City Council - workshop

Thank you. you you

Are we ready? Let's do it. Good morning. Welcome to the July 28th Myrtle Beach City Council Workshop followed by the regular City Council meeting. The year's half over, a little more than half over. I would argue that summer is about half over, too, at this point. So let's get right started. We've got a couple of items on the workshop agenda today, beginning with the 21st Avenue HUD discussion. HUD is Planned Unit Development.

Good morning, Mayor and Members of Council. This is an item that an applicant requested to be workshopped to put before y'all. It was unanimously denied by Planning Commission. It's a good project, just a hard ask with what they're asking for to the Planning Commission's mindset. They're requesting .9 parking spaces per one bedroom unit in lieu of one parking space per bedroom unit. There's also some requests in regard to some alley swaps and some relocations and some beautification of 21st Avenue. which I feel the applicant could do a better job of presenting that to y'all. They're the ones with the hard ask in regard to this. But I'll be glad to answer any questions or go over the thing. But they've got their own presentation set up that they'd like to just present to y'all, if that's fine with y'all's counsel. If you have a preference, we'll go with your preference. I would prefer them to do their presentation, and I'm here to answer any questions and can fill in any blanks that may come along out of it for you.

Okay.

Good morning.

Good morning. I'm Jeff King with King Cunningham. We have today with us Matthew Britton with Breakers Resorts and Jim Hubbard, architect with LS3P, who will be doing some of the presentation. As Ken mentioned, we're here mainly to focus on the primary issue, which is this parking request, which we do realize is a unique and different ask. When we come back for the full presentation and meeting, we'll get into the public improvements and all that. But we really wanted to just get in front of you guys and just talk about this a little bit and let you know the request is not coming from a vacuum. It's based on the operator's real-world experience with operating hotels in this area for years, and specifically the dual-branded Marriott next door. This project is a high-end dual-branded Hilton, which again will be right next door to that. And so just based on the clientele and their experience over the years with this type of hotel and the, I don't know, the habits of the guests, We believe this is reasonable and fits within their needs. I mean, it certainly, in their opinion, will not cause a problem with their guest experience or anything like that, which is kind of where this is coming from. And we just want to give you some of the background on where that is or what that is coming from. And with that, Matthew Britton will go over some of the details.

Thanks. Good morning. Morning. Thank you for your time today. Want to concentrate on two aspects of this project that are foremost in our minds and the first one is Guest experience we are Probably the most concerned of anyone Affiliated with this project about the guest experience and I assure you that that we do not want to impinge in any way, shape or form upon that experience, which begins for most Myrtle Beach vacationers with a car trip down here and a parking place when they check into their hotel. So that's first and foremost. And the second important point that we want to make this morning is that this is a PUD And there are reasons that one parking place, we don't have a big argument with it in general, but in this PUD situation, it is unique. And we have four, essentially four resorts or hotels, you might call them condos, they're all three of those that are in this PUD. And therefore, they're all parking in the same parking places and that that's a key point here they share this parking four different resorts share quite a few parking places and they're able to make more efficient use for that reason so two key points we're concerned with the guest experience we're not going to recommend something that we're not sure will be comfortable for our guests and secondly these four resorts make for a different situation than an ordinary standalone hotel. So if we go back one, the reason we're here is we feel that they're changing travel patterns to Myrtle Beach. The airport plays a more important role. Clearly, 95%, some very high percentage of guests come by car, they don't fly. But a large number of people do fly, and that is a branded hotel's guest. That is our guest. They land at the airport, they have their phone, they have their Uber app, they have their Marriott app or their Hilton app. They're an experienced traveler. They get in that Uber, they come to the breakers, and that's a We know that's a high percentage. Buddy Hux has a little program he uses that tracks people's cell phones. And we are the 11th most visited hotel. The Sheraton is the number one hotel, but we're the 11th from the airport to our hotel directly. And we know that that particular traveler is a big part of our customer base. took the time as we got involved with this to do a couple of studies. One study is more general. In the three and a half years that we have had the present situation at the breakers, we built the proper number of parking places that the PUD required. Since that time, some of those have drifted into Hopefully the city won't come tomorrow and inspect us, but, uh, we, we have drifted into storing carpet here or putting up particular, um, um, office in those spaces. We've also loaned, uh, one of our parking lots to a sister restaurant that we don't even use that parking lot because we don't need it. And in those three and a half, uh, three and a half years, because we charge for parking. We know how many parking places we need on any given night. And only 10 days of that entire three and a half year period did we reach the maximum parking places. No guest experience was impinged, never crossed my desk that we had a problem. Those guests generally end up at two o'clock in the morning. We kind of say when the bars let out is when the last guest comes back to the breakers. And it's just not an issue. In the three and a half year period, there were only 10 days where we even got close to the need for that parking. Keeping in mind, we have several that are not being used as parking and a whole parking lot that we've given to a sister restaurant. So we also, on the nights of the 10th and 11th of July, A couple of weekends ago, we got three individuals to spend the night starting at 11 o'clock. And for 11, 12, 1, 2, 3, and 4 o'clock in the morning, we took a picture of every single parking place that was vacant at the breakers in all of the parking lots. the two nights we had one night where we had one room vacant so Friday night we had one room vacant Saturday night we were completely full at no time during that period did we have less than 80 parking places that we took a picture of that was vacant and I think that's part and parcel of our argument here it's it's Yeah, it's not an official study, but it is the middle of the summer, the height of the season, and that's, yeah, we just don't need the number of parking places that we have. Here you see a picture of, or a diagram of the parking places that we have. It's quite a few, and two of them are parking garages and the rest are surface parking. This is the proposal for the new Hilton. And the two things going on here that we think are helpful, number one is we are closing off three access points, one on the Boulevard, one on 21st Avenue, and one on Withers, There will no longer be ingress and egress at those spots for the parking, which will help with the traffic. And then the green indicates a view corridor that we're trying to open up coming down 21st Avenue. There's a little berm or hill at the top of this diagram when you come over that berm. you will be able to see down 21st Avenue. And of course, the two buildings, the Hilton and the Marriott, are set back to give a view corridor to the ocean. And the last thing we'd like to say is that we would have in place a plan if for any reason the travel patterns change and we have to do something different, more parking places are needed. We do have a plan to work with city planning and the city officials to come up with alternatives for that. All right, questions? Here is a rendering both at night and during the day of the two buildings, one existing and the Hilton to the left that is proposed.

Yeah, the Hilton to the left is the new building that necessitated this conversation, correct? Exactly. Okay. I've got comments at some point along the way. I don't know whether Jim has anything to add or not. Okay. I can start. Let me start, if I may. For years, the planning folks told me we were over-parked. I don't know whether during the 2015 zoning rewrite we reduced the number of parking spaces. We may have done that. Your difference is 1 10th of the total number of parking spaces. So what's the number required?

Actually, even less than that. It's 1 10th of the single parking spaces. UNIT HOTEL ROOMS. WE'RE NOT ASKING FOR A CHANGE TO TWO, THREE AND FOUR BEDROOM UNITS.

WHAT'S THE NUMBER OF REQUIRED PARKS?

MAYOR AND COUNCIL, AT THIS TIME, IT'S 667, 666. AS MATTHEW MENTIONED, THERE ARE MULTIPLE PARKING LOTS, PARKING GARAGES. THERE'S PARKING THAT'S BEEN through another phase of the PUD that is dedicated to some degree for this PUD. This was the first PUD that we did in the city many, many years ago, nearly 30 years ago. And this PUD has been modified multiple times. So we are prepared to answer that question fully at the council, but that's what the rough numbers indicate now, Mark.

And what are you proposing to actually construct?

So right now it looks to be 61 spaces less, and that's well within that 80-plus surplus that they're seeing.

Okay, good. The state of North Carolina, I don't know whether you're familiar with this or not, recently passed a statewide law that reads... Local governments can no longer require a set number of parking spaces, although coastal counties retain exemptions, and this is for new residential and commercial parking statewide. The coastal counties were exempt on a couple of areas, but it only applies to certain redevelopment activities that don't increase upon the built upon areas. So the whole state of North Carolina is saying that the business community is competent enough to determine how many parking spaces it needs and that local governments, cities, counties cannot require a set number of parking spaces for new residential or commercial That may be a little farther than we need to go here, but this seems reasonable. In my mind, your illustrations of not ever being at capacity just makes sense. You don't need to overbuild something. You do have the capacity if conditions change and you can add spaces in the future, but I don't see any reason for us to require that you add spaces that you know at this point you will not use. Council?

I think with this PUD, very unique in that you've got currently the Sailfish, the Courtyard, Marriott, the Breakers and the Dunes, four hotel sharing space all within the same kind of management organization. And so I think this provides a really very unique situation in regards to the parking. And this makes a lot of sense to me, just logistically, for that to happen. And they've got good data. And I know, first and foremost, if people can't park, they're upset. And so you want your customers to come back, and I'm sure you have a very high return rate on your customers. And this also feels like one of the, we've heard from the Chamber of Commerce that our travelers are looking for that branded hotel and this is what they're providing. And I think to get that branded hotel elevates Myrtle Beach and I feel like they've got a good plan.

Everything that Dr. Conner has just said, I agree with everything that you've said, Mr. Britton. The dynamics of our travelers have changed. We've got more and more people coming by air. Therefore, they don't need a parking spot 90% of the time. I remember whenever we had our property, I bet you my back parking lot on Withers, three days out of the year, was full. That was it. So things are changing, and I really don't have any problem with the reduction myself. But it's up to this council.

A couple of things. A lot of motels on the beach, they enforce about their parking as to who belongs to be parked in their parking lot and not. I don't think y'all do that. Y'all don't patrol your parking lot to see if there's people parked there that shouldn't be parked in your parking lot like many, many, many motels and restaurants and other locations do that, correct?

We have not found the need. Of course, we have security and we patrol it, but we do not.

You don't enforce that?

In fact, as I've said, we have neighbors that we let park in our parking lot.

The other thing I would look at is, you know, I haven't been living in Myrtle Beach a long time, depending on who you ask. But the biggest thing I've always heard about the city of Myrtle Beach was not the amount of parking in a particular property, such as a motel or something like that. The biggest problem I've always heard was the amount of, or the less amount of public parking we have. And I think that's what our major problem has been, more so than private parking, has been public parking. I would say that just based on what I'm seeing, what I've heard, I don't have any issue with this at all. When you have... your properties maxed out in the rooms, and you still have a number of parking spaces still available, plus some that you could use that you don't use on top of that. So I don't have any. I think this will work. I really do.

I've got a question for Ken, just for clarity. The Planning Commission turned the request down. Is that correct?

Yes, sir, they unanimously denied.

Was it simply because of the code says this and we need to change it to this?

No, their main part of thinking was best case scenario. Best case scenario is that you do have every room full and that everybody that did come there drove a car. It's the best case scenario for them is that every room is full, but we're not requiring one parking space per room. That was their big take in regard to it. And then that's kind of what we have to, I guess the example that they use is a good one, is the mall. That mall parking lot is only for probably five days a year, and that's around your holidays. Okay, but if we did parking for the mall based on the average parking requirements, you would probably have half the parking that you've got out there right now. And that would be a parking lot that I wouldn't want to be fighting for a parking space in regard to it. I see all the points that y'all were making. One of the things that I had brought in to their attention on that whenever Matthew made the statement that we're prepared to work with the city if the need arises, There's a section in our zoning code that, hypothetical, you've got a location that requires 150 parking spaces. The applicant comes in to us and he goes, there's no way I'll ever need more than 120 parking spaces. We approved a plan that shows all 150 spaces on that site plan. There's a section in the code that allows a zoning administrator to say, all right, you will only be allowed to put in 120 spaces, but this additional 30 spaces, this has to remain open, it has to remain free, and if anytime we feel that there is a need for that additional parking, we have the right to come in and require you to do so. In my discussions with them, I think we've worked through where they can include that type of language in the pvp that gives me the sense of comfort that i'm looking for one of the other statements that he made it goes back to a statement that you previously made mayor whenever they said that they've taken some of the parking spaces and use them for storage and things along those lines That's because over the years, the parking has been reduced. And so those spaces were no longer required spaces, so to speak. The 20 years I've been here, we have never increased parking requirements. We have only decreased parking requirements. We've gone from some places that required one and a half parking spaces per hotel room to now we're at 1.1 for a single hotel room, I mean for a hotel room. So the parking continues to go down. It's just a fear factor on my part for best-case scenario. And kind of like Councilman Conner said, you want to get somebody upset, let them come back to the hotel after a late night and don't have a place to park. They're looking for anybody and everybody, and it might be that poor little girl sitting behind the counter that's just there for a late-night check-in. So that's my concern. I think a little bit of that language about if the need arises that they have a plan to be able to put that in. I think that makes it a bit of an easier swallow, so to speak, going in with that. But now the other thing, too, is this .9. will not only apply to the new hotel that's under construction, it will apply to any existing rooms that are currently out there too. That's how it went to the total of 60 spaces. It'll just be a reduction of like 27 for this original building, but by including the other building, And there's possibly some other language that I can get them to add into the PUD because every hotel owner does not operate the way that the Britons do. Every hotel owner does not have a conglomerate of four or five hotels within the same district. um so i don't want a gentleman that's only got a 40 room hotel to come in here and think that 0.9 parking spaces is a viable option for him as well so i'm thinking that we could probably get them to put some language in there is do the fact that we exceed x number of rooms total count with what would be allow us to get that 0.9 parking spaces because um Myrtle Beach, once they see one person do it, everybody's going to want it. So we need to put some type of conditions in place that it's only applied to those where it should be applied properly in regard to it. And I think if that's the direction this council wants to go, that that's something that we can work out with the applicant as far as putting some additional protective language in place for us.

Ken, I'm not hearing that from the council during our conversations here. A PUD is literally a zoning district where you can craft the requirements, if I heard Jeff correctly, you are meeting the code requirements for two, three and four bedroom spaces, correct? This is just for the one bedroom space that instead of one parking space, it's nine tenths of a parking space. I think they've got the capacity that they're not using that is over and above what would be required under the current code, in fact, or under the current PUD language. And then I hadn't thought about this, but Mike made an excellent point. We're talking about 600-plus parking spaces for four hotels. The city's total public parking, city-owned, not all the other private lots, the city's total public parking east of Kings Highway is only like 2,500 spaces. So we're talking about a quarter of the city's total public parking within this PUD. That sounds like a lot to me at the end of the day.

Yeah, but the statement that you made there They're not in compliant with parking with what they're doing right now. They may not have full parking spaces, but I can't enforce based off what's gonna happen this weekend or what's gonna happen next weekend. I have to enforce off the code as written that was adopted by council.

Well, this is a PUD, though, so this is a... Yes, sir. This is... We're spelling out the requirements for this designated piece of property.

Yes, sir, and the statement that I'm making is regard to the next PUD that's going to come through here or the next hotel year that's going to come through here. I'm not speaking against anything that they've said. All I'm doing is establishing a field where it will be applied properly. I don't think if this was a 50-room hotel that came in here and wanted to do .9 parking spaces that y'all would be all excited about only having... 45 parking spaces for a 50 room hotel I think it's the magnitude of the number of total rooms that gives you all that comfort and so that's all I was saying was there that we can put some language into that PUD that you know to be able to get this point not that they will receive the 0.9 parking spaces based through the fact they could put language and said if we exceed 500 total rooms we're allowed to go to a 0.9 parking space I'm not looking at this solely from this I'm looking at this from every putt that's going to come down the line from here on forward. As far as the private parking goes in regard to this matter, yes, there may be an abundance of private parking, but none of that private parking can be applied toward their parking count. I'm not saying that the parking is not there. I'm just saying it's not there as far as me being able to enforce from a code standpoint.

Mr. Mayor, I understand that. Go ahead. I'm hearing what you're saying, Ken, and I'm hearing what you're saying about just add this language, just work this out in this language that you're talking about that you can reach a comfort level on. And I get the sense from head nods over here that it can be worked out. So, you know, okay, if there's a way to work it out, and it'll work, and you have a comfort level with it, then let's get that, let's work together and get that language in there, and then we can make this thing work.

And that's why we wanted to come here with y'all to make sure that we weren't just going to spin our wheels trying to come up with something that wasn't something that was going to happen.

I hear exactly what you're saying, Ken.

And Ken, I appreciate what you're saying too, and I think you know, another PUD coming in, it might not be five hotels, condominium mix, you know, use with all the same owner. This is very, very unique.

Yes. Everything's trying to, the stars are trying to get aligned on this one.

Everything's unique.

I understand. And we're not changing the underlying code. This is specific to this PUD, and the PUDs aren't cookie cutter by any stretch of the imagination. They're not copy and paste. That's the correct statement.

And you're just looking for guardrails, basically?

Yes, sir. That's simple. I've got to be able to answer this same question eight, ten years from now when there may be a completely different council sitting up there behind that dais.

I agree, but I think that I think all of you working together, you can come up with the language to put the right guardrails on it to get it done. And again, this is a unique PUD, right? It's its own zoning map, for lack of a better description. And there will be others that come up that will also be unique. So if we do need some type of overall language in the code, then let's also look at that now rather than waiting for that to happen.

I think every PUD we have is very unique in its own certain way to some extent.

Yeah, and they each need to be decided upon with their own merit.

We've got to vet every single one of them on the individual basis when they come through. Yes, sir. Phil, Mike.

The only thing I would just add is, you know, I'm sitting here just thinking over the past probably eight years, we've been talking about how do we elevate the brand here in Myrtle Beach, and this is what I want to see. All I would say is just work it out. I'm going to support it 100%. It's a great project.

It was just kind of viewed as a hard ask by Planning Commission, and they wanted to get y'all's way in.

I appreciate Planning Commission.

One question for Michelle, if I could, and you may not be able to answer this right now. It looks like a fantastic project. What I'm interested in is what revenue will it generate, this new construction, because we have to pay bills. And you don't have to give me that number right now, just an estimate.

The only way I can give you an estimate is if the owner wants to give me their projections for hotel rooms and their sales. Otherwise, it would be pulling it out of thin air.

Thank you, Michelle.

You know the numbers, person.

You're under no obligation to disclose a construction cost or anything like that, but I want to give you the opportunity if you wanted to mention it.

I was talking more in terms of tourism tax dollars. An estimate would be great. Thank you.

It'll be more than we currently have.

Anything else on this subject? Thanks, guys.

Thank you.

This will be on your agenda for the 11th. Okay. And will that agenda item include the public improvements and alleyway swaps and things like that? That will be covered in the presentation on the 11th. Because I don't think I've seen anything in advance on that.

The presentation that they gave the planning commission is in your packet. Okay. So you should have all that spelled out in there.

That's on me.

Up next, Christmas light discussion. And Troy Marin, our special events coordinator, is here. I asked for this to be in the workshop so that we could talk about it before Christmas got here and City Council didn't know what was going on. So this is just information about what we're doing.

All right. Well, good morning. Good morning.

Good morning.

Well, we are moving into our sixth year of the Winter Wonderland display. And really... have expanded and finally last year connected both of the piers. So we are now from 2nd Avenue Pier all the way to 14th Avenue. And this year are really planning on expanding out to Ocean Boulevard between 2nd and 12th Avenue to kind of give the whole downtown an experience with the lights where it's not just out on the boardwalk. I will tell you that the boardwalk is a wonderful display and we really do have folks going down there. We have expanded every year. Moving over from the pavilion lot to the boardwalk really did improve how the lights are presented. We will expand out this year. Our plans are to move also to the two, the north and south welcome signs. have a little bit of display on each one of those. So when you come into town north or south, you see some Christmas lights. And we'll be also adding to some of the city facilities on Kings Highway. So the library will have a small display in their corner lot right there on 14th. And station three will also have a fire truck with a Christmas tree on it and a Elf putting out fire. And we're slowly expanding. We're trying not to bite off more than we get you every year. Just get out into it. And the only other thing that really, and I want to say this in front of council, is the lights that are on Kings Highway that are on the poles, honestly, they look a little sad. I think part of that is our expansion of that. We're going from 3rd Avenue South to 38th Avenue North Our plan this year is to condense that down a little bit, maybe go from 7th Avenue to 14th and bring things in, and then use some of those light pole fixtures on Ocean Boulevard to go from 2nd to 9th to meet up with the new overhead lights. Any questions?

And y'all may remember this better than I do. I was thinking there was a request a couple of years ago before I was sitting here to expand the Kings Highway lighting north and south. Was that my imagination?

The plan at one point in time, it went like that 8th Avenue or 7th Avenue north to 21st Avenue north. I believe at one time, and then at one point we voted to expand it to 3rd Avenue South to where it is now.

38th Avenue is where we cap on the northern.

That's what took place.

Do you want to change that is my question. If that's where we're headed, do you want to change that?

I would like to change that. I really think it needs to be expanded. And we did have discussion a few years back about that. And I thought that we were heading in that direction, but it seemed like last year, I was like, well, we don't have as many up on Highway 17 as we've had in the past. As far as maintenance, do we maintain them? When they come down, we clean them up, you clean them up, your team cleans them up.

My team, John out here and I, we take them down, we restring them if we have to. We're doing all the work. Two years ago, we took possession of the lights from the company that we buy them from. They have always stored them in the past, but that expense got... Are you talking about the pole lights or the... Pole lights. Even those. Public Works does put those up for us, but if those need work, they're coming to me.

And we've owned those.

Yeah, we purchased the ones on Kings Highway. We've always owned those. We've always owned those, yes.

Yeah, okay.

Can you be specific about what your expectations are?

So right now it goes from what to what again? Third Avenue South.

Third Avenue South.

To 38th Avenue North. I think it needs to go south, frankly.

And I'm not going to argue with you on this one, but just the fact is that I would love to see it go the entire distance. Some of the problem we have, even where we're at now, is that every pole is not usable for Christmas lights. So right now we are on every pole that we can use. I am trying to work with Santee Cooper to get... more poles usable in the, right now, the smaller section I just talked about from, say, 7th Avenue to 14th or 16th in that downtown area. And then I think progress back up to where we were talking about going out, up and down.

Sounds like Santee Cooper needs a lot of work.

We're working on that.

Yeah. There's a lot of polls.

But to be clear, your proposal is to take them off Kings Highway and move them on to... To condense, yeah, to condense right now down.

But we, again, that's a proposal and that's why we're here. And then work back towards really lightening up. Because right now, to give you some idea, from third... to 38th, there's 120 lights up on the poles, and you wouldn't know that. They're just, the space is so big. They're so sparse. Yeah, the space is so big and distance so long, it just doesn't.

So I've got a question. Is there a possibility that we could do holiday banners? As well, I know we've got a lot of polls that we put up, the military banners, and we got really great feedback from that. The vertical poll banners?

Yeah, there is.

So that might be something that could dress up what we're doing and you wouldn't have to have electricity on the polls.

Yeah, that's some of the answers for that. We're also using flags this year. This year for 4th of July, we put the history of the American flag down the boardwalk. We're kind of going in that same direction, even on the boardwalk this year. We've got some holiday flags to go up, and we think we can use them some other places in the city.

I'd love to see a variety of banners.

Go ahead.

Well, just piggybacking off with the banners and everything, I really think that every entrance that we have coming into Myrtle Beach also needs some banners out there, Winter Wonderland. happening these dates, and this is where. All right.

That's something we can do relatively quickly. Yeah. When we are talking about lights, I just, again, information-wise, right now, well, next week I'm going to pick up the lights that we ordered for this year. When I do that, I will be ordering lights next year.

And we, Michelle and Marla, we've put money in the budget to buy more Christmas lights. What kind of quantity? How much money are we talking about?

I mean, I can tell you what I've ordered for this year is in the $70,000 range. Troy. No big pieces this year, though. Nothing that's going to cost $70,000 for one.

What is your thought, again, of where you think we should condense it to? What area from what area?

So right now, our thought is to go from 3rd Avenue to, we'll say, 16th Avenue to kind of Start downtown to move back away from from the display we have on the beach Which is where people are coming to see the lights and kind of make a corridor that gets them down there And then eventually move back and then and also what you're talking about in that area to speed limits 25 mile an hour.

Yes Yes, people might have a more opportunity to see the lights than driving 45 mile an hour 35.

Yeah, I think I think right down there at 3rd Avenue South, it falls down to 35 and then again to 25.

It changes to 40 at 3rd Avenue. It goes from 35 to 40 at 3rd Avenue South.

But that would kind of focus more for it to be like in a downtown area.

I think that's our thought is start there and then expand back out. And I know we're five years in, but being talking to other cities that have done this and St. Augustine Florida is one of them they're in their 35th year and they're finally think they're you know they got it right so you know at five and six years we're still figuring it out and and I think in my brain I've got a three to five year plan for this and in five years from now I think we are out back out to you know further down and and actually Jackie, the way you're talking, going this way, I'm thinking of going this way and then coming in from the welcome signs also, starting to come back this way.

I would just suggest we make it the 16th. 16th? Okay.

And Troy, is there any collaboration with the Chamber on this kind of effort?

The Chamber has always been a part of this. They do our kind of marketing. They put that kind of stuff out. We've always had OMA and BDA as part of this. I have talked to John Crutch recently about getting the Cultural Arts Commission in to help out a little bit. And I'm always looking for help.

I would suggest that the mayor, perhaps, and you, or Fox, actively talk with the chamber about a joint effort, more collaborative effort, other than ideas, including funding.

I would have any talk we want to have to... improve and make this easier. Honestly, it is a two-person crew that is putting up most of the lights. We're both here right now, John and I. When we have the bigger pieces, we do pull in people from parks. The building maintenance department helps out a lot with the bigger pieces with the lifts and stuff. But our overall view on downtown and on the boardwalk is that this is an accessible walk. It's accessible to wheelchairs, strollers, Yeah, you know mobility cards and it is complimentary. It's free So even families that can't afford to go pay to see lights the other light displays in the county Can come down here the parking I believe is free During December so there is absolutely no cost to come down and see the lights.

I've got two things so Last year when I was talking with some of the business owners down on the boulevard and that area down there, I had asked them, I'm like, why do your neighbors next door, why do they not decorate? Why do they not put just lights up or something to kind of fill in the gaps? Because you all of a sudden have a gap here and then a gap over here. And they were like, you know what? I'm not sure that they know how to do it. So my suggestion is maybe if we could find somebody to put together a lighting package for a small storefront, maybe they would be interested in purchasing a small package, not necessarily from us, but from a lighting company of some sort. Two, I don't know that we shouldn't put together a program where businesses can actually sponsor a lighting display. I mean, they do it in other cities. Johns Island, you go through and you see, okay, you've got the Nutcracker and animation and stuff, and it's sponsored by so-and-so bank, Wells Fargo Bank, or whatever. And I think we need to put together a program to kind of get other businesses on board, other than just the businesses that are down there on the boulevard.

I agree with you all the way. The real deal is we have had that in the past, especially with sections of the boardwalk, each section individually sponsored by a different, the real deal with that is I can't do that. I need help from outside to do that. Again, logistics and yeah, so all the help we can get, as I'm saying, I would love to have that. I would love to be able to sponsor other things and even some of the smaller events that we have be covered by sponsorship.

Troy does a fabulous job on behalf of the city. I would like to see a future budget discussion. You're an event coordinator. I would like to see an event planner on staff, somebody who brings events to the table.

Again, yes.

Somebody who brings events to the table and makes them happen. Troy makes a lot of stuff happen, but somebody who brings the creative piece to it as well.

A number of years ago, along Ocean Boulevard, Jackie, you may have been part of that at that time, there was a, for lack of a better way to say it, there was a competition along

It's Treasures by the Sea.

It was a long, long time ago.

Yes. I'm not so sure that I was all thrilled about the by the sea thing. I'd just like for it to look a little more traditional for that time of year, but I think it would be a great idea if maybe through the Chamber in their membership, and maybe not just Ocean Boulevard, but Highway 17 as well, or any business in the city limits that wanted to get involved with this. And I think the one thing I remember about how, when we had that take place, it was just unbelievable how many different motels and stuff. participated in that. The whole area down there looked really great.

Let me cover a couple of things real quickly here. So Kings Highway would be 3rd Avenue South to 16th Avenue North with lights. Does that mean more lights than we've seen in the past?

It means more volume of lights in the space.

And then where on Ocean Boulevard will we see lights?

On Ocean Boulevard we are thinking from 2nd Avenue North. where the walk actually starts, up to 9th, which is where the overhead lights pick up now. And those, of course, will be Christmas lights this year. They will be colored for the holidays. They go to 16th, so.

And then adding them at the welcome centers.

Yes, welcome signs.

I also want you to mention, and I want to talk briefly about Halloween, but I've got something else I need to get to before I get there. I also want you to mention the three-day festival thingy, too.

Okay.

But I like Jackie's idea of having the businesses encouraged maybe through a package of some sort. That's a good idea. But where are we in terms of allowing seasonal lighting year-round? Last I heard, we didn't allow people to use their own decorating skills to decorate seasonal lighting year-round. We required them to hire a contractor to do that. Are we still doing that, or have we resolved that?

Working through those on a case-by-case basis. I know I had a conversation with some business owners. We're allowing it to get them through where they need to get done. But as part of the zoning rewrite, as part of where it's coming, is where that will be taken on.

And that was on my list to ask later in the meeting. Where are we on the zoning rewrite? Don't answer that now. We need to change the code, though, to allow seasonal lighting year-round.

I have to look into that. I know I've worked with a couple business owners to get them to where they needed to go.

But if we're going to have stores decorate their own things, that may run afoul of where we are. I'd like to make that simpler at the end of the day. Talk a little bit about the three-day festival.

You could have a special event time frame to do that kind of stuff versus having to change the code.

They want to do it year-round. We allow it three months out of the year, and if it's good three months out of the year, why wouldn't it be good year-round? I mean, we decorate Broadway Street. The city, or the Downtown Redevelopment Authority, decorates Broadway Street.

Yes, they do.

The festival?

All right, so one of the plans for this year, and I've kind of held off on this because I wanted to get in front of everybody, but... We are coming back with some of the other things we've tried in the past and they kind of worked and some didn't. But this year, what we really are thinking is we'll have a three day festival street festival right on Ocean Boulevard. Some of the inflatables that we've had all winter themed inflatables. So we are looking at snow bumper cars and. Toboggan slides.

Snow what?

They're called snow bumper cars. They're bumper cars that are just, you know, inside an inflatable thing. But it's something kids will eat up. And then we are working on, I'm going to say this out loud. Val might kill me on this one, but sled races on the boulevard. So sort of like the dragon boat race. and bed races from Detroit kind of combined together. We built some sleds, racing sleds we call them, and we'll get three-person teams down, and you push this sled down, you throw some snowballs into a target thing, and then your third teammate picks up and pushes you back over the finish line.

Ground Zero does a snowball fight indoors every year, which is spectacular.

So along those lines, vendors, that kind of thing, we really would like to include as many of the downtown teams vendors as possible to get them out on the street and really make it a street festival, really including, we think, maybe a hot cocoa crawl one of the nights. We still include our twinkling two-miler that week that would be earlier in the week, and then the bike ride on Thursday, our light-up-the-night bike ride. But that's a full thing, and that would cap the end of our real events downtown for us. So you start with the tree lighting on November 29th and then cap it on 11th, 12th, and 13th, that event.

And then you also got a tree courtesy of the Chamber for the Market Common?

We do, and that's what I'm here for. One of the things I want to ask is we do have a second tree to put up. It is not as tall as the one we have in. Like 20 feet. Yeah, 26 feet total. Ours is 32. Theirs is just one tier lower. But our thought was maybe to put that up in Valor Park in Market Common. I think we're good with that. All right. That's an easy one.

And then Halloween? Halloween is... It's sooner than Christmas.

We kind of give Conway that one. And at this point, we don't. Because honestly, October 12th, we start putting up Christmas lights. The day after mini-marathon, we start putting up Christmas lights.

The question that came to me from one of the merchants in the general vicinity was, can we put up Halloween decorations? Can they, a private business? Can they?

Yes. Again, does that fall back on seasonal lighting? I think so. I don't know.

Well, it's not lighting. Well, potentially it could be, but I mean, skeletons and pumpkins and bats.

I will say part of what I talked about with John Crutch and the Cultural Arts Commission is window painting events during the year, seasonally during the year, so that might be part of what goes into this. I don't really know the answer about the businesses being able to do that themselves.

I'll ask more specifically later on how's that. Michelle, do you have any comments? I just want to thank you all for your support. Sorry.

I want to thank y'all for your support over the years. We came to y'all with this crazy idea in 2018 to expand the lights and improve them. And we used Pigeon Forge in Gatlinburg as our example. And they're in year 37. And it has made their hotel occupancy going from about 25% in December to 80% or 90%. Just letting you know that we see it in our business. We have doubled our business in December. The businesses that are open are very thankful for it, and we want to continue to see it grow. We'll help in any way we can. We're willing to put in the money and invest. A lot of our businesses are, but we're just thankful for your support and for Troy for doing all the hard work.

And thank you.

And we'd love to be able to decorate for especially the fall and winter if we could, and know what we can and can't do. We can ask, those of us that do ask, but if we had something that we could put out to every business that said, here's what you can do, here's what you can't do.

Let's see if we can get an answer to that.

That would be great. Thank you so much.

One more thing with the packages for the businesses.

The company that we buy the lights from can absolutely get small packages together for that. They are the same company that takes care of Pigeon Fords and Gatlinburg. They do a great job, and they can do everything from a dollar package that we decide maybe that's the level we want to be at to sky's the limit. I can get with them and ask them if they can get those things together for us.

Yeah, even if it's small stuff that's kind of goof-proof, you know, people like easy. Gotcha. People like easy and, you know.

And yet we also need to answer the question, can people put up their own lights, which I'm not sure that we've answered at the end of the day. Robert, you're listening on behalf of the Chamber and the Collaborative, so you'll take that message back. All right. Thank you, Troy. Thank you. I'm sorry, anybody else with Troy? Okay. Okay. Thank you. Good with that? Good go. We're going to take a five-minute break. Meeting starts at 10. Good morning. It is the appointed hour.

Everybody, not quite.

I already got it. You can leave that one out there.

All right, good morning. Welcome to our July 28th City Council meeting. It's 10.01. We're glad that you're here today. If you will please rise if you are able for our invocation and our pledge of allegiance. Dr. Croner will do the invocation.

Yes. Please join me. Almighty God, creator and sustainer of all that is or will ever be, accept our profound gratitude for this day and all of its blessings of life and freedom. We remember those who make our freedom possible and recognize it is because of their sacrifice. that our community can practice our shared and enduring values of varied expressions of faith, civic duty, and respect for all. We gather today to render our public service in a proper manner and perform our civic duties in good order. Therefore, we solemnly invoke divine wisdom and guidance in this day's meeting. Amen.

and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Again, good morning. We have an agenda before us today. Is there a motion to approve the agenda as presented? So moved. Debbie and Mike. Any discussion from council? All those in favor of the agenda as presented, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? We've got minutes from our July 14th City Council meeting. Have you had a chance to read those, and is there a motion to approve them?

So moved.

Debbie and Mike on that side.

Any discussion from council?

Curious, Mark, why I was not mentioned as attending the executive session. I may have excused myself momentarily at the beginning.

Oh, I don't know. I can correct it.

Yeah, please do. We can add you back in. So with that amendment, a motion to approve the minutes? We did that. We got the motion. With that amendment, is there a motion? All those in favor of the minutes with that amendment, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Public requests, presentations, awards, and memorials.

Starting with introduction of our new convention center general manager. Mark, as he walks off. Mark, this is his second week, I think. I just want to give him an opportunity to have him introduce himself to city council.

Good morning, Mayor, city council members, city administration, thank you. Mark Mulherrin, new general manager of the Convention Center. Certainly very excited to be in Myrtle Beach, very excited to be in the building. I've been here now, it's going on two and a half weeks, so getting the lay of the land, very excited about it, very excited about the potential of the facility, the construction that's going on, and looking for some really fun stuff to do here, and taking the Convention Center to the next level, hopefully.

Excellent. Well, welcome. Thank you. Tell us a little bit about yourself, where you're coming from.

Yeah, absolutely. So 30 years in the industry, various cities from Boston, Chicago, L.A. Most recently, I was the vice president of hospitality for Sporting Kansas City up in Kansas City. Originally from the East Coast, from Massachusetts, went to school in Rhode Island, played college basketball. And after that, I didn't know what I wanted to do. So I decided to get into hospitality. And 30 years later, here I stand. And It's been a great run, just great stuff that I've been able to get exposed to, so very excited to be here, being back on the East Coast as well.

Super. Thank you, Council.

Welcome aboard. I'll be seeing you around. Appreciate it. Yes, sir. Thank you.

Welcome. Thanks, Mark. With a C, I think. My mom would get mad if you did it with a K. We have a proclamation honoring 55 years of helping hands here in the city of Myrtle Beach, which is a great story all by itself. Merida.

Good morning, Merida. Good morning, council. I have Tracy Gardner and Sam Tate with me today of helping hands of Myrtle Beach to accept this proclamation. We are celebrating 55 years of them here in Myrtle Beach. Whereas Helping Hand of Myrtle Beach was established in April 1971 by members of the Junior Civitan Club to provide hope, compassion, and practical assistance to individuals and families facing unexpected hardships in the Myrtle Beach community. And whereas what began on a vacant lot at the corner of Ninth Avenue has grown into a trusted crisis intervention and referral agency dedicated to strengthening the community by providing food, housing assistance, transportation, healthcare resources, and other essential services that empower individuals and families during times of crisis. And whereas Helping Hand of Myrtle Beach operates a full-time food pantry, providing food, hygiene supplies, diapers, pet food, and other necessities, while partnering with agencies and nonprofits throughout the region to meet the needs of the community. And whereas every month, Helping Hand of Myrtle Beach serves more than 1,000 households, and in 2025 alone, distributed more than 629,000 pounds of food and assisted 22,959 clients, including 5,812 children and 1,763 individuals experiencing homelessness. Now, therefore, be it proclaimed that the City of Myrtle Beach hereby recognize and honors Helping Hand of Myrtle Beach for 55 years of compassionate service and its unwavering commitment to improving the lives of individuals and families throughout our community. Signed and sealed this 28th day of July, 2026. Great.

Well, thank you very much. Congratulations. Tracy, would you like to say something?

I just wanted to say thank you so much on behalf of all of our board of directors, the staff, our volunteers. We're truly honored to receive this. And just wanted to say that... So many people have shared along this journey, so in recognition to them and all of our supporters, the City of Myrtle Beach, United Way of Horry County, the Chapin Foundation, the many volunteers that we have that come every week to assist us, as well as other foundations, the local businesses in the area that support us, donors, it really means a lot, Low Country Food Bank, So it's just an honor to serve this community and we just hope to continue to do what we do and get better and better. So thank you so much because this means a lot to us. We have a ribbon cutting ceremony on Thursday at 3.30 right at Helping Hand down the road. So if anyone would like to stop in, you're more than welcome to. We'll give tours and have some light refreshments. So thank you so much. We really appreciate it.

Thank you. It's been a while since I've heard the story.

I think I'm correct on this. Many years ago, I would like to recognize a young lady that was really involved with helping hand to get it off the ground. Most of the folks who've lived here a while will know Birgit Darby. I remember she was at the police department during those days, every day, because part of the reason Helping Hand started in the beginning was if folks were here and they had an unfortunate situation take place while they were here on vacation, Helping Hand would help them out with making arrangements even for a place to stay or anything like that. So I just wanted to, you know, to...

make folks aware that she was really uh involved with that in the early days of helping him yes thank you there's been so many so that really you know from the very beginning so it's been a great journey so thank you and again it's been a while since i've heard this story and i don't know whether blake lee's has heard it personally or not but this was the junior civitan club this was a myrtle beach high school student-led project was it not

Through First Methodist Church. The gentleman's name, who I believe originally started it, was Rowan Cruz. I met with him a couple months ago. He came in, took a tour. I actually have four photo albums that we've kept with all of newspaper clippings over the years. And so the very first album was his picture. actually raking the lot when he was 17 years old. So that was a pretty neat experience to have him come in. And he's going to be there on Thursday with us, too. So that's exciting.

What time on Thursday? 3.30.

Excellent. Well, thank you very much. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you so much. Congratulations.

and mayor roanne cruz was a college professor also oh good okay teacher okay i don't know that i've met him in my travels so we'll see him thursday and now we have the communications and creative services update please

Hey, City Council, Chasity Fendergrass here with your communications updates.

Three, two, one, run.

Santa's took over the Market Common on Saturday for the Santa Stroll 5K. Construction on Oak Street continues to move along. Work in the area near the City Services Building is expected to wrap up by the end of August. After that, crews will move to 9th Avenue North. Myrtle Beach's Impact Team is coming up on a year of its compliance walks. Every other Friday, a group of city employees looks for violations, fire hazards, and other issues. The walks have led to many corrections of violations to help improve our community, while employees from various departments are in one place together. The next step of the federal beach re-nourishment project is underway, sand fencing. Crews are installing new fencing along the beach to help trap blowing sand and to build the first row of dunes over time. Myrtle Beach's recreation camp and camp friendship faced off against each other in a kickball game. The kids had a blast at one of the fields by the Pepper Gettings Recreation Center. The PD helped make a birthday wish come true. Nine-year-old Caleb had only one birthday request, lunch with law enforcement. The PD held a party for him with cake, pizza, and great memories. Looking ahead, the Myrtle Beach Downtown Alliance invites you to a series of community input meetings to hear your ideas about the future of Broadway Streets. The meetings kick off with a listening session Wednesday from noon to 2. The Fire Department's annual Rhonda Brown Golf Tournament takes place Saturday, August 8th. And the Recreation Division is collecting school supplies for the upcoming Back to School Bash Saturday, August 8th from 11 till 2. You can drop off supplies at any of the city's recreation centers.

Roses are red, violets are blue. We love our parks. We hope you do too.

Not everyone can be a Poet Laureate, but maybe you're the one. Applications are open through September 11th for Myrtle Beach's next Poet Laureate. Apply today on the city's website. Before July ends, check out the video shining a spotlight on what exactly PRST does for you during Parks and Recreation Month. That's it for now. I hope you have a great rest of your week.

Thank you very much. It's time for non-agenda items from the public. Madam Clerk, have people signed in?

Yes, three. Brad Sims.

Hello. This is my first time coming before the council. I got in an accident on June the 11th, and I was coming down the road, and a car pulled out of Black's Tire and came behind another car and went to pass. into my lane and I maneuvered out of his way and ran over the curb. And I've been dealing with this for about two months. The cop put the other driver at fault for the collision. There was a witness and she stayed and gave her her side of the story, you know, and gave her facts of the situation. But when I received the collision report, it didn't have the witness's information on there. on the first collision report. It didn't have a statement. And the cop didn't really give detailed manners of exactly what happened. So in that matter, my claim was denied for the other party. I filed for an FOIA for body cam footage just for the other insurance party. And I was denied within two hours to receive that footage. And I'm trying to figure out, because all of the other parties' insurance needs is the witness's statement. They just need it on the collision report. It just needs to be reprimanded. It just needs to be revised. And because I got in an accident about a year and a half ago. I was door dashing on the moped. I just recently came out of a homeless situation. And I got struck by a van that was pulling out of a Taco Bell, and it ran over my chest and my leg and crushed my leg. And I got a small settlement out of it, just enough to, you know, heal and get a place for the winter and to buy me a car. And with that car, I started Ubering, and that was my main source of income. And now I'm back on the street, and they deny my claim. And I've been fighting the police department just to revise the collision report. And I can't get an answer from anyone about the steps that need to be made to make it right.

Thank you. We're going to ask Assistant City Manager Josh Brugger right here to go talk with you right now and see what we can do. Thanks, Brad. Best wishes. Jennifer.

Blakely Roof.

Good morning. My name is Blakely Roof. I'm the President and CEO of United Way of Horry County and I'm here to speak on an item that has come up in the past and I know will continue to come up about the location of the women's homeless shelter with new directions. i ask council when the time comes to consider some of these facts that i'd like to share with you today so i want to be clear i'm not here to argue the need for the shelter i think everyone is aware that that is a need i'm here to argue or not argue to a talk about where so the united way of horry county we um run our 2-1-1 resource line It tracks every call from across the county by zip code and month. The data tells a consistent story. Zip code 29577, where New Directions is located, has had the highest number of calls for any help for any zip code in Horry County every single year since I've started viewing the reports in 2019 when I came to this job. On shelter needs specifically, in 2024, 29577 accounted for over 40% of all shelter need calls in Horry County. They came from this one zip code. In 2025, 32%, and in the first half of this year, 34%. Averaged across the two and a half years of data, more than one third of the shelter related calls to 211 for this entire county come from 29577. followed by 29572. It's not just about shelters, looking at housing-related needs. Broadly, eviction prevention, housing assistance, rent payment assistance, and shelters combined, these make up 70% of all the calls that come from 29577. In 2024, over 60%, and in 2025. So this isn't a marginal issue. The dominant need is here in 29577. It isn't a coincidence, it's not just about where the people having a call from, it's where the infrastructure already is, where New Directions has existing shelters, it's where many of the county's other services providers are concentrated, helping hand in Myrtle Beach, it's where public transportation options exist to get people to services, to job interviews and work. By placing the shelter anywhere else, it doesn't reduce the need in 29577, it just makes it harder for women who need it to reach it. United Way of Horry County employs three caseworkers, two of them which have offices right here at Alliance Inn. They help provide resources and referrals. One specifically works with the homeless population alongside police and fire. I spoke with them and the New Directions women's shelter manager. All of them said that their number one need that they hear about is housing. Corey from New Directions said she gets on average 40 calls a day at the women's shelter. I asked all of them when people call, how did they say they got here? The answer wasn't, man, there are some great homeless resources down here in Myrtle Beach. The answer was, we came to Myrtle Beach to start over. Many of them looking for a job. They had vacationed here when they were younger. They were leaving domestic violence situations. They thought that there was a lot of opportunity and they were all coming for a change. So the data doesn't leave much ambiguity here. The need is concentrated in this zip code. The services are concentrated in this zip code. The transportation jobs and support system is in this zip code. So by not having the expansion of the women's shelter here, it doesn't make the need go away. It just relocates the burden onto the women themselves who will have to travel further with fewer resources to reach the same services. I am going to leave with you. I have just a data sheet that pulled all of the calls for shelter in 29577 of the past three years. So I'd like to leave that with you and just want you all to consider all these things as you move forward in this decision.

Thanks, Blakely. Just for background history, I was on the United Way board for 12 years, so I've been part of the larger conversation for a long time about the needs here in Horry County. The 29577 zip code goes all the way to the south city limits of the Market Common is in 29577. I think it's safe to say that the Myrtle Beach area is the most densely populated of Horry County, so it wouldn't be out of the ordinary for this to be a predominant number.

Correct, and we can look at all zip codes down to the entire county. 29526 is the next most called for needs, but 29577 and 29572 are the highest in shelter requests.

We're very fortunate to be talking with Horry County, which has some resources and has a study that's just about to get underway, and the other communities along the Grand Strand about the need. I think everyone acknowledges that the need exceeds the capacity, where the demand is greater than our ability to serve it at this point. The shelter in question would provide an additional 28 beds if memory serves. And if we're getting 40 calls a day, we may still not be at the ability to provide that service.

Correct, but it would expand for sure.

And then this is not a domestic violence women's shelter. Correct. The Family Justice Center is providing that service at this point.

Yes, and they have very limited space as well, so I think there is a lot of cross-pollination.

We absolutely need to do a better job of all of this, but we need to do it in partnership with our county and our other jurisdictions because the demand doesn't pay attention to the jurisdictions. We've also heard from the neighborhood that they feel as though everything is concentrated in that one area. So we're working on it very quickly, as quickly as we can. We've got our next meeting I think is August 26th, so we're not far away.

Okay, I just wanted to provide y'all with some data on that.

Thanks. Jennifer.

Stephanie Perrin.

Hello.

You all are doing okay today. Just wanted to share some insight on my experiences of my 30-year profession with the city and just wanted to give you some insight to consider. Thank you for your time. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today about new directions and the importance of having a program-based shelter in the city. I want to begin by explaining why I'm here. We have more than 70 service providers, faith-based organizations, community members, and city employees who show up every day. Not one group more important than the other, but we all working together to care for those in need. That collaboration is one of our greatest strengths. Over the years, I have listened and learned and worked to dispel the falsehood surrounding homelessness. Why me? Because I've worked directly in the field. I've worked directly with the individuals experiencing homelessness, and because I care deeply about the truth, accountability, and solutions. Falsage do nothing but hinder progress. They distract from the real work and the real needs. When we talk about homelessness, the conversations often focus about what someone lacks, a home, a job, financial stability. But every individual experience homelessness has a story. They have a history and a set of challenges that cannot be solved by providing a bed alone. A program-based shelter recognizes that meaningful, long-term change requires structure, accountability, and support. And we must acknowledge another truth. Not every individual is in crisis. I could give you countless examples from my years responding to calls where someone has asked me for money, but refused shelter, refused outreach, refused obtaining identification. Many of the individuals we encounter have made poor choices and are looking for their next step, but that does not automatically mean they are in crisis. This is where community partnership matters. This is where we must work together. Crisis does exist on our streets, but it is not an everyday occurrence. Crisis is the overdose behind that convenience store. Crisis is the individual left in a wheelchair in a vacant lot. Crisis is the person with severe mental health challenges walking into traffic. Crisis is three elderly women arriving from out of town after losing their life savings. Crisis is the family who arrives in Myrtle Beach with nowhere to go. These situations happen, and when they do, we respond together. We are fortunate to have creative teams in our city that respond to these incidents. I could provide you many factual examples of partners working side by side to resolve these cases. This is what collaboration looks like. That is what caring for a community looks like, and today we are here because we want a solution. Throughout my career, I've had the privilege of working closely with Kathy, William, and John, and the entire New Directions staff. What I can tell you is simple. They show up. It doesn't matter the day or the time of the week. They respond, they engage, and they follow through. Their work is effective because it is grounded in a program-based system that expects effort, responsibility, and progress. I've seen individuals in their program work hard, follow the plan, and succeed. I've also seen individuals choose not to engage, neglect the responsibilities, and ultimately fail. That is the reality of any program rooted in accountability, and accountability is where the greatest success occurs. It is challenging work, but New Directions does it well because they understand what true change requires. They understand what the city of Myrtle Beach needs. At New Directions, individuals receive emergency shelter, meals, and a safe place to rest, but they also work directly with case managers to build a path towards stability. These plans may include securing employment, obtaining IDs, addressing mental health needs, participating in addiction recovery, developing those life skills, and ultimately securing permanent housing. This model is built on a partnership. The shelter provides structure, resource, and guidance. Participants commit to taking steps toward Their goals, it is not about doing everything for someone, it is about helping people build the skills, confidence, support they need to succeed independently. New Directions surrounds individuals with service providers and community partners who help guide that way. A program-based shelter reminds us that hope is not just an emotion, it's something we build through understanding, accountability, and opportunity. We create the conditions where people can rebuild their lives. New Directions is more than a shelter. It is a place where lives are rebuilt, goals are achieved, and hope is restored. Thank you for your time. I appreciate it.

Thank you, Stephanie. Good to see you.

Thank you.

That's it. Moving on to the consent agenda, please. We have two items on the consent agenda.

Good morning. There are two items. Motion 202680 to approve a memorandum of understanding between the City of Myrtle Beach and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms and Explosives. And motion 202681 authorizing the city to enter into a memorandum of agreement with the City of Myrtle Beach Police Department and the Drug Enforcement Agency. These are just re-upping agreements that have been in place for collaboration with those two federal agencies.

The second one's a renewal. The first one is a renewal or a new agreement? Should be renewal. They should be renewal. Okay. Super. Any discussion from council? Is there a motion to approve the second, the consent agenda, please?

Motion to approve.

Second. Mike and Bill, any discussion from city council? All those in favor of the consent agenda as presented, please say aye.

Aye. Any opposed? Thank you.

Moving on to the regular agenda, second reading of ordinance 26-49, Jennifer.

Second reading of ordinance 2026-49 to amend section 11, special requirements, section 13, public improvements, and to include appendix I and to finalize Seaside Farms PUD land unit development ordinance.

Good morning, Mayor, members of council. No changes since first reading. The changes were to the public improvements. The initial public improvement was to install a sidewalk all the way down Pine Island. Due to DOT having to acquire additional property to do such, they kind of nixed that idea. So they came back in with the sidewalk along the perimeter, along the frontage of the property on Pine Island and putting in a bus station. They also included a... a parking diagram or a parking table, and those were the only changes to that. There was no major changes to the true component of what the PUD was.

Motion to approve. Second.

There's a motion and a second. The red letter text in here is what was approved at first reading. Okay. No changes. Any discussion from council?

Sunset Clause.

Is in this one, yes, sir.

What's the sunset date? I can't remember right now. Five years.

Five years.

Any discussion from the public?

Excuse me, Mayor. Sorry. Ken, remind us why five foot versus 10 foot sidewalk?

that's open drainage ditch on Pine Island Road, to be able to put the sidewalk in, DOT was gonna require that that ditch be piped. That would have required them having to acquire, that would have required them having to acquire additional right of way. That would have also put the cost well above what the requirements are for the public improvements for the PUD.

Curiously why wouldn't the sidewalk just move toward the project to expand versus toward the drainage?

There's only so much room between the road and the ditch There wouldn't be enough to put a 10-foot sidewalk.

For the development is what I'm saying That's what he's saying the ditch is preventing that. That's not a ditch that's a canal

Remind me, Mike, is that located right next to the road? Yes. Okay.

So you'd have to be on the other side of the... That's where they're installing the sidewalk along their property from Grissom to the end of their property line. That's where they were associated with their development of access to get out through the public sidewalks that go up and down along Grissom.

There is no sidewalk, as you can tell, down Pine Island.

Right now, in this location, there is some down where Pine Island is down toward 15 in the Ramsey Acres neighborhood. But on this side of the road that they were proposing, once you get down there, there's not enough room in the right-of-way. DOT would have required the taking of additional land to pipe the ditch to install the sidewalk. And again, that was a project that went well above the requirements of the applicant of this PUD as far as their cost. They have to be involved.

And we don't have any plans to pipe that ditch, I'm assuming, at any point. It's not our ditch.

It's in the county.

It's not our ditch. Correct. Is there any other discussion from council? Any discussion from the public? All those in favor of second reading of this ordinance as presented, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed?

Nay.

Six to one, Jennifer.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Jennifer, resolution 26-12, please.

Resolution 2026-12, a resolution to support and participate with the Horry County Community Land Trust in the acquisition of 904 3rd Avenue North for $480,000.

Yes, we went over this a few meetings ago. Megan Michaels here to answer any questions. But this would be, I think, this is our first foray into affordable housing. So this is an exciting project. right there at Third Avenue South, or North, excuse me. Megan?

Yes, good morning, Council. Morning. Thank you so much for the generosity of your time and consideration of this effort. It is an effort to create opportunities for our working families to put down roots in their community through the establishment of a home. In a moment, we will discuss a land opportunity, but I want us to start with who will gain from property on this land. This is about families who are working hard to contribute to their community, like a teacher earning $55,000 per year at Horry County Schools. and their spouse who processes your medical records at your local doctor's office, earning $35,000 per year. Together with their two small children, they're a four-person household earning $90,000. With today's interest rate, they can afford a $250,000 home. However, there are not many decent and healthy options for them on the open market. In fact, I did a search last night as though I were this family, and I found only eight homes for sale that met their criteria within a decent commute to where we sit right now. So this family is likely pressed financially to continue renting or they are pressed to look at other markets where there's higher income or better cost of living. Neither of these options are ideal for a community that values both a stable workforce and a strong economic future. For those in the room, by the way, I love coming to council meetings because I see so many people I haven't seen in a while. But for those in the room who I have not had the pleasure of meeting yet, my name is Megan Michael. I'm the Executive Director of Habitat for Humanity of Horry County. And we have long advocated for the establishment of a community land trust. And when your city and county government took up the cause, the board of the newly formed land trust, which is its own 501c3, appointed Habitat of Horry to serve as temporary managers to help this organization launch as efficiently as possible. We were happy to do so. We have the expertise and we believe that affordable housing requires collaboration across the entire housing spectrum. From market rate homes to shelter, we must build solutions together to meet the housing needs of our residents. So I stand before you today as a contract representative of the Horry County Community Land Trust, a housing nonprofit that serves differently than Habitat. The Horry County CLT recognizes that there are families who are facing affordability pressure, like the one I just described to you, who out-earn the limitations of federally subsidized housing opportunities. United Way refers to these families as ALIS, asset limited, income constrained, employed. For this reason, the CLT wishes to prioritize this need, the households earning 80% to 120% of the area median income. And so the Horry County Community Land Trust, they are dedicated to creating long-term stewardship opportunities with attainable home ownership, where investments made into the production of attainable housing are actually preserved over generations through the land lease model. And so workforce housing can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. So we want to press and be very clear that this is for our permanent workforce who work year-round for the betterment of Horry and its cities we are represented by a great board of directors several of which are present with us this morning and I want to take note of the public sector, nonprofit service sector, as well as the private sector representation on this board. Also noteworthy here is the representation and leadership by Horry County government as well as Conway City and your very own city. This representation is baked into our bylaws and is intentional for the type of stewardship we wish to employ with this effort. I was specifically asked to make very clear that Horry County government expects to be an equal partner in support of the land trust. They have identified parcels in other key areas of the county as same as Conway government. I'm going the wrong way. Okay, so there's some statistics up here. As you read these, I want to make note of the positive effects of this project would not be contained only to the families themselves. The location of this development can serve as a catalyst for the economy of downtown Myrtle Beach and all of its aspirations. The statistics are no secret here. Making homeowners where families work and play is good for the proximate local businesses, their neighbors, and our employers. Okay, so let's dive into the property here. To orient ourselves to this property, you can see where the pavilion site is, and then we follow 501 here to Broadway Street. When you go down Broadway Street, you'll see where kind of the downtown section of Broadway ends, right at Third Avenue North, and if you're driving back toward 501, you'll see that that's where the property is located. Zooming in here, I want to take note that there is the Wither Swash area. So if you look at where Broadway Street connects to where the dog parks and the cemetery are, you can see that connection. And then right above and to the right of the property, that is where Shelley Park is, where there was a significant amount of stormwater improvement done in that area. So we first brought this opportunity to you in a workshop in early May. At that time we had just gone under contract. We have now completed our due diligence and this resolution is our last step before our due diligence period ends this evening. In this due diligence, we found several things. So we completed an appraisal, which is in all of your email inboxes, that confirmed the value of the contract and the value of the property. We completed a phase one environmental review, which was not completely required, but we wanted to make sure that before we came with an ask to you, that there were no environmental concerns involved with this property, and the environmental review came back clean. We wanted to share with you the project itself actually is penciled as a successful project even with vertical financing on the construction. And so we do have a financing plan for the rest of the project. And so also in your email inboxes is a letter of intent from two banks who co-authored the letter being willing to finance the vertical part of the construction. We have a preliminary site plan which we will look at here in just a moment. We actually have gone through several iterations and we've talked with Planning and Zoning at length about this project and have found some good opportunities. We did a review of the current structure's historical significance. There is a structure on this property and it was built in the early 1900s. And so we contacted the SHPO office and we looked into state history records. We found no historical significance of that property. There are current leases on the property and they expire in October of 2027 late October and so I know that the I've knowledge that the seller has been in contact with the sellers residents and That they are aware that when their lease expires it likely will not be renewed And the expectation is that we will not touch the dirt or touch any of the property until those Those leases have expired Okay, so let's talk about the priorities for this development. We are wanting to exact the highest possible yield on this property without compromising the quality of the development. We've had several discussions with Planning and Zoning about the opportunity here. It is a unique parcel, as you can see by its shape. It's more unique with its topography as well. So there are many quirks to this piece of land. Our goal is to achieve 16 units. In basic math, the cost per unit here would amount to $30,000 a unit, which is a very good value. To put it in perspective, Habitat is currently quite happy to find a land opportunity that is $50,000 per unit with utilities at the street. And as I'm sure many of you know, market developers have much deeper pockets for a cost of land per unit. And so even if actually this site plan that we're looking at here is a recent draft, it is absolutely not the final draft, but it is currently drawn for 12 units. Even at 12 units, you're looking at $40,000 per unit, which is still a very good use of funds. Our most recent meeting with planning, we determined that there are several opportunities here to explore in future drafts to achieve that density goal of 16 units. We want to prioritize green space. There's some beautiful live oaks on this property and we want to make sure to preserve and also to celebrate them. There's some parking around the street center on the site plan that we are looking to move away from the live oaks and make that a proper green space that folks can occupy. There's also an opportunity here for city storm water easement. I did talk to Public Works this morning to confirm because this was something that Brian Tucker had brought up when we first started talking about this property. I pointed out the proximity to Wither Swash and Shelly Park. There was at one point a discussion about a master plan to connect the storm water drainage between Shelly Park and the weather swash. So this property would be sitting right in the path of progress. We would happily grant that easement to the city. In conversations with Public Works this morning, they said they would be very happy to receive that easement sooner rather than waiting until having a shovel-ready stormwater project. So we wanna make sure to take note of that as an opportunity. Okay, exterior. A lot of folks have asked me, what will this look like? These pictures, you can see there are several here. These are not exact renderings of the actual project, but I want to note that when it's all said and done, the Horry County Community Land Trust has an economic imperative to create a product that our intentionally narrow market wants to buy. So it's on us to make this a really quality product. We have also a responsibility as an early mover on denser residential development in the downtown area to deliver something the neighborhood can celebrate. We have baked into our pro forma the cost of quality exterior finishes, and we expect to go to great lengths to get this design right. We are fully aware that what we develop here will set a perception among our working families and we want that perception to be a successful one because that will provide us the opportunity to serve more families across the county. Okay, so to talk about timeline, this property was listed on the market when we made our offer and the seller has every intention of selling soon. It is important that this resolution sees a vote today as I don't see it likely that we would be granted an extension for a future council meeting. If the resolution passes, we expect to close next month. Then the time period would begin where we diligently work to get this right, to get it designed, to get it permitted and to get it ready to go while we wait for these current leases to expire in late October, 2027. So before I take your questions, I want to close by saying thank you for being a supporter of our working families. They're your support of the trust this far. This is a tool that has proven to work, especially in growing markets. And this investment is retained for generations and resales of these units. We believe in its potential. I personally believe in this board and their great leadership of the organization, and I believe many families will be more rooted in Myrtle Beach for the long haul because of this investment. I do want to note we did a survey, a demand survey for working families, and we got out of the 334 submissions, We found 138 that would likely income qualify if they were submitting an application. Of that 138, 19% of those were City of Myrtle Beach employees. So those are folks that we've determined would income qualify and expressed that they would be interested in buying a unit. 93% of the respondents would be in search of two to three bedroom units. And so that's what we've kind of designed this around. Thank you.

Thank you, Megan. I do have a couple of quick questions, and Council may as well. 12 units, you have some confidence that you can get to the 16 units on the site?

I'm very hopeful.

Okay. And then these are for sale. They're not rentals. They are for sale. Will you explain how the Community Land Trust controls the secondary sale of those items in the market?

Yeah, so baked within the sale is, of course, this being a condo building, we won't call it a land lease, but it's a similar legal mechanism. And within this agreement, call it an HOA agreement or something like that, there is a resale formula. And that resale formula, it essentially appreciates the unit at the same rate of average wage increase per year. So if we say a teacher is earning $55,000 and they purchase their home, and their home via the resale formula appreciates at 1.5% or 2% per year, by the time that they're selling 10 years from now, they're walking away with equity because they've not only paid down their mortgage, but they're seeing that controlled appreciation. that same teacher who is in their shoes 10 years later can also afford that unit because we have taken the unit out of the open market and we've set it on the wage line.

the goal of the community land trust is for these properties as built to continue in perpetuity in the affordable housing realm.

Correct. Yeah. We take that initial grant investment, the initial investment that we make in that property, that grant funding is preserved because it's not set free to the open market.

And then Horry County Administrator Barry Spivey spoke with me yesterday and reiterated what you just said, that Horry County is a very willing and happy partner in all of this. And I think they've got three properties as well that they're looking at contributing.

Yes, we are.

Council?

And I'm interested, will this be the first to go under construction?

It would be the first that we've acquired. I can't say whether we will start another project that's a little more shovel ready before October 27. There are some lots that have been identified by other municipalities that might be a little more builder friendly from the start. So we may start construction on something else sooner than this. However, this is our first acquisition.

And this is the city spending money from, it's set aside for the community land trust. And you don't need any more money from us beyond that. You'll be able to manage the construction and the ultimate sale and all of that after this is done.

Yeah, our intention for this project is not to come back to city council. There is another project I'll just share. There is another project that we are looking at that we may come back to you for a totally separate number of units.

Mayor, you really answered my only question with regard to a speculator not being able to swoop down and elicit a gigantic profit in the process. Y'all know what you're doing, so I take great comfort in that and the board that serves here. Yeah, thank you. If that was a possibility, I would not support this.

Thank you, Councilman.

One of the things that I liked about the project is, you remember I asked this question, could someone purchase this and then lease it back out? And the answer was no. And I'm happy that that's going to take place like that. It has to be live-in, home-owned.

Yes, along with the opportunity that we're creating for families, we're also putting some boundaries around that.

This, by virtue of its location, it's not actually in the Arts and Innovation District. It is in the, is it in the MBDA? It's just outside the MBDA probably.

If you're asking about the MED, it would be within the MED.

If it is within the mid, okay, then it is within the MBDA. But it adds potentially 16 units, if you can get to 16 units, of new residential in the larger downtown area, which is 21st Avenue North to 12th South. So it's a much bigger area, but it does add 16 new residential units potentially to the downtown area.

Yeah, that's correct.

Anybody else?

Get it done.

Any comments from the public? Alex?

Actually, Megan brought it up and made me wonder, with 16 units and the commonality of the property and everything, we've all heard the horror stories about HOAs and everything, and I'd like to know how it's going to be administered for this property so that these people don't get in and find themselves being administered by whack-a-mole property management or something and their rates keep going up and now they're being forced out of their home because of the HOA rates. So they can speak to how the common property is going to be administered.

I would like to know Megan It's a great question Alex. Thank you. So the management of The management of the land so the land will stay property of the community land trust That's a part of the model and how how it's controlled for generations the The way that the board is structured, once there are homeowners who are a part of the land trust, we've created what is called in our bylaws a tripartite board, which means that one third of the board in the future is going to be comprised of homeowners. And so there will be a part of their voice in the management of the land trust at large. And then of course on the affordability side, we would be setting that what we would call the land lease fee. There would be a fee just like any condo building to care for all of the exterior needs. But that fee is set and then voted on by the board, which is a tripartite board in the future. So if it ever needed to be raised, it would include the voices of the homeowners involved.

So the HOA would be responsible for common area maintenance?

Correct, yes.

Exterior upkeeps as necessary?

Yes.

Okay. Any other questions?

I'm going to read another question just to follow up with what Alex just asked a question about. So if you've got an HOA and you've got people who's going to be saying, okay, these things will be done, now is I'm not hearing yet whether that will be done by a management company or that will be done by the county,

the employees of the trust? We would likely contract landscaping and things like that. I don't think you'd see the executive director of the trust out there weed whacking, maybe. But there would likely be contract services involved. It would not be an HOA. I know we're using those terms to kind of liken it to that. That's the closest comparison we can make. But yes, I mean, the land would be maintained. It probably wouldn't be maintained by the county specifically or by...

If I hear Mike's question correctly, the tripartite board, in other words, the community land trust will be the HOA.

Yeah, but I just... So they're not gonna... I think what both of us is it gonna be actually managed by them and... work being done, and it won't be an outside, whether it be walk-a-law management, whoever, it will come in and do that, and it will raise and create higher fees.

No, it would be managed by the trust.

Thank you, Megan. Do we have a motion to approve, please?

Motion approved. Mike and Mike. Long time coming.

Okay, we're excited to be able to say yes to this today, I think. All those in favor of the resolution as presented, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Thank you. Do you need a signed copy today by any chance or not? If you do, we can make that happen, I think. Okay, thank you. I think that brings us, no, we've got one more. Motion to appoint or reappoint three members to the Convention Center 2682, Jennifer.

Motion 2026-82 is to appoint, reappoint three members to the Convention Center Hotel Board of Directors.

And those terms are George Durant, Matthew D'Antoni, and Yvette Jefferson.

Motion to reappoint. Second.

Motion to second. Any discussion from council? Any discussion from the public? All those in favor of the reappointment of those three Convention Center Hotel Board of Directors, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? And that's the end of the formal agenda today. Non-agenda items from the public. We have another time limit here. Anybody else have an urgent desire to contribute to the conversation today? Communications from city boards or commission members? Communications from city council and the city manager, council communications. Debbie? Debbie?

Mayor, I had a couple of things. One, I know that there had been a great deal of conversation around golf cart parking, and I'd love for us to look at the ordinance and the possibility of making updates to that ordinance with any changes, maybe at our next workshop.

We have that tentatively scheduled for next Tuesday.

Okay, perfect, perfect. I hadn't seen that yet. And then another thing is bracket sports. tennis, pickleball, et cetera. I'm a tennis player, play a lot of tennis. I've tried to get Mr. McClure out on court. No, teasing. Good luck with that. Yeah.

Mr. Chestnut would like to join you, though. Sure.

With the prospect of the Grand Dunes courts going away, My understanding is just outside the south border of the city, Prestwick, that those tennis courts, which there are 14, I believe, are also going away for development, that the city really needs to consider the possibility of a racket sport center. And I received some information from the USTA in regards to what would be required and they had several things that they sent to me. One, an example is like with 14 tennis courts, four pickleball and a 6,500 square foot clubhouse would take just six and a half acres. I'd love for us to start seriously looking for perhaps a piece of property that we could do something like this for the city of Myrtle Beach. I have played at the tennis center in Florence, state championships, also in Aiken, and we just don't have that capacity here in Myrtle Beach, but I think it's a great thing to think about. I think it is more of an investment in our community, maybe not as much as tourism, but we would need to build it where it could also be accessible to sport tourism, so I would just like for us to to start looking at possibilities. I think it needs to be centrally located within the city. I don't think it needs to be all the way on the south end or the north end. I think it needs to be central in the city of Myrtle Beach, and I'd like for us to seriously, I know I've talked to many of you individually about this, and I've felt a great deal of support from folks to do this, but I think that we, I think the time is, upon us to do something and there's a great need because I think we've got a very active community that enjoys racquet sports.

Mayor, I think we have an opportunity. I think we have land available right just north of our sports center. I think there's 14 acres there. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong.

I think there's 20, but some of it's in water.

Well, I'm skipping the water. I think we have an excellent opportunity there, that land that we already own, and it obviously would be centrally located.

That's what I was going to suggest as well. The town of Somerville won a Municipal Association Award two weeks ago for expanding their tennis center complex. I think they added 14... play courts to their mix of, so they've got like 28 courts, I think, in Somerville of all places, and they're hosting tournaments there. But certainly the Sports Center property, which we own already, or the old movie theater site next to the Midway Park, which is owned by AVX. It's a little south. It is a little south, so I'm good either way.

And I would also say both the South Carolina USTA U.S. Tennis Association and the National USTA are both paying very close attention and would be very friendly to grant requests for a facility.

And to that point, is there any way to get a preliminary cost estimate? And I fully support this box. How would we pursue that?

We're beginning to have meetings on that this week. Excellent, thank you. Ms. Conner can share that information with us. It would be very helpful. Fantastic.

How many public tennis courts do we currently have? I don't know.

Four.

We have ten at the high school that we share.

I think four we own at the high school. Are there three or four at Midway?

Six and three.

Six and three.

There you go. That's good. Three at Midway, and then we own six of the ones at the high school.

I would say the city-owned courts at the high school are not in great shape.

And that's something we need to build into the entire calculation. I mean, if we're going to do it, let's do it right.

Well, years ago, we had some at Pepper Giddens on the south side of the building that went away. We did all the parks at Midway Park, and then Pickleball took it over.

Maybe the school district would.

Well, that is true. Midway Park.

Thank you.

I've got a list of things just to quickly run through. I know we've got a time constraint today. Anybody else? Fox, have you got a construction update on... the Oak Street project. I know that we've met with businesses along 9th Avenue North. What's the timetable for current construction and then what's the timetable for the 9th Avenue North work?

Oak Street is supposed to, as we heard in Meredith's presentation, end of August and then beginning of September would be 9th Avenue North. I know we've been, we've had at least two, probably three meetings with the businesses along 9th Avenue North to discuss that project in particular and closing and what's gonna be open and how it's gonna go. That would be from Kings Highway to the intersection right up there by the shoe cobbler in that intersection. That is supposed to start in September and go through the end of March. We're trying to accelerate that as quickly as we can.

Yeah, the businesses were concerned that it had grown from four months to seven months.

We are working daily on accelerating that with conversations.

We asked yesterday about the beach-going wheelchairs, and the update on that is? 30 days. 30 days. Ish. Ish. I noticed that the new towing signage is in place. Okay. Where it does not exist, apparently the towing companies are not towing, which is nice, but as I've looked around the city, the new towing signage is in place. I don't know what the final deadline was, but it was like a week or two ago, I think. I don't remember. Yeah. Have we stopped doing recycling on the beach? Last time I was on the beach, I didn't see any recycling containers.

I did have to look, and I don't know.

I'm just curious about that.

We haven't received any. This is the first I'm hearing of that.

Okay, and I'm just asking. We talked also about the zoning rewrite earlier. Where are we on that, and what's the deadline? I can't come down and answer that, but I do.

I think I know, I'm just not gonna say it, because it would be wrong.

We have requested and were granted an extension in regard to the grant. We're taking the guidance of Kimley Horne in regard to when is the best time to come presenting y'all to council. I think we're probably two months out on that. Right now, An aggressive approach is to have something finished by December. We're viewing this as we've got one chance to do this. We're going over sections. We're making sure that we've addressed all the concerns. So I estimated 18 to 24 months whenever we first got started on this. That's from all the... that we had done it, that was the typical time. We were operating more under a 12 to 18 month process with wishful thinking, but I feel like we're gonna line up more with the 18 to 24 month process as was initially proposed.

So how long is the extension on the grant?

The extension runs until February of next year. We still meet weekly. It's going to be a lot of some of the big changes that we've talked about. We've talked about Brawl Strike with y'all, and we're kind of nailing out some of the details in regard to that. sometimes things sound good in theory but aren't so much so in practicality and so that's some of the stuff that we're kind of working through right now to not only have a well-written ordinance but a fairly enforceable ordinance across the board that's easy to understand that's the big thing that we're stressing on too is we're trying to take away the interpretation moments from the zoning code just let everything be more clearly stated

Will this process at the end of the day streamline the community appearance board?

that's the that's the one subject that we hadn't really got to yet it is on the agenda um you know that may be one that we may need to get a little bit more guidance from y'all um we've talked about sending out another survey in regard to council maybe this survey not being so much questionnaires as much as it is what would you like to see what are areas of concern the questionnaires um have just been a bunch of have been broad strokes and we're getting to the point now where we're going to start needing to get a little bit more detailed in regard to some things yeah i think in addition to cab this council has also expressed an interest in tree preservation and open space requirements that's that that's we've already got covered on a broad stroke and now we're getting more of the details um i think you posed some pretty good questions the last time that we brought that up in regard to it And so we're trying to, again, get a user-friendly model, but there's only so much user-friendly that you can have and still have the enforcement side of the tools. So we're trying to find that happy medium.

With that, I mean, anybody got an input on zoning ordinance rewrite real fast before I move on? With that, and I can't take credit for this, but someone suggested the other day, what if under the first in service goal, we looked at how we could become the best, the most business friendly organization to deal with? That doesn't mean that the answer is always yes, but that we fine-tune what we do so that we take the needs of the business community in mind, that their deadlines are important, that we address it not only from a CAB standpoint, from a building permit standpoint, from a water and sewer standpoint, but also from a business license standpoint, and do an introspective, self-looking assessment in the mirror and say, how can we be the most business friendly so that people will actually say, man, Middle Beach is a great place in which to do business. Is that something that we could accomplish over a two or three month period and come back with recommendations and say, these are the things that we do well. These are the things we don't do well. These are the things we need to streamline. This is what we need to implement to, um, Make sure that we're providing that first in service experience for the individuals, the business owners that come to the city of Myrtle Beach for service.

Let me take a stab at that, Ken, if I can. I think we try to do that now, Mayor, but it takes two to tango. A lot of the information we need to do that is coming from the businesses. I know we've had numerous examples where we send back plans back and forth about eight times because we've not done them correctly. So I think we certainly try to be as business friendly as we can all the time, but sometimes there are circumstances where we can only do so much, and then we get a bad rap that we're not being business friendly when they're looking for us to rubber stamp their Development doesn't meet code, doesn't meet setbacks, for a litany of reasons. Understood. We're certainly willing to look at our processes to see if there's opportunities for efficiencies.

And that basically was my suggestion, that can we look at it internally and say, this is where we can make improvement. Is that something that you all would be in favor of?

I'm in favor of that, but on the other side of that, and I hear what Fox is saying, I think we need to, as friendly as we can be, communicate very clearly to the business community that there are certain things and certain guidelines you have to follow. And just because it doesn't suit you particularly doesn't mean that we can make an exception because while I, on the one hand, like exceptions sometimes, the reality is when you make big exceptions once, you have to do it for everybody. And that causes more problems than anything else.

I understand that. One of the examples recently was that the business submitted something in a format that we didn't accept. Apparently nobody told the business that we didn't accept that format. That's the sort of nuts and bolts thing that would be nice to resolve. We're making sure that the business community knows what it needs to do. The complaint that I get back from a business license standpoint and dealing with the construction services side of things is that this is what you're told to do. You come back and you've done this, and then they say, oh, but you also need to do this. And then you bring that back, and then you also need to do this, that there's more. There's always more to that. Back and forth thing. There's always more to that.

I agree. When that comes back to staff, the things that we go back and say, well, you need to do this, wasn't in the first time. And so that's what I was saying earlier. If you bring us a set of plans, we're trying to be as efficient as we can, but those plans change when we go back and forth. And sometimes when they come back to us, things were added.

And I'm not arguing the details. What I'm suggesting is that we look introspectively and say we can make it better in these ways.

We can, and we try to do that regularly. Again, it's going to take both of us and the business community to make that happen.

If... Men were angels, we wouldn't need government.

We came up here asking questions in regard to the zoning rewrite. I think those are all valid points that you've made, but just for clarity's sake, probably about 90% of what just went on in that discussion has nothing to do with the zoning rewrite. Those are all in other different departments and everything along those lines. As far as the zoning rewrite goes, we are attempting to do everything that we possibly can. We're not, as far as business friendly, I think that's up for interpretation, but we are trying to do a more simplified version, and I think that's the way that we can be business friendly. not by making concessions, but by producing a simplified ordinance, a simplified document that is easy to understand and everything is clearly spelled out for you, and that is the direction that we are going. Thank you.

We had talked earlier this year about having a conversation regarding districts versus at-large. Is that a conversation we want to have at some point?

I think we need to bring it up in the fall. Let's get through the summer and the things.

Just didn't want it to fall off the table.

We talked about it. We even, at one point in time, talked about setting a small amount of money to the side so that as you get out and you discuss this with the community, we have the funds to possibly print things, to hand out that type of thing. And we also probably... when we do this, make sure that we're presenting it in total. In other words, be careful of what you wish for, okay? I'm in favor of it, but you be careful of what you wish for.

We're obligated to be neutral, if I'm not mistaken. We cannot take it side.

That's correct.

And then I'd ask this generally. We put additional money into the budget for landscaping. As I've said on many occasions, the south end of the city looks great, the north end of the city looks great. It'd be nice if the middle part of the city could look as nice as the rest of it. Can we have a landscaping plan to make those improvements occur over a scheduled period of time?

And Fox does have Mr. Waits looking at several projects we've all suggested in the mid part of town with two or three different individuals that have specific concerns. I think that's a step in the right direction, hopefully with a benchmark timetable where some will be completed. And a lot of it's tidy up stuff.

Yes, we keep asking about the former yesterdays at 19th Avenue North, and apparently there's a code change that needs to occur to be able to enforce the dilapidated nature of that building at this point. If there's a code change that we need to make to make that happen, I think we're ready to do that.

Each of us could present a list. Yes.

Anything else? Is there a motion to adjourn? Is there a second? Second. Second. All those in favor of adjourning, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Thank you all very much.