Will a popular Myrtle Beach tennis facility be replaced by new homes?
A proposed subdivision would bring more than 30 new homes to the Grande Dunes area – at the site of the Grande Dunes Tennis Club.
In a meeting Tuesday, the Myrtle Beach Planning Commission approved plans for 31 new single-family houses and four new drives in a planned subdivision at the area between Grande Dunes Boulevard and Marina Parkway beside the Waccamaw River.
“You hate to see [the tennis club] go away, but also … that’s really not something that we can address. That’s something that has to be addressed legally in a court of law,” one commission member said. “As much as I would prefer that it stay as an amenity there, I don’t think that falls in the purview of this commission.”
When asked how the Grande Dunes Tennis Club – a 6,000-foot facility that features United States Tennis Association teams, private lessons, camps tournaments and more – would be impacted by the development, management at the club declined to comment or answer questions.
More than a dozen residents attended the afternoon meeting, including Castillo del Mar Property Owners’ Association President Charles Collins, who requested the matter go before Myrtle Beach City Council for an amendment to the Grande Dunes Planned Unit Development (PUD).
“It is a significant change to the members that purchased in Grande Dunes and the hundreds of people that utilize the tennis facility,” Collins said. “It’s never been noted on any map, that I’ve seen, as future development. It was always originally noted as ‘tennis center.’ Again, it wasn’t naked land waiting to be developed; it was already developed.”
Applicant MB Tennis LLC wants to subdivide about 8.5 acres in the PUD into homes ranging in size from roughly 6,240 square feet to nearly 12,000 square feet. The plan would also name four new drives: Cabopino, Montecastillo, Valderrama and Villaitana.
Despite resident opposition, the commission confirmed that new-use was already permitted, and the commission is not being asked to consider an amendment to the PUD, only to look at how the property is being subdivided. MB Tennis LLC told the commission that, to the best of their knowledge, there aren’t any restrictive covenants in place that would prohibit the development.
The PUD does require each tract to provide at least 10% open space – like parks, golf courses or tennis courts – and that the overall PUD provide 20% open space, and the proposed Tennis Tract would meet the requirements. The commission also discussed increasing landscape buffers around the subdivision, which agent J. Cameron Parker said would be acceptable, so long as it didn’t prohibit development on any of the lots.
“We present this as a request for a subdivision,” said Parker. “I understand the concerns of the board and the public, but before you today is a code-compliant subdivision that I’m acting as an agent for and advocating.”
Because the requests don’t involve amendments to the PUD, they won’t require any more rounds of approval from the city.