The Sea Pines Company of Hilton Head were no naïve
dreamers content to lose themselves in a utopian vision.
They were experienced resort community planners and
builders, realistic businessmen and women who knew that
tradeoffs would be inevitable, setbacks were unavoidable,
and not everything they wanted would come to pass. But
they proceeded with their dream, and they created what is
now, almost half a century later, celebrated as the top resort
destination on the east coast.
Their vision became a document known as the Planned
Development District (PDD). This original plan was
submitted to Charleston County Council for approval.
It laid out a concept for a high-end, carefully designed
resort community that would exist within a nature-based
framework. It was not your typical mass clearing of trees
and plantings to make way for tract homes and square city
blocks. Revisiting these original documents highlights how
much of what was initially envisioned has come to pass; many
ideas and plans were refined before being implemented, and
some concepts were abandoned altogether. The developers
themselves changed through the years, but the original
vision remained as the foundational document morphed and
adapted well beyond its original expected life.
The rationale for authorizing a PDD was to provide the
developer with a stable framework and time horizon to invest
tens of millions of dollars into the island. Without the legal
framework the PDD provided, it is unlikely any developer
would be willing to spend such a large amount of capital,
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given a return on their investment could be put at risk at
any time by government or regulatory whim. With a legal
commitment to a stable investing environment in place, the
Kuwait Investment Company and their subsidiaries went
about fulfilling their vision.
Before the Plan’s adoption, Kiawah was zoned as
“Agricultural Conservation” and “Agricultural General”
districts. Under these designations, development of up to
12,000 dwelling units would have been permitted. The first
result of adopting the PDD was to reduce this maximum
density level to 7,000 dwelling units. The definition of
a dwelling unit was a three-bedroom, two-bath house,
townhouse, or condominium. If a home had fewer bedrooms,
it would count as a proportional fraction of a dwelling unit,
and if it had more than three bedrooms, it would count as
proportionally greater than a single dwelling unit.
The developers estimated a tax surplus to the County of
$45 million in the first decade of development. Additionally,
they estimated construction contracts in excess of $150
million during the first decade.
Kiawah offered many advantages over other barrier islands
on the east coast. The PDD makes special note of Kiawah’s
physical attributes, noting that the island was, “… formed as
a result of the ocean’s recession during recent geologic time
and is part of an extremely dynamic environmental system.”
Kiawah covered 5,400 acres of land, of which approximately
3,830 acres were at least three feet above mean sea level (MSL)
and considered to be developable. Kiawah was blessed with an
accreting beachfront, several thousand acres of productive sea
marsh, and a well-formed series of dune ridges running the
length of the beach. It was a remarkably beautiful and stable
canvas upon which to create a world-class seaside resort.
Six Villages
The 1975 PDD envisioned six villages on Kiawah, each
appealing to a slightly different slice of the market. West
Village would be the first developed and would be at the
beginning of the island. Adjacent to what is now known as
Beachwalker Drive, this area included the County Park, plus
sufficient room for public parking spaces, picnic areas, and
nature trails. Turtle Beach was identified as an “isolated spit
of land,” what we know today as Captain Sams Spit. It was to
be a “… mile-long opportunity for walking, surf swimming,
sunbathing, shell collecting, fishing, and other beach-
related activities completely separated from the shorefront
development …”. Parts of Turtle Beach were to be closed for
portions of the year when shorebirds were nesting.
West Village was designed to provide “… a destination
beach vacation opportunity for lower-middle to middle-
income families and a day-trip beach experience for families
Naturally Kiawah