Legends Drive property owners OK special tax district to pay for upkeep, repair

HORRY COUNTY, S.C. (WBTW) — Legends Drive property owners could soon be paying up to $200 more annually on their taxes in return for critical repairs to a road that’s been crumbling for years.

Voters in the area on Tuesday approved the creation of a special tax district on a 385-182 margin. The Horry County Council needs to adopt an ordinance formally accepting ownership of the road before any assessment can begin — a move likely to happen over the coming weeks.

Some residents said they would pay around $200 a year to go towards funding the $2.4 million it would cost to fix Legends Drive.

Those who live near the private road claim it has not been maintained by the owner. They have tried to find multiple solutions since the early 1990’s and believed a special tax district is the only way to get it fixed.

Many neighbors signed a petition for the special election that allows residents to vote on implementing a tax to repair the road. They said not maintaining the road is dangerous for the community.

Thomas Tiscione, a resident, said a neighborhood committee spent five months researching solutions.

“This is the only solution that we see to provide safety for the entrance road into our community,” Tiscione said. “Legends Drive is literally falling apart beneath us.”

Over the past three decades, the Legends Drive community has tried four times to have the road dedicated to public and entered in the county’s maintenance network.

Tiscione said the first time the request got denied was back in 1991, when the county viewed the road as a driveway to the golf course.

Michael Masciarelli, an infrastructure and regulations committee member who also covers District 8 on Horry County Council, said he supports giving property owners say over the road’s future.

“As a county, I’m going to get with my councilmen and say ‘Hey, these people have gone through the process, they’ve been extremely diligent on doing their work, they understand that and they want to do that, by all means my job as a councilman and ours as a county is to help people get what they want to protect themselves,’” Masciarelli said in April. “And if that’s what they want to do as a whole, then I support them, of course.”

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Adam Benson joined the News13 digital team in January 2024. He is a veteran South Carolina reporter with previous stops at the Greenwood Index-Journal, Post & Courier and The Sun News in Myrtle Beach. Adam is a Boston native and University of Utah graduate. Follow Adam on X, formerly Twitter, at @AdamNewshound12 . See more of his work here .

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