Short term rentals issue on Isle of Palms will be on the ballot in November

ISLE OF PALMS, S.C. (WCBD) – Isle of Palms voters will decide whether to cap short term rentals in November after a city council vote Tuesday.  

On Tuesday, Isle of Palms City Council held a special meeting to discuss a petition they received, asking them to adopt a new ordinance which would limit short term rentals on the island. The petition proposed capping Short Term Rental Business Licenses at 1,600 for non-primary residents.

Brian Duffy was one of the nearly 1,200 people to sign.

“People live here, people have jobs, people go to work, people have to get up at 5-6 o’clock in the morning for their jobs. And when the house next door to them is a short term rental, and they’re making noise until midnight, what’s that say that they actually care about people that live here? Not much,” Duffy told News 2.

On the other hand, long-time resident, Cal McCombs said he doesn’t think the rentals should be capped.

“There’s a lot of people out there that save their money for one week. ‘I want to come to the Isle of Palms for one week, bring my family, my grandparents, my parents,’ and they just have a ball down here,” said McCombs. “And I really don’t want to see anything that would take away from that.”

City council voted 5-4 against the first reading of the proposed ordinance. That means the issue will end up on the ballot in November as a referendum.

Mayor Phillip Pounds was one of the people to vote against the ordinance.

“My point is, to have 30% of our residents decide something this critical, that’s a generational decision, you know absent future changes from other administrations, I feel like you at least need to give 100% of our folks the opportunity,” the mayor said to News 2 after the meeting.

Mayor Pounds said council will spend the next two months crafting the language for the referendum. He said they must submit that to Charleston County by early September for it to be on the ballot in November.