Mortgage Broker in Folly Beach, SC

FOLLY BEACH, S.C. (WCIV) — Tami Bourne has lived on folly beach for over three decades.

However, because of a recent development plan on Folly's beachfront lots, she is concerned.

Folly Beach resident fears overbuilding amid ongoing legal battle over beachfront development. (WCIV)

"When you have these disasters, these hurricanes, houses blow into houses," Bourne said. "So the more you put out there, the more it's gonna' get blown into the water. So it's just a problem that way. And also with the hurting the beach as far as making it erode more."

The super beachfront lots are along East Ashley Avenue, just north of the washout down to the lighthouse.

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"These lots were platted back in at least the 1950s," Leslie Lenhardt said, "and they are the most seaward of any lots that were platted on Folly Beach."

The plots are currently held in trust by the state for the public to enjoy. Some property owners attempted to claim ownership after the 2018 Folly Beach Renourishment Project.

"So for a very short period of time after that Renourishment, these lots became high ground," Lenhardt said. "These property owners, what they are trying to do during this window of time is to develop those lots."

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This is a legal battle that goes back to 2020. A judge hear motions on whether developers could build on those lots. The legal maneuvering is ongoing, with the issue expected to go before another court in the coming months.

"The Court of Appeals has remanded the case," Lenhardt said. "Because it's a novel issue, the court said we really want a judge to determine whether or not this is a recognizable theory under the law."

Multiple preservation groups and the city say they want to figure out the boundary between private and public property while preserving the beach.

"I'd like to keep folly as it is," Bourne said. "It's unique. It's funky. And I hate to see it get overbuilt and our beaches overbuilt."

People like to call Folly Beach the “fun” beach, and maybe it is, especially if you’re visiting for the restaurants and bars.

But there’s also a measure of serenity here if you know where, and when, to look.

Here’s the best way to find it: Get here early; 7 a.m. should work — before the traffic on the only road in and out becomes a nightmare.

Bring the dog if you have one: From May through September, they’re allowed on the beach before 10 a.m. and after 6 p.m.

Check the tides online before you arrive: at high tide, part of this walk is underwater.

Park in the grass just outside Folly Beach County Park. Make sure your tires aren’t on the pavement or you’ll have a ticket when you get back.

Take a right when your feet hit the sand.

Keep going, past the pelicans flying so low they could dip their toes in the water, past the last jetty trying to keep the sand from washing away.

Before you’ve walked a mile, you’ll reach a bend in the beach. This is the spot.

To the left, waves lap at the coast. To the right, still water.

It feels like you’ve reached the end of the ocean. Or the beginning.

Sit in the sand. Before you head back to civilization, let the scene wash through your eyes and into your body.

Explore

The Washout

Head to the other end of the island if your companion is a surfboard instead of a dog. A spot off East Ashley Avenue known as The Washout is a favorite for surfers. A bit farther along the street, a paved trail covered in graffiti leads to a small beach with views of the Morris Island Lighthouse.

If you’re brave enough, join the kite surfers being pulled along the water on windy days, sometimes soaring high above the surface before splashing back down.

Folly Beach pier

The pier reopened in December 2022 after a two-year, $14 million rebuild. It’s 1,049 feet long. The pier has been a part of Folly Beach — you can’t miss it if you head toward the sand — since the 1930s. Pay $5 for an all-day fishing pass or just walk to the end and listen to the water.

The pier is open from 8 a.m. to sunset.

Eat and drink like a local

Lost Dog Cafe

For brunch, the go-to meal for late sleepers or early drinkers, try Lost Dog Cafe. Located in a former laundromat on West Huron Avenue, you can find breakfast and bloodies on the menu all day. Try a breakfast burrito, or grab some fried green tomatoes and a chicken salad croissant from the lunch menu. And like many other eateries in Folly, your dog is welcome to join you.

Jack of Cups

A favorite of The Post and Courier’s food editor, Jack of Cups on Center Street has a menu built for the adventurous eater. Boasting a bevy of vegetarian options on a menu the owners describe as “globally inspired,” the kitchen also cranks out dishes you probably never come across at home: Among them: Cap’n Crunch deviled eggs, dill pickle soup and unicorn pop rock cheesecake.

The Bounty Bar

Created by the owners of The Royal American in Charleston, The Bounty Bar on Center Street aspires to serve “better than it has to be” bar food. It’s open until 1 a.m. daily and has you covered whether you’re craving seafood, chicken or steak.

Chico Feo

Head to Chico Feo on East Ashley Avenue for tacos, beer and live music. Check their calendar for musical performances. Or show up on a Monday for soapbox night, when you can sign up to take the stage and show off your talent, whether it’s singing, spoken word or parlor tricks.

Shopping

If you need groceries or a quick snack, try Bert’s Market on East Ashley Avenue.

A smattering of surf and beach shops in the heart of town will have everything you need for a day on the beach, including the towel or sunscreen you accidentally left at home.

While you’re indoors — easily the worst place to be at Folly Beach — you can also pick up some souvenirs for the family members who couldn’t join you.

If you plan to spend most of your time on the beach, there are some rules you should remember:

No alcohol, glass containers, plastic bags, balloons, Styrofoam, open fires, fireworks or littering.

Surfing without a leash is prohibited. From May 15 to Sept. 15, surfing is prohibited from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. from 2nd Street East to 3rd Street West. From Sept. 16 to May 14, surfing is allowed in any area. It is prohibited within 200 feet of the fishing pier.

Stay off the dunes and use public walkovers.

To protect sea turtle hatchlings, no lights are allowed that illuminate the front beach between 10 p.m. and dawn from May 1-Oct. 31. For a full list of beach rules, check visitfolly.com.

Reach John Ramsey at 843-906-9351. Follow him on Twitter @johnwramsey.

Food editor Parker Milner contributed to this report.

Folly Beach’s name may never seem more fitting than when one learns about a fresh legal battle playing out there — a battle that ultimately will decide if taxpayer-funded beach renourishment opens the door for public land to be converted back into private property whose owners may then build new homes on lots previously under water. The city and its allies should ensure this doesn’t happen.

Unfortunately, that will be a challenge because of Folly’s dynamic nature and unique history. More than a half century ago, Folly Beach had a road, Benke Drive, that ran between East Ashley and the ocean’s edge on the island’s easternmost end; this part of the beach was growing, and lots on both sides of Benke were platted and sold off. By the early 1980s, however, the sands shifted, and Benke was lost to erosion, and its lots were under water. A few years later, however, a sandbar migrated across Lighthouse Inlet and attached itself to the northern end of Folly, and some lots along Benke were high ground again. And the state baseline was drawn through the yet-undeveloped Benke Drive lots, allowing development on 28 of them.

Fourteen of these lots were built upon, and it’s no surprise that these homes — built between East Ashley and the beach — are among Folly’s most threatened, and the most likely to end up costing taxpayers once they fall into the ocean. The fate of the 14 remaining, undeveloped “super-beachfront” lots is now the subject of a fresh legal battle, as some owners have sought to capitalize on their freshly elevated status following the island’s 2018 beach renourishment.

To block them, the city of Folly Beach, the Coastal Conservation League, the nonprofit Save Folly Beach and several local homeowners filed a 2019 lawsuit challenging the ownership of this taxpayer-created land. Although a local judge ruled they did not have standing to bring such a challenge, the South Carolina Court of Appeals reversed that decision and ordered the case to proceed at the trial court level. That’s an auspicious step but likely only one of many to come before this matter is settled for good.

At the very least, we hope our courts continue to recognize that these groups should have standing to question this critical environmental decision. And it is critical, with implications far beyond the 14 lots on Folly Beach. As Amy Armstrong, executive director of the S.C. Environmental Law Project that represented the plaintiffs, explains: “As we have sea level rise and we have lands being converted to public trust land as they’re eroding away and going below the water, can you convert public land, with public money, into private property? It’s kind of crazy when you think about it in those terms.”

While this issue emerged first on Folly, the precedent set here will reverberate elsewhere as more coastal communities renourish their beaches more often due to sea level rise and stronger, more frequent storms. Our state’s Public Trust Doctrine says the state owns all land below the mean high water mark and holds this land in trust. A previous Supreme Court ruling has noted beachfront property owners take their title “at risk of loss to the State by natural forces,” but the courts haven’t settled what should happen when unnatural, sudden forces (like renourishment) shift our shoreline.

Locals realize Folly Beach actually received its current name (it originally was “Coffin Island”) from an old English word meaning “dense foliage,” not because of any association with a lack of good sense, prudence or foresight. But if we allow new homes to be built on its rapidly shifting sands right next to the water’s edge, the latter definition would fit all too well.

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FOLLY BEACH, S.C. (WCBD) – The Arctic Avenue Plan officially started being discussed in 2021, and on Thursday, there will be a public meeting where community members can give their input about the changes they’d like to see made to Arctic Avenue.

The City of Folly Beach is discussing plans to make several improvements to one of the city’s most active two-lane roads.

“What our proposal is saying, ‘Hey, lets make this officially a one-lane, one-way street with parking on one side and a pedestrian path on the other,’” Folly Beach Mayor Tim Goodwin said. “So people can have a place to walk, place to park and you still have a place wide enough to safely go down the street in your vehicle.”

Thursday’s public input meeting will be the second after the first one was held in June earlier this year.

Goodwin says consultants who were hired to carry out this project will show neighbors the two alternatives they’ve come up with for the city’s commercial and residential districts.

“They’ll show them all the drawings and proposed parking areas and non-parking areas and walking paths and all that,” he said. “Then, they’ll get feedback from the citizens like they did the first time.”

All that feedback will be considered before a formal proposal is presented to city administrators and city council.

“Then what we have to do is we have to take that and turn it into the Department of Transportation (DOT) for their approval,” Goodwin said. :It could take two years to be approved, just depends on how fast DOT wants to work.”

Katie Zimmerman with Charleston Moves says the development process leading up to this point has been phenomenal and she’s optimistic because the time and attention to detail the design team has put in.

“I mean a lot of the time,” Zimmerman said, “with a lot of these projects, there are no walking audits that are done, and they’ve done two. So, they’re really taking their time and collecting as much data and going out and seeing the user experience, which is really admirable.”

Goodwin says no matter which alternative is chosen, or how long it takes to implement the changes, he just wants to make sure it’s what’s best for everyone.

“For something like this that’s going to be around for a long time hopefully,” he said, “it takes a while to get it right because you definitely want to get it right the first time.”

The public input meeting will start at 5:00 p.m. Thursday at Folly Beach City Hall.

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The Folly Beach Turtle Watch Program is a group of 52 volunteers and one permit holder with SCDNR to monitor Folly Beach for sea turtle nests. They walk the beach every morning to check for tracks, nests, and nests that have already hatched. I had the opportunity to go on one of the walks, and I’ll tell you about it in this weeks Science 2 Go!

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