Community Enrichment Plan: City Needs Your Feedback
Community Enrichment Plan - To enhance the quality of life and overall experience for all who live, work, and play on the island.
The City of Isle of Palms, in collaboration with Explore Charleston, the College of Charleston, and The McNair Group, is pursuing the development of a community enrichment plan using residents’ voices as the main driver of the process. The travel and hospitality industries are vital to the island's identity and economy.
Improving quality of life for residents is one of the main priorities anchoring the city’s Strategic Plan. Residents’ quality of life also plays a significant role in tourism’s success, and it is critical to the community's overall well-being. The city aims to maintain an equilibrium of these key elements for the longevity and prosperity of Isle of Palms.
Community Input
Substantial community input and data will be collected to guide the city on how to productively deal with the complexities and challenges of regional population growth while ensuring Isle of Palms thrives as the most sustainable, family-friendly beach community in South Carolina. Data will be collected through surveys, focus groups and large listening sessions.
The first step in the process is to gather as much information as possible from the community. Residents, business owners and visitors are encouraged to make note of how the city can improve from a residential and tourism standpoint. Please take a few moments to complete the survey. The deadline to respond is November 17, 2023.
The second step is to form a committee comprised of various community members, including residents, business owners, city leadership, and tourism experts. The committee will be responsible for developing recommendations to address livability and tourism management and facilitate community enrichment on a continuous basis.
All collected data and insight will be used to outline recommendations for an ongoing plan that will create improvements that foster livability, sustainability and responsible economic development.
Please stay tuned as more updates on the project are forthcoming.
Our Partners
The project is funded by Explore Charleston through Isle of Palms accommodations tax funds. Research will be conducted by The McNair Group and the College of Charleston.
The Charleston Area Convention & Visitors Bureau, dba Explore Charleston, is organized as a 501-C-6 not-for-profit destination marketing organization (DMO). DMOs are organizations charged with representing a destination and supporting the long-term development of communities through sustainable tourism marketing and management strategies.
The McNair Group provides community engagement and organizational development focused on outcomes-based skills for those wishing to differentiate their products, services and behaviors. They are based in Charleston and have served numerous other municipalities and communities in strategy planning and community-building.
College of Charleston Joseph P. Riley Jr. Center for Livable Communities
As a strategic initiative of the College of Charleston, the center leverages the intellectual resources of the college to support the economic and cultural vibrancy of the City of Charleston and other communities throughout South Carolina and beyond. With access to the resources of the College of Charleston's School of Humanities and Social Sciences, the Riley Center strives to be a leader in livable community research, education, and practice.