Following a contentious campaign, fought passionately in the press, through the mail, on social media platforms and at virtually every City Council meeting for the better part of a year, Isle of Palms residents rejected a referendum that would have capped at 1,600 the number of investor short-term rental licenses on the island.
The victory for those who opposed restrictions on STRs was somewhat muted, however: Two candidates who supported the proposed cap, Elizabeth Campsen and incumbent Council member Scott Pierce, finished first and second in the Nov. 7 election, while a pair of sitting Council members who were against immediate restrictions on STRs, Rusty Streetman and Kevin Popson, went down to defeat.
Political newcomer Ashley Carroll finished third among eight candidates, while longtime Council member Jimmy Ward retained his seat with a fourth-place finish. In the watershed commissioner’s race, Jeffery Forslund defeated Doug Hatler, 1,163 to 877.
The votes have been counted and the referendum has been defeated – by a 1,393 to 1,163 margin – but it appears that the issue of short-term rentals will still be on the table when the new Council convenes in January.
“I’m positive we’ll continue to discuss it. I hope we will take some time and not try to rush right into writing an ordinance,” Carroll commented. “We need time to look at the data. I’m super curious to see how many people renew their licenses. We need to look at the data to see where our market is trending.”
Pierce agreed that short-term rentals will continue to be an important subject on IOP.
“As the two top vote-getters in this election were candidates that openly and fully supported a cap on short-term rental licenses, I believe that residents want the Council to continue to work on a solution that limits STRs,” he said. “The expectation seems to be that Council will ‘fix’ the referendum. If we are to address this going forward, there is a great deal of work to do. We failed to address this as a Council in the first place, resulting in the referendum.”
“Currently, the Council’s policy is to monitor,” Campsen pointed out. “As the number of licenses issued continues to grow, I would hope there is a point at which the new Council will consider an ultimate limit. I believe it would be best achieved through modifications to our zoning code.”
Ward, on the other hand, said he hopes the issue of STR licenses is now dead, “but I’m sure it will not be.” He said the current Council “had the city in constant turmoil every month.”
“I’m sure they will bring it back up and keep things stirred up,” Ward said. “They’ve gone after some major radical changes the last two years, and it hasn’t turned out to what they wanted it to be. I think people were just tired of all the turmoil.”
Streetman, who served on the Council for four years, said the referendum was the driving force behind the election and opined that the Council was correct in voting against STR restrictions, even though approximately 30% of the island’s registered voters signed a petition supporting an ordinance that would have capped investor STR licenses.
“I think the new Council will take the issue up. I hope they recognize the will of the people. They need to address it in an unemotional, collaborative, thoughtful and logical way, and see what they can do to make sure we don’t have a situation on the island that affects our residential quality of life,” he said. “30 percent is a significant number, but it’s not 100%. We made the right call and welcomed a referendum and let the people tell us how they feel about it.”
So why did IOP residents defeat the referendum?
“We witnessed unprecedented influence, money, misinformation and FUD – fear, uncertainty and doubt – rained upon our local election from multiple named and anonymous forprofit investors and real estate organizations, which contributed to the narrow defeat of the referendum,” Pierce said. “It was an effective, sustained deluge, met only by grassroots residents’ groups who wanted a chance to preserve the traditional balance of IOP’s resident/rental mix because their Council failed to act.”
Ward had a different opinion on the subject.
“The referendum lost because people realized it cut down on their options. If they were sick and had to go into assisted living for a couple months, they couldn’t use rental income to offset their expenses,” he said. “And a lot of people thought it was too much government intrusion in their private lives.”
“In retrospect, perhaps our efforts to offer a detailed ordinance as a starting point for consideration rather than a general cap number hurt the effort as many expressed their desire for the general cap number but had reservations about one provision or another,” Campsen said.
“The sole reason I ran is that I didn’t feel the referendum was written very well,” Carroll added. “I feared it would hurt families. It was kind of dangerous to vote on something that wasn’t clear.”
She added that regardless of the path the short-term rental discussion takes, the Council might be better off addressing another issue.
“I’d like to focus on what we can do to bring back civility and a respectful dialogue,” Carroll said. “That might be the first thing we really need to discuss. It’s important to our community and to our island. It would be nice if we could all just have respect for each other.”
Is this why IOP residents voted the way they did?
Elizabeth Campsen – “I spent a lot of time knocking on doors. For the most part, I was able to have thoughtful, face-to-face discussions with people, whether they were for or against the idea of a short-term rental cap. Perhaps that, coupled with my years of service to the city on the Board of Zoning Appeals, led to my selection despite the outcome of the referendum.”
Ashley Carroll – “I like to think I won because I tried to explain to people and show them I’m an open-minded person. My stance was I was never opposed to reasonable regulations that would protect our community, and people kind of ended up thinking the same way.”
Scott Pierce – “I ran on a resident-first, transparent platform that includes many of the issues we face on the island now and going forward. As a current member of Council, my voting record supports that stance. I was also fully in favor of the STR referendum. As a community, we’re going to face many pressing challenges over the next four years, and I will continue to represent IOP residents’ interests first.”
Jimmy Ward – “I’ve been around a while, and people have an opinion of me – hopefully more good than bad. I’ve always been about serving the community. I’ve been doing positive things for a long time. I try to keep a calm demeanor and turn the volume down a bit.”
