Long the playground of Georgia, Tybee Island is facing some wear and tear on its infrastructure and facilities, and funding the nearly $100 million needed in upgrades for stormwater management is part of the city’s legislative agenda when the session starts on Jan. 13, 2025.
But as the city looks to, in part, use tourism dollars to help fund water and sewer infrastructure, tourism levels on Tybee and in Savannah have been returning to pre-COVID levels and cannot cover the total price tag. For this reason, Tybee Island is looking to implement a Municipal Option Sales Tax, or MOST.
“Tybee was an attractive destination during COVID [quarantine] and right after, as well,” said City Manager Brett Bell, who’s been in the position since September. “So in 2022-2023, we saw more visitor activity than at any point in our history, by far. Much of what we’re witnessing now is normalizing from this artificial bump due primarily to COVID.”
Parking revenue for the first quarter of FY2025 was $1.99 million, 13% lower than the first quarter of FY24, when parking revenue topped $2.29 million. The room tax collected between July and September 2024 dropped below $900,000―$131,000 lower than the same time last year.
Overall, the decrease in the meter and room tax is consistent with the decrease in visitor counts, down 18% from last year, according to a financial update presented to the Tybee City Council in October. The presentation also mentioned that June, July and August are the cities’ largest revenue-generating months, but with the city’s fiscal year beginning on July 1, June’s numbers count toward the previous fiscal year.
Bell also cited the impacts from Tropical Storm Debby and Hurricane Helene as “taking us off the map for a couple of weeks” and disrupting visitation. The recent hurricane season is part of why Tybee along with the other local governments within coastal Georgia are seeking different tools to fund infrastructure for stormwater improvements.
One of the tools the city is looking to use for the upgrades is the municipal option sales tax (MOST) will help with that. MOST was first adopted in Atlanta and allows municipalities to tax visitors and residents 1% of goods and services. The tax will fund upgrades to water and sewer infrastructure if the state legislature approves a referendum for islanders to vote in Fall 2025.
Students from Tybee Island Maritime Academy fill a sand bag for Marvin Sims Wednesday at Memorial Park on Tybee Island. The students were helping out during their PE time as residents collected sand bags ahead of the potential for flooding from the remnants of Hurricane Ian.
‘Made out of terra cotta and clay’
The city’s stormwater management plan identified nearly $100 million in needed infrastructure improvements not just to address big storm events but also to mitigate sea-level rise. In the three months he’s worked for Tybee, Bell said, the island has had about seven days where the ocean has risen over U.S. 80. Comparatively, Bell said when he lived on Tybee 20 years ago, he remembers that level of flooding happening only a few days over a four-year span.
“The Department of Natural Resources predicts that maybe by 2040, perhaps up a quarter of the year, we’ll have coastal flooding,” Bell said. “Sea level rise is upon us, and MOST would be one of the tools in the toolbox out there to help us prepare for this new reality.”
Much of the infrastructure on the island is more than a century old, including the sewer pipes that were built around the same time as the development of Fort Screven in the mid-1800s.
“They’re made out of terra cotta and clay, and they’re all starting to collapse around the same time,” said Bell. “So the frequency of our water, sewer breaks, leaks—it is all increasing yearly. It’s costing us more money to do it, and it’s difficult to do it through increasing utility rates.”
Another potential goal on the legislative agenda for next year is the creation of a public facilities authority, which could bolster the city’s ability to finance big projects, such as building a new fire station.
Also on the list is improving the facilities in Memorial Park—tennis courts, pavilions, walking and biking trails, a gym and an old school building. All are considered substandard buildings, according to Bell, and need to be renovated since they are booked and used constantly. The public facilities authority would have a lot more flexibility to construct new facilities than the city itself.
“We’re going to have to make some decisions over the next few years related to city facilities and land use, and a new fire station is high on that list,” Bell said. “Memorial Park is one of two major parks on Tybee, and it’s the one that’s centrally located. We need spaces that better serve the community; there’s no shortage of users of our spaces, just the facilities themselves that are inadequate.”
The council will discuss and adopt its legislative agenda at its meeting on Thursday, Dec. 9.
Destini Ambus is the general assignment reporter for the Savannah Morning News, covering municipal governments and other topics. You can reach her at DAmbus@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: tybee island considers municipal option sales tax for stormwater improvements
