Folly Beach comes of age: A short and recent legal history of the development of Folly Beach (part 3 of 3)
By Ben Peeples
Turtle Bay
During 2003 one of the biggest issues was the development on the Folly River near the existing Turtle Bay development. City Council spent a significant amount of time discussing the merits of Planned Development District Zoning. PDD Zoning allows a good bit of flexibility for the landowner and the City to negotiate the use of space, which can be difficult since very often there are competing interests. A working committee was formed to try to resolve some of the conflict. In the end, as with almost all compromises and especially so on Folly Beach, no one was happy.
Annexation explanation
In 2004 and 2005, annexation was the big issue. A number of property owners appealed to the City of Folly Beach to be annexed. This was done in anticipation of James Island making another attempt at being a town. Some people felt that anyone who was not within the City of Folly Beach would be prey for the Town of James Island or the City of Charleston. A number of individual residential parcels were annexed on Oak Island.
Folly Beach did pursue several annexations. The Piggly Wiggly at Folly Road and Sol Legare had recently been built and had expressed an interest in coming into the City of Folly Beach. The problem was that the Piggly Wiggly was not contiguous with the City of Folly Beach. The “tollbooth property” owned by the Bowen family was contiguous to Folly. The City courted the Bowens and got them to voluntarily annex into the City thereby providing the connection so that we could annex Piggly Wiggly. (The Piggly Wiggly makes a substantial six figure contribution to our annual income and has also developed into a very good neighbor.)
Just prior to this period, there had been heightened concerns regarding the development of Long Island, which could conceivably support as many as two hundred individual houses. The developers of Peas Island inquired about incorporation and, like the Clam Farm mentioned earlier, it was felt that because Peas Island is located at the gateway to the City of Folly Beach the City should participate in the planning of this development. Peas Island would have also been the logical jump-off site for a bridge to Long Island, which was a primary concern.
Any annexations involving property served by James Island PSD require coordination and financial negotiation between the annexing party and James Island PSD. There are complex Federal Laws that protect the PSDs.
Some residents felt like the annexations were too many, and too fast, and also gave a potential for increased density on Folly Road. There were several lawsuits filed contesting the annexations. Prior to this time, Folly Beach had annexed almost no property. We did not have an annexation coordinator and might not have dotted all the Is and crossed all of the Ts; fortunately, the law allows for a do-over and we went back and re-annexed the properties after posting adequate notices.
The too-tall house
In 2007 Folly Beach litigated the “too-tall” house. Folly has a building height limitation of thirty-five feet above “FEMA”. What we mean by “FEMA” is the minimum height requirement imposed by FEMA regulations. These vary from a low of twelve feet above sea level in the “A” zone toward the middle or back of the island and as high as twenty-two feet above sea level in the “V” zone on some sections of front beach. (Only God and Mr. FEMA would know why some sections of front beach would have a different elevation requirement than other sections of front beach.)
At any rate, Folly Beach, in an effort to get all of us a more favorable flood insurance rating, had added one foot to the minimum requirement by FEMA. We have referred to this as “Folly FEMA.” Our building inspector interpreted the code as allowing for thirty-five feet above “Folly FEMA” or in other words, thirty-six feet above real FEMA. His interpretation was not consistent with the strict letter of the law. There were other issues involved in this lawsuit as is always the case. Because it would have been very expensive for the individual property owner to lower his house by one foot, this case was dismissed.
Franchising the beachfront
The management of front beach became a major political, if not legal, issue in 2008. State law, oddly enough, allows us to franchise front beach. I said “oddly” because usually you don’t get to collect rent on property you don’t own. Council was divided on what commercial activities would be appropriate for the beach. Council eventually sorted this out by allowing limited commercial enterprises on the sand.
The too-short house
During 2008 and 2009, Folly Beach dealt with the “too-short” house. The property owner had renovated a medium size house into an extra-large house, going way beyond the allowable 50% upgrade; thereby triggering new code requirements. He also did work beyond what his building permit allowed. The house was simply a foot too short. Folly Beach still has, thankfully, a live and let live attitude and the City Council tries not to make problems for the citizens; however, FEMA does look over our shoulder and requires us to aggressively enforce the flood ordinance. We were compelled, therefore, to make this property owner lift his house one foot up in the air. Fortunately, the house was sitting on very strong concrete block foundation, but it still cost him approximately $100,000 to get one foot closer to heaven. This was a necessary step by the City of Folly Beach to protect our access to flood insurance.
New county park
In 2010 the Front Beach Inn (FBI) and adjacent McClellan property, as well as the parking lot in front of Bert’s Market, were purchased by the Charleston County Parks and Recreation Commission. This was done with minimum input from the City of Folly Beach. As always, there was heated debate. The issue was “another county park on Folly Beach vs. additional physical structures.”
June, 2010, marked 34 years of service as City Attorney for the City of Folly Beach. I frankly never expected to last this long. I have always enjoyed representing Folly Beach. I love Folly Beach and have lived here continuously since 1974. I have a hard time even imagining living anywhere else. I hope that I am able to function as your city attorney for one more thirty-four-year term, and City Council (with tongue in cheek I suspect) has appointed me for one more such term.
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