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Peter Bohm of Port City Media filled in Chamber members and guests on plans to enhance the Discover IOP website and spruce the island as well.
Peter Bohm of Port City Media filled in Chamber members and guests on plans to enhance the Discover IOP website and spruce the island as well.
An impending referendum deciding the fate of a proposed ordinance to limit the number of investor-owned short-term rentals (STRs) on election day had Isle of Palms Chamber of Commerce members on edge at their Aug. 22 public meeting, as attendees were alerted to possible ramifications of new caps.
Chamber Vice President Rod Turnage asserted that several websites are spreading false claims in their efforts to endorse STR caps. In fact, he suggested that many residents who signed a petition to impose a proposed measure that would keep STR totals on IOP to 1,600 are misinformed.
The property management specialist went on to use Folly Beach as an example of a community that has seen its property values dip as a result of STR caps. To that point, he mentioned that the average sale of a Folly Beach land asset in June 2022 was $1.65 million, which one year later dropped to $1.248 million — a 25 percent decrease.
"What caused that? We think rental caps caused it," said Turnage.
Over the same period, conversely, IOP's properties jumped from an average value of $2.57 million in June 2022 to $2.77 million 12 months later — without the caps.
"If I apply that to Isle of Palms, all things being equal, your $2.7 million home will be worth $2 million within 12 months," he concluded. "That would be an example of a truth versus non-truth and we've got some others. That's what we're working on: getting the facts out."
Turnage and fellow Chamber officers in attendance at the IOP Exchange further agreed that voting in caps would negatively impact local commerce with the potential of fewer visitors vacationing on the island.
On that note, Turnage and Chamber President Ryan Buckhannon cautioned that their business advocacy group will tread lightly in promulgating their message, as the organization isn't interested in assuming a politically-motivated stance.
"Our job is to put out the facts and people make their decisions on that," added Buckhannon, who reported that his group will be pouring its energies into communicating their information on social media channels (i.e. Nextdoor, Facebook, etc.) in the coming weeks.
Members also noted that consideration was given to possibly hiring a consultant to inform the public on the purported ills of STR caps.
In other matters, Turnage acknowledged that the Chamber will be looking to invest its funds in geofencing. The endeavor would entail forming a virtual geographic boundary around the island via GPS and/or RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) technology to ping a mobile device when it enters or exits IOP confines.
On hand to divulge additional technology updates in relation to the Chamber's Discover IOP website (www.iopchamber.com) was Peter Bohm of Port City Media.
The Mount Pleasant-based content guru apprised the audience of recent work to continually enrich the site with new updates and blogs, which has spurred increased online activity on the part of business owners.
"We're not paying for bots; there's no fake people out there. Everybody's interacting, actual people — it's great," he said.
On that note, he promised that he would be reaching out to businesses that may be in need of extra publicity or that are trying to spread the word of an upcoming special event.
One project that Bohm will be focused on, he continued, entails rounding up businesses to partake in an end-of-summer "Trashathon" beach cleanup.
Participating merchants and entrepreneurs would be invited to donate $1 or $2 for every pound of collected rubbish. Those monies, in turn, would be gifted to worthy charities, according to Bohm.
"We think this would be a really fun, great opportunity to also show community outreach ... that we are out cleaning the entire island."
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