh island matrix to compare islands for size and distance from the mainland. This allowed the group to develop bridge permit eligibility based on size and distance.

The committee's comprehensive recommendations also included density limits and required a comprehensive review, environmental assessments, wetland preservation, buffers and enhanced stormwater plans, more restrictive septic tank requirements, and lighting restrictions. The recommendations were flexible enough to allow for special exceptions.

The committee's recommendations were unanimously approved by the Department of Health and Environmental Control's board in October 2005.

Compromise

The committee's recommendations were less warmly received when they went up for legislative review before the Committee on Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Environmental Affairs.

"Their concerns were that some things were already governed" under other regulations, von Kolnitz says. "They recommended we withdraw it and make amendments."

Requirements cut out of the compromise regulations include lighting, density limits, buffers, and septic tank and stormwater measures.

The South Carolina General Assembly passed the compromise regulations in April 2006, and they became effective on June 23, 2006. As of November 9, 2006, the coastal program had received applications for four island vehicular bridges, one pedestrian bridge, and four docks.

Changing Dynamics

"The lesson that we learned," says Sloan, "is that we didn't understand the dynamic between DHEC [Department of Health and Environmental Control] and the elected officials. . . In hindsight, had we early on gone to the legislative committee and asked what they were interested in seeing and where they were comfortable seeing the boundaries for DHEC, we would have gotten there quicker. I'm not saying it would have been better, but it would have been quicker."

"What we got," says von Kolnitz, "were still very good regulations. Some performance characteristics did get taken out, but what we did get was very good."

She adds, "We were very happy with the final regulations that passed."

For more information on South Carolina's regulations of access to coastal islands, contact Elizabeth von Kolnitz at (843) 747-4323, Ext. 136, or vonkoleb@dhec.sc.gov. For more information on the stakeholders committee, contact Matt Sloan at (843) 971-3500, or matt.sloan@danielisland.com.