About

Daniel Anthony, President of the Jonesville Preservation Society, has been a resident of Hilton Head Island for 40 years and has owned a business, Absolute Builders, on the island for 36 years. Anthony is running on a platform of protecting the island from overdevelopment and seeks to overturn the current Ward 1 representative Alex Brown, whose record demonstrates that he prioritizes development rights over protecting Hilton Head Island from overdevelopment. Daniel and his wife Dee raised their two sons on the island and now their sons are raising their families here too.

Kelley LeBlanc, Co-Founder of the Jonesville Preservation Society, is the owner and chiropractor at Kelley Chiropractic. She and her husband Newton Greene Jr. have lived on Hilton Head Island since 2012 on land that has been in Newton’s family since just after the Civil War. Newton’s mother was a native Hilton Head Islander (Gullah). The Gullah are descendants of enslaved people who have occupied the sea islands of South Carolina for hundreds of years.

Our Vision is to correct current Hilton Head zoning, which has allowed overdevelopment, and to protect our island for generations to come.

Our Mission is to facilitate communication between town officials and the residents of Jonesville Road and the greater Hilton Head Community, and to slow the escalation of development on Hilton Head Island.

Our Goal is a re-write of the Hilton Head Island Land Management Ordinance (zoning laws) to reduce development pressures which have threatened quality of life and the natural environment.

Jonesville Preservation Society (JPS), a grass-roots organization which was founded by Daniel Anthony and Kelley LeBlanc on December 10, 2022 after residents learned that three separate subdivisions were planned for Jonesville Road: Bailey’s Cove (147 units), Tidelands (88 units) and Twin Oaks (22) units. In total the 257 units would have tripled the Jonesville area population. As a result of JPS efforts, the town of Hilton Head Island purchased Driftwood Stables on Jonesville Road as a future park, halting plans for Tidelands’ 88 unit subdivision that would have been located at the site.

In January 2023, the Jonesville Preservation Society used the JPS Survey on Overdevelopment to mobilize not only the Jonesville neighborhood but the entire island to fight for zoning changes to limit overdevelopment. In response to the public outcry, the Town Council announced that curbing overdevelopment was their top priority. The Town Council strategy was to expedite changes to the Land Management Ordinance (LMO), with a goal of completing new District Plans by June 2023. The District Plans were to be the basis of LMO changes. Now, one year later, District Planning has barely begun. Several Town Council members, including Alex Brown the current Ward 1 Representative, have repeatedly refused to institute a six-month moratorium on building subdivisions, which would give the town staff time to develop District Plans in conjunction with the community. Other Low country communities have instituted such building moratoriums, including Jasper County.

In 2022, two years into Alex Brown’s first term as Town Council Representative the Bailey’s Cove Subdivision was approved. The 147 unit subdivision will double the population of Jonesville Road. The Jonesville Community was not notified of plans for the subdivision and only became aware of the subdivision when yellow tape was put up in anticipation of land clearing. In June 2022 a community meeting was held with town officials and Bailey’s Cove representatives, where over 100 Jonesville residents expressed their outrage at not being given a chance to object to such a major change to their bucolic neighborhood. Alex Brown did not attend the meeting. Brown states that he did not know that the subdivision was planned until after it was approved, even though he was the Town Council Representative for Ward 1 during the planning and approval period.

In 2023 Daniel Anthony and the JPS learned that a 93 year old neighbor on Jonesville Road, Josephine Wright, was being sued by Bailey’s Cove over an encroachment dispute. The builders claimed the Wrights’ house and shed crossed the property line, but the family believed the suit was a bullying tactic to force them to sell their land, which developers had previously been interested in buying. The Jonesville Preservation Society arranged for legal representation for Mrs. Wright and also brought the suit to the attention of the Town of Hilton Head. The result was that the town suspended the builders’ construction until the suit was settled. JPS notified the media of the Wright case, and the story went viral, picked up by media outlets as far as Paris, France. Hundreds of thousands of dollars were donated to the family’s impromptu GoFundMe, first from local supporters and then from celebrities like Snoop Dogg, Kyrie Irving and Tyler Perry. Perry even offered to build the family a new home on their land. Now, the Wright family has a brand new home on the site, thanks to Perry. Although Josephine Wright died in January 2024, the lawsuit settlement required the company to repair the family’s roof, add a privacy fence and improve landscaping at the land’s perimeter. With the suit settled, construction of Bailey’s Cove is expected to begin.

Support Daniel Anthony in his bid for Ward 1 Town Council Representative!