Charting the course for 2025. As we step into the rising sun of a new year, we task Lowcountry mayors with sharing their visions for the future.

STORY BY BARRY KAUFMAN + PHOTOGRAPHY BY LISA STAFF

No one truly knows what the year ahead will bring. But we can make an educated guess.

When you’re mayor, that’s a big part of the job description. It falls to them to see the roadblocks ahead, and to chart a path around them. Trusting in the evidence before them, the team around them and the experiences they bring to the office, mayors must look confidently to the year ahead as they make decisions that will have far-reaching consequences for their community. Their role demands vision, resilience and a steadfast commitment to the people they serve, balancing tradition with progress as they navigate uncharted waters.

It’s a heavy burden, but it’s part of the job. It’s also what makes a mayor the perfect person to ask what the year ahead might bring. With optimism, determination and a keen sense of responsibility, they hold the key to shaping the future. We gathered mayors from across Beaufort County to find out what they see in the year ahead.

Alan Perry, Mayor of Hilton Head Island

As a citizen of Hilton Head Island, Alan Perry has had a front-row seat to the island’s evolution. His family spent the summers here in the 1960s, when the resort era was in its infancy, before moving here full time in 1972. With his father, Charles, being heavily involved in the community, helping build the Rec Center and serving as the voice of the RBC Heritage, Alan watched the island’s pioneers sow the seeds for the community that would one day emerge from the resort.  

Those early years among Hilton Head’s founding fathers have made him a mayor with a uniquely educated perspective on the island. For one thing, he understands that preservation is what gives the island its soul. He points to 2024 as being a particularly good year for that. 

“It was a spectacular year for land acquisition,” he said, noting that the Town bought up roughly 32 acres of property. “It really removed additional development opportunities that wouldn’t be right-sized for the island.”

And while he respects Hilton Head’s philosophy of preservation, he also understands that a thriving community must always be moving forward. He points to the talent and initiative that Town staff showed in building consent for the Town Council’s bridge vote. He looks to build the island’s business community to diversify its job market and foster a younger community. But these things are always balanced against maintaining the island’s character.

As an example, he mentions the extensive community conversations that surrounded Muddy Creek and the Jonesville tract. “First and foremost, it brought attention to those areas and those communities. Now it’s about getting their input. What is it that they would like to see happen?” he said. “We’re in it every day, but we don’t live in those locations. So to have those conversations with the residents, to understand what they’re looking for, is pivotal in building a plan that makes the most sense.”

That consensus-building and respect for the island’s conscious development will serve Perry well in 2025 as the Town embarks on a massive overhaul of the Land Management Ordinance. 

“We’re rightsizing that to make certain we’re going forward in a direction that people are comfortable with. We’ve gotten away from some of the values that have helped build this community for the last 60 years,” he said. 

Among changes Perry hopes to see are elements that would keep developers from clear-cutting land, maintaining pervious areas for stormwater and reducing the number of dwellings allowed per acre. But the nature of the LMO means changes will affect nearly every aspect of life in town, making a consensus critical. “There’s going to be a lot of community engagement and a lot of discussion to make certain that what we’re creating does not have unintended consequences.”

Bring back the beaches

Another massive project that the Town of Hilton Head Island will undertake in 2025 is a total renourishment of the beaches. Just as it did in 2016, the Town will bring in crews to dredge 2.2 million cubic yards of sand from offshore, replenishing what our shores have lost to erosion.

“People will start to see prep work sometime around April,” said the Town’s Communication Director, Heather Woolwine. “The good thing is, the beaches will remain open. There may be some restrictions, but they’re going to work hard to keep restricted areas to a bare minimum.”

Running throughout the year, renourishment will occur in three phases. Phase one, covering The Heel, Port Royal, Fish Haul and Pine Island, runs June through October. Phase two, covering Central Island, South Island and South Beach, will begin in September and run through May of 2026. The third phase, which will cover structures on Pine Island, is currently TBD.

To find out more, visit hiltonheadislandsc.gov/beachrenourish2025.

Larry Toomer, Mayor of Bluffton

It should come as no surprise that, of all the legislative goals he has pursued during his career in Bluffton politics, Larry Toomer’s guiding priority has always been the health of our waterways. After all, his family has been plying these rivers for four generations. One of the few remaining ties to the days when commercial fishing ruled the Lowcountry, his family still owns the Bluffton Oyster Company, the last of what used to be a legion of oyster houses up and down the May River.

“Certain things have been going on since I’ve been on council, like my fight to put the town on sanitary sewers,” he said. “We have on our Capital Improvement Program list to have the entire town, every resident, connected.”

Toomer hopes that by building those connections, residents along the river will no longer be on septic tanks, which can create severe runoff issues. “If you don’t have anything bad on the ground to go in the river, then the rain doesn’t hurt. The problem is the stuff that gets washed into the river during a rainfall event,” he said. “So, eliminating the source of those contaminants will make a huge difference.”

Starting at the river and moving inland, his tenure as mayor has continued his crusade to get everyone in town limits off of septic, mitigating to some extent the impact that Bluffton’s massive growth has had on the river. 

“It’s been a long time coming, but I’m really thankful that Council agrees with me,” he said. “Soon I’ll be able to say, ‘We got that done, let’s jump on something else’ as a main priority.”

And those priorities are numerous. Perhaps no priority will guide Toomer more than addressing the tremendous growth that Bluffton has experienced in the last few years, particularly out beyond Buckwalter Parkway. 

“That’s one of our big things – preserving land by purchasing land, building more parks and amenities for residents and ultimately controlling growth,” he said. “Right now 90 percent of our town is under development agreements, but that doesn’t mean we can’t make efforts to buy those development rights and try to slow residential growth until our infrastructure catches up. Our schools are full. Our roads are full. And a lot of it we can’t do anything about. But when an opportunity arises to protect property from development, we’re on board.”

The single biggest sign of this growing push to buy up land is the 37 acres of parkland at New Riverside. Representing a $15 million development, the park will incorporate the space’s iconic barn for use as a wedding or event venue and gives a huge amenity to the newest areas of town.

“We have so many residents that live on the west side of Bluffton with no amenities or services,” he said. “We’re trying to show that they are part of the town… we’re not two towns, we are one.”

The best medicine

The single biggest development coming to Bluffton in the near future will obviously be the new full-service, community hospital campus Novant Health will be opening. The company, who recently purchased Hilton Head Hospital and Coastal Carolina Hospital in Hardeeville, saw Bluffton as an ideal spot for its next full facility.

“When I was running for mayor, the three things I heard about most were slowing residential growth, improving our roads and infrastructure and adding medical facilities,” said Mayor Larry Toomer. “You’d be shocked at how many people say that there aren’t enough doctors and specialists. They have to go to Hilton Head Island or Beaufort. That was something I heard loud and clear… so having a hospital in the middle of town, how great is that?”

In addition to the medical center, which will hold 50 beds with plans to expand to 100, Novant Health is planning several outpatient campuses in Bluffton, including a new free-standing emergency department, surgery centers, imaging services, urgent care, primary care and specialty care.

Philip Cromer, Mayor of Beaufort

Growing up in Charleston, Philip Cromer remembers a city that had a genuine sense of place. The antebellum streets of the downtown area have always held their own particular charm, but beyond the historic district, Cromer watched as the soul of the city was gradually watered down by overdevelopment.

“I grew up in Charleston, and Charleston lost a lot of its character. You’re seeing that in Chatham County and in some places South of the Broad,” he said. “We’re going to grow, and we embrace growth, but we want to do it in a way that balances with what is special about our community.”

And while he’s only been Mayor for a year, Cromer knows more than most what defines Beaufort’s character. A city council member for eight years, he chaired the Affordable Housing Task Force, served as the liaison to the Beaufort History Museum and served on the board for the Lowcountry Council of Governments. His involvement in Beaufort affairs started as soon as he relocated to the area in 2014, fueled by a 23-year career as a risk management consultant for the Municipal Association of South Carolina.

Cromer stepped into office with an eye toward managing Beaufort’s growth, but within a few months, an engineering report on Henry C. Chambers Waterfront Park made repairs an immediate priority. According to the report, the condition of the pilings is a growing concern, and that’s with divers only being able to realistically inspect 227 of the 570 pilings due to shoaling. It was recommended that the city initiate preliminary studies and secure funding to begin replacement of the structure. This problem was later exacerbated by public outcry over the Town’s leasing of the city marina to Safe Harbor Marinas, which resulted in a lawsuit after Cromer spoke with LOCAL Life. 

“We have an issue with the marina, and we’re setting up a citizens’ committee with elected officials and staff to look at the problem and determine what needs to be done, whether that means renegotiation or otherwise,” he said. “It depends on what we find out after the committee has gathered data and input from a citizens’ survey.”

Confident that the matter will soon be resolved, Cromer looks forward to moving ahead on the agenda that got him elected last year. 

“Our biggest issue is affordable housing,” he said. “We also want to work on infrastructure. The transportation referendum didn’t pass, which was going to give each municipality $10 million, so we’re going to have to find other ways of setting aside money for roads.”

He also points to the work the City of Beaufort is doing with the Beaufort County Economic Development Corporation to create a commerce park, diversifying the economy to make it less dependent on tourism and the military, as well as efforts made to boost public transportation, from the Palmetto Breeze lines to a trolley system.

Getting up to speed

With the first several months of his administration spent dealing with fallout from the disappointing engineering report on Henry C. Chambers Waterfront Park, Beaufort Mayor Philip Cromer is looking forward to getting moving on his agenda.

“I really haven’t been able to get as much accomplished as I would like with the recent election cycle occupying so much time; however, all incumbents running for council were reelected, and we are looking forward to our planning retreat in January to lay out our strategic goals,” he said. 

That cautious approach will pay off as the city’s comprehensive plan and development code looks to be updated in the future. “We try to update it as necessary to get it more in line with our strategic goals.”

One addition Cromer would like to see is a strengthened tree-canopy ordinance that would require developers to maintain a set percentage of specimen trees on a property rather than clear cut. He also hopes to slow down growth so as not to overburden existing infrastructure, noting that that there are currently 2,500 multifamily units currently permitted, with more in the queue. 

“As we move on this and other city projects, there’s going to be a lot of public engagement and outreach,” he said. “We are going to do more listening, understanding, providing options and gaining consensus when we engage in projects impacting our citizens.”

Kevin Phillips, Mayor of Port Royal

About 260 miles separate Snellville, Georgia, and Port Royal. Having grown up in the former, and now serving as mayor of the latter, Kevin Phillips sees that distance as trivial, next to what makes the two towns similar.

“It was a great little town to grow up in. It’s grown a lot, but it was a great neighborhood,” he said. “It was one of those towns where you got off the school bus and stayed out until the streetlights came on. They’re very similar in that sense of community but very different in that access to the water.”

Arriving in the Lowcountry in 2018, Phillips wasted no time in getting involved. “When I first got here, I picked up a copy of the Island News and saw there was an article about the Leadership Beaufort Program. The deadline to enroll was the next day. I didn’t have any friends or connections here, but I went down, interviewed with Connie Hipp, and I was in.” Along with introducing him to his wife, Jennifer, the Leadership Programs served as a crash course in Lowcountry life. “It was like gaining ten years of knowledge in about 10 months.”

That involvement led him to a four-year tenure on Port Royal’s Town Council, culminating in his election as mayor last year. 

“It’s been a very productive year,” he said. “One thing I’m proud of is that this Town Council did something that a lot of people just talk about. Everyone that runs for any office down here, they talk about responsible growth… We see what Charleston looks like, we see what Myrtle Beach looks like, we see what Mount Pleasant looks like, and everybody says, oh, ‘we don’t want to be that.’ So what are you going to do?”

What Town Council did about it was install what Phillips refers to as “guard rails” on Port Royal’s growth. The first guard rail was a one-year moratorium on construction of large-scale multifamily apartment complexes to give the planning commission a chance to reevaluate the development code. The next was the strongest tree ordinance in the entire state of South Carolina. Finally, lowering the speed limit in the village itself made this bustling area more pedestrian friendly.

“This year was really focusing on the things that make for Royal special,” he said. “I’ve always been told that when it comes to development, the municipality sets the table, and the development community work around that. You don’t want to make it so constricted that nobody can ever build anything, but you want to put things in place that make their building in a way that fits the culture, the history and the climate of Port Royal.”

As for the coming year, Phillips points to the $1 million in work being done to repair the boardwalk and improve the causeway to Sands Beach. But the elephant in the room when it comes to Port Royal’s future lies at the water’s edge, with the long-anticipated renovation of the marina. Phillips made that a priority as soon as he entered office, taking Safe Harbor to task for construction delays and even considering legal options against the developer.

“We’ve been going back and forth with our partners at Safe Harbor and we’ve made a lot of headway,” he said. “I don’t want to speak for them, but I think they’re very excited to get started.”

It takes a village

While he’s accomplished quite a bit in his first year, Port Royal Mayor is the first to point to his Town Council as the key to building the Town’s future. 

“Sometimes it’s really hard when you enact things like a moratorium on apartment buildings or a really strong tree ordinance because you get really strong pushback from the development community,” he said. “I’ve been really proud of this council for listening to the citizens and having the political will to put things in place to protect and preserve what makes us special.”

Together with council, Philips set up ordinances aimed at curbing Port Royal’s growth, helping to maintain the village aesthetic as the next round of growth in this small town looks primed and ready to blow.

“This year has been all about putting those guard rails up, and I think 2025 is going to be a really spectacular year,” he said.