The recently installed boardwalks at The Cape in West Beach have sparked many questions from the Kiawah community regarding their design, their location, their reach into the beach, having two boardwalks on one property, and the proper approvals being given to the developer, East West, beforehand. 

To provide the necessary background information and additional transparency, the Town would like to share the following: 

1. Prior to the development of “The Cape,” “Timbers Resorts,” and what is called more recently “Ocean Pines,” these properties have been registered as one parcel, referred to as Parcel 13. In 2016, this parcel was subdivided into these three lots as they started to be developed. 

2. Parcel 13 was platted with the beachfront property line reaching further onto the beach. This is indeed unusual for most Kiawah beachfront properties, except for a few properties along Eugenia Avenue and Royal Beach (for other reasons); beachfront properties end before the dunes, in the dunes, or aligned with or shortly before the primary dune. This is how Parcel 13 was platted decades ago before the Town was incorporated. This is not desirable many years later; however, the location of the boardwalk is within plat limits.

3. The current developer – East West – of the Cape property applied for DHEC approvals for both boardwalks. In line with their guidelines, DHEC approved:

- The proposed design in terms of width 

- The proposed design in terms of ADA Accessibility 

- The proposed design in terms of length (still on the property of The Cape)

- The two boardwalks for one single property due to the length of the property along the beach shore

4. In addition to DHEC approvals, the Town and ARB assess the structures. After DHEC’s approval, the Kiawah ARB and the Town of Kiawah approved the structures as proposed, as they fulfilled all the requirements of the ARB and the Town of Kiawah Island at the time.

5. With the recent strong winter storms, especially the unusually strong Nor’easter storm on December 17, the shoreline changed significantly, altering the profile of the active beach, resulting in non-compliant boardwalks that reached further onto the active beach.

6. When this happened, it created a safety concern for both our Beach Patrol and for emergency vehicles. Therefore, the Town staff and the ARB started discussions with the property owner and the contractor to redesign and relocate the boardwalks. The Town is assessing to ensure that the boardwalks are compliant and responds to needs of accessibility for emergency and code enforcement vehicles.

The Town is working to resolve this concern soon. Further details will be provided when there are updates.