Free Parking at Hilton Head Island's Coligny Area

Tourists have been coming to the Coligny area of Hilton Head Island about since the first bridge to the mainland opened fifty years ago, but the area is in for some changes soon. And one of those changes involves getting rid of change, of the dime and quarter variety, that is.The Town Council voted Tuesday to make the about 400 parking spaces at the Coligny Beach Park lot free on a trial basis starting June 15th. That means the days of carloads of tourists scouring their minivans for quarters at the island's busiest beach spot or sneaking their cars into nearby Coligny Plaza could come to an end just in time for the prime summer season.Council members said eliminating the meters at the big public lot and at metered spaces along North Forest Beach Drive is a nice, welcoming gesture for island visitors. The meters brought in about $117,000 a year, which the council members called a relatively small amount. The town will re-evaluate the free parking plan at the end of the summer to see how it works.

Do I need a business license to rent my property?

Anyone who rents out only one property on Hilton Head Island would not have to get a business license under a revised plan town officials are considering.
Property management companies also would be allowed to apply for business licenses on behalf of individual owners.

The exemptions aim to iron out problems with the town's business-license system. The town recently discovered its method of administering business licenses was out of step with the rest of the state and it might have been missing out on key tax money, officials said. Ordinances in other areas of the state, including Myrtle Beach, require that anyone earning income from rentals have a license.

On Hilton Head, rental owners are exempt from a license if they rent out fewer than five properties. Earlier this year, property management companies complained that some rental owners might be bypassing state and local taxes because they rent their properties over the Internet and might not be aware of all the required taxes.

The town responded by saying that all rental owners must get a license. But doing so would have gone further than the town intended, requiring owners who use property management companies to be licensed. Property management companies opposed this, saying it would be too hard to manage and enforce.

Under the new proposal, those owners still would need to be licensed, but the town would allow management companies to apply for the licenses on behalf of the owners.
The new plan that exempts single-unit owners is a good compromise, said Ray Moloney, president and owner of Beach Properties of Hilton Head.

"If they exempt one property, that's a whole lot better than what they were talking about before," he said. "It would be less of an administrative headache."
Town officials said the proposed new license rules would be more fair to owners who only occasionally rent out their unit.

"There's a real difference in having a house and renting it," Mayor Tom Peeples said, "and being literally in the business of owning rental property."

Requiring owners who rent out more than one property to be licensed would give the town a database to check whether all owners are paying taxes, officials said. The change would apply to both short- and long-term rentals, but most of the taxes apply for short-term.

"There's just an equity issue. Every other industry has to have this," town manager Steve Riley said. "We've just been administering ours wrong for a couple of years."

Moloney said rental companies remain concerned that the town needs to step up enforcement to make sure everyone who rents a unit is paying the appropriate taxes.

Anyone who rents a property on the island for less than 90 days is required to pay a total of 10 percent in taxes: 5 percent sales tax, 2 percent state bed tax, 1 percent local bed tax and 2 percent beach-preservation fee.