During our most recent Town Council meeting, we unanimously passed Our Plan, the 2020 to 2040 comprehensive plan for the Town of Hilton Head Island. Our Plan is foundational for the island’s growth and development. It provides a baseline of existing conditions and outlines goals, strategies, and tactics for the future of the town and island community. This document is crafted as a dynamic and informational guide that reflects integral components of the island community fabric. It also serves as a tool for the town and community leaders to strengthen and preserve the island culture, image, character, and unique sense of place. Finally, it embodies a vision towards the revitalization and modernization of our economy and infrastructure while building an inclusive and diverse community.
You may ask why such a document is needed. South Carolina’s Local Government Comprehensive Planning Enabling Act of 1994 requires that all planning commissions develop a comprehensive plan to guide development and redevelopment of its municipality. We could not have completed Our Plan without community engagement. Over 100 citizens representing a broad and diverse cross section of our community joined us in the process of developing this comprehensive plan. The outcome of many meetings held over the last 12 months is a very thorough plan that reflects diverse thoughts, historical perspectives, and future guidance on every aspect of our community, from parks and recreation to the economy and regional partnerships. It shows that we all have a stake in how our community is preserved and developed over the next 20 years.
With this plan approved, our next step is bringing the strategies and tactics entailed in it to life. This is not a plan that just sits on a shelf. It is a 370-page document filled with the ideas we want to use in making Hilton Head Island a better place when it comes to embracing our culture and our residents, protecting our environment, addressing issues such as workforce housing, and improving our parks, recreation, bridges and other facets of our community. I encourage you to take some time to peruse this comprehensive plan and get a feel for what’s in store for the future of Hilton Head Island.
As I close, I want to thank our town staff who dedicated themselves to completing this plan. They worked side-by-side with citizens and facilitated the process to fine tune the ideas, strategies and tactics that emerged through various teams. They were led by a group of citizens who made up the Our Plan Development Team, which was tasked with making sure all the teams worked in a manner to create a cohesive plan and met the goals of the process. On behalf of Town Council, I express my sincere appreciation to our citizens who served on the Development Team and the other work groups as part of this planning process.
To review the 2020-2040 comprehensive plan for the Town of Hilton Head Island, visit hiltonheadislandsc.gov.
