COASTAL OBSERVER

The Pawleys Island Town Hall was bracing this week for an after-Christmas rush reminiscent of the bygone days of department stores. The only item on sale though is the town’s annual golf cart permit.

“You’ve got a lot of pent-up demand,” Administrator Dan Newquist said. “A lot of people wanted to give them as a Christmas gift.”

The town put permit sales on hold after Town Council voted in December to raise the annual fee from $25 to $50. The measure needed two readings to take effect.

The council tabled the fee increase this week.

Council Member Sarah Zimmerman, a proponent of the increase that council first discussed a year ago, made the motion. She said she wanted the town to have more time to discuss it.

After the meeting, Zimmerman said she was concerned that the $50 annual fee could be challenged as a tax because state law requires fees to return a benefit to the people who pay them.

The state charges $5 to register golf carts for five years.

Also, state law changed last year to give local government authority to regulate golf carts.

“We haven’t really investigated that,” Newquist said after the meeting.

The town once banned golf carts, but lost that ability when state law changed in 2010. In 2017, it adopted the permit program to allow police to identify the owners of carts that were parked illegally. Although they are also required to register with the state, that data isn’t readily available to police as it is for other vehicles.

The town also limits permits to golf carts registered within 2 miles of the town limits. That was the only limitation allowed by the 2010 state law. Carts are only allowed to operate within 4 miles of their registered address.

Last year, the town issued about 800 permits with 400 issued in the first four months. Most are issued to people who live outside the town. About a quarter are issued to golf cart rental companies. The town continued to honor the 2025 permits while waiting for council to act on the fee increase.

No one who came into Town Hall over the last month inquiring about a new permit seemed to object to the $50 fee, Town Clerk Corey Higdon said.

Zimmerman initially supported a $100 fee out of frustration with golf carts that clog the island’s narrow roads. Council Members Guerry Green and Rocky Holliday also favored an increase, but they didn’t run for re-election and their terms expired at the end of the year.

Zimmerman said her biggest concern was about the fees paid by rental companies.

“I don’t want to be unfair to the family that comes over on the golf cart,”  she said.

There was no public comment at a hearing before second reading this week.

“It basically puts it on the back burner indefinitely until you’re  willing to bring it up again, which we could bring up next year, the end of this year,” said Mayor Brian Henry, who also supported the increase initially.

Although there were no speakers at the hearing, a dozen people showed up for the first Town Council meeting of the year. The gallery was more crowded than the council table, with only two members, Paul Groce and John LaMaster, attending in person. They were elected in November along with Mark Hawn, who appeared via Zoom from London. Mayor Brian Henry was in Florida and Zimmerman dialed in while on her way to Town Hall.

Under rules adopted during the pandemic, the council and other town boards can meet remotely as long as a member is in Town Hall to record the votes. Five people also watched the council meeting online.

The council adopted a master drainage plan that calls for raising the island’s roads over the next 15 years to keep pace with rising sea level. That’s a $31 million project if done today. Engineers with SeamonWhiteside, who prepared the plan over the last year, estimate inflation will add about 50 percent to the cost.

Projects over the next 35 years to rebuild the drainage system on the island and make improvements such as underground storage chambers, total $57.9 million at today’s prices.

The town has $250,000 from a 2023 state budget earmarked for drainage projects and is due to receive $2 million for drainage work from Georgetown County’s capital project sales tax.

Henry said he heard from U.S. 7th District Rep. Russell Fry last week that $1.5 million for the town is in the federal budget. Fry asked for $2.5 million for work in the Bird’s Nest section on the south end.

“He said that request just cleared a major hurdle,” Henry told the council. “He seems very optimistic.”

The town plans to use the committed funds to help leverage additional funding.

“It’s going to take time, but we have a plan now,” Henry said.

He said the town will share that plan with the state Department of Transportation, which actually owns the roads and drainage infrastructure on the island.

The council also moved forward with plans to adopt measures to encourage property owners to preserve historic homes. It will name members next month to an ad hoc Historic Preservation Committee to come up with the criteria the town will use to determine which houses are historic.

Under federal law, those have to be at least 50 years old, but there are other factors that make houses eligible for inclusion in a historic district that could lead to tax incentives for preservation.