Artificial turf in Garden City, SC, planned around the state's dune lines.

Two state lines decide whether your beach yard needs a permit.

South Carolina draws two lines along its oceanfront. On a standard stretch of beach, the baseline sits at the crest of the front row of dunes. The setback line runs landward of it by forty times the beach's average yearly erosion rate, and never less than twenty feet (SC Code §48-39-280).

Everything from mean high water back to the setback line is the beach and dune critical area (SC Code §48-39-10), and on an oceanfront lot that can include part of the yard. No one may fill, remove, drain or in any way alter that zone without a state permit (SC Code §48-39-130). Digging out sand for a turf base is work to ask about first.

Seaward of the baseline, normal landscaping is one of the few things allowed, and the same section says it needs a state permit (SC Code §48-39-290). Permits come from the Bureau of Coastal Management, formerly OCRM, at the South Carolina Department of Environmental Services, which replaced DHEC on 1 July 2024 (SC Code of Regulations, Chapter 30).

What the state asks before turf goes into the dune zone.

Regulation R.30-13(F) sets the terms for landscaping, earthmoving and fill in the beach and dune zone, and R.30-15(E) applies the same terms seaward of the baseline. First comes a comprehensive landscaping plan, approved by the state in writing (SC Code of Regulations, Chapter 30).

The rest reads like a turf checklist. No beach sand as backfill. No retaining wall below existing grade. Fill and irrigation runoff kept contained. Nothing that alters the front dunes or reaches the active beach, and native plants on the frontal dunes left alone unless the dune is improved. Local rules still apply.

Turf needs no sprinklers, so there is no irrigation runoff to hold back. The planning goes into the base: where the stone sits, how it stays on your lot, and how far the edge keeps from the dune.

Get the lines surveyed, then draw the lawn.

The state's current and proposed lines are on a map viewer linked from the South Carolina Coastal Information Network. The map is for reference only. To fix the lines on a property, the state says to download the coordinates and get a property-specific survey. As of March 2026, the coordinates had not changed since October 2017.

Bring the survey to your free visit. We measure, check the ground and draw a custom layout showing the turf, the base and the edges against the lines. You approve it before work starts, and you can take the same drawing to the Bureau of Coastal Management.

If the lot backs onto marsh or a tidal creek, check that side too. The same law counts tidelands, including marshes and mudflats, as critical area (SC Code §48-39-10), so keep base stone and runoff out of them.

The county line crosses the south end of Garden City.

Garden City sits in southern Horry County, with the Georgetown County line on its south side. The built-up beach carries on past that line into Georgetown County, to a peninsula at the mouth of Murrells Inlet (Wikipedia). Check your parcel record before you ask about permits, because each county has its own desk and its own rules.

North of the line, Horry County's Garden City Height Overlay runs from the Surfside Beach town limit to the county line and caps new construction at 35 feet, with some mapped exceptions. It is a building rule, not a yard rule (Horry County Zoning §723.2). For how Horry's impervious-surface wording lands on turf, read our guide to built-upon area in the two Carolinas.

South of the line, Georgetown County's Waccamaw Neck overlay protects trees at least 10 inches across at 4.5 feet up, apart from palmettos, pines other than longleaf, sweet gums, crepe myrtles, wax myrtles, Bradford pears and pecans. On an occupied single-family lot you still need a county permit to remove or damage one, and digging and grading count as damage (Georgetown County Article XIII). A tree's protection zone is its diameter in inches read as feet, or out to the canopy edge if that is wider.

Georgetown County also bills a yearly stormwater fee to properties with 400 square feet or more of impervious area, meaning manmade surfaces that don't let rain soak into the ground (Georgetown County stormwater FAQ). Turf isn't named, so ask the county how a draining turf system counts, and see whether artificial turf is impervious.

Where storms took the dunes, keep beach sand out of the base.

WMBF reported on 31 March 2026 that federal renourishment would place sand to about 1303 South Waccamaw Drive and no farther south, because the Army Corps' footprint comes from a feasibility study done in the 1990s. Garden City residents have spoken out about a lack of dunes and erosion after storms (WMBF).

A low yard behind a thin dune can tempt you to regrade with sand from the beach. In the dune zone that is barred, and so is work on the active beach: the land seaward of the escarpment or the first line of stable natural vegetation, whichever comes first (SC Code §48-39-270). We bring in base material and build the base for the ground you have.