Eroding beaches may mean tougher building rules

South Carolina’s popular beaches need better protection from development, even if it means some oceanfront landowners pay higher insurance rates, a coastal commission says.

The study commission voted 6-5 Tuesday to expand building restrictions farther inland along parts of the S.C. oceanfront, a move that would effectively ban new seawalls in some areas where they are now allowed. The group’s recommendation also would make it harder to replace beach houses with more intense development, such as high-rise hotels, in some areas.

Tightening the rules would affect 264 additional developed lots along the state’s immediate shore. That would increase to 43 percent the number of developed lots on South Carolina beaches affected by the restrictions, records show. It also would apply to undeveloped lots.

The panel’s vote is a recommendation that would need Legislative approval.

“I’m not unsympathetic to any private property owners, but the fact is, if you choose to live in coastal areas, you automatically should know there is additional cost associated with that,” commission member Mac Burdette said. “We have to be diligent in trying to balance out the rights of the public.”

But the action by the Blue Ribbon Committee on Shoreline Development met sharp resistance from members who represent coastal cities and real estate interests. They expressed fear that extending restrictions to more property might send insurance rates skyrocketing for people who own beachfront houses.

“It’s very significant,” Pawleys Island Mayor Bill Otis, said echoing concerns from former Hilton Head Island Mayor Tom Peeples. “The unintended consequences relative to these things is a big deal.”

Aerial photographs presented at Tuesday’s meeting showed that toughening the rules would affect parts of the oceanfront in Pawleys Island, the Isle of Palms and North Myrtle Beach.

Up for a vote Tuesday was whether to increase the state’s oceanfront building line, known as a setback line, from a minimum of 20 feet inland from the beach to a minimum of 50 feet inland. The committee’s recommendation would not prevent someone who fell within the expanded area from remodeling or rebuilding a home to the same dimensions. But expanding state jurisdiction through a wider, 50-foot setback would extend an existing ban on seawalls farther inland and make it harder for people to convert beach houses into large hotels farther inland.

For more than two decades, South Carolina has prohibited construction of new seawalls in its area of jurisdiction along the immediate beachfront. While seawalls protect oceanfront houses and hotels, they also accelerate beach erosion when hit by waves – and that gives the public less beach to walk on.

Tuesday’s recommendation by the committee will be part of a report to the Department of Health and Environmental Control board, for possible action by the state Legislature in 2013.

South Carolina’s heavily developed beaches are the cornerstone of the state’s multibillion dollar tourism economy, but the sea level is rising, the beaches are eroding and intense hurricanes remain an annual threat.