NEW HANOVER COUNTY — The first step was made this week to keep the marshy areas of the western bank of the Cape Fear River protected as county commissioners took a vote to secure its place type in the updated 2016 Comprehensive Plan.
READ MORE: ‘When you know better, you do better’: Commissioners favor all conservation on west bank
ALSO: Business alliance, former USACE engineer enter different pleas for west bank development
The western bank is now filed as riverfront conservation instead of urban mixed-use — a low-density vision that does not allow residences. Instead, commissioners have expressed a desire to see parks, greenways, and blueways.
Civic uses, including transforming current industrial properties to lower intensity non-residential uses, will be evaluated case-by-case. There is one parcel, which includes a gas station, just north of Isabel Holmes Bridge, that will remain listed as commerce to keep within the Highway 421 uses.
The change was voted on unanimously by commissioners Monday; however, many were clear this is only step one in the road ahead. Commissioner Jonathan Barfield Jr. was concerned the conservation place type was only a Band-Aid.
“I don’t want to give our community a false sense of security with this,” he said. “Because, again, to me, the problem is not solved.”
While the riverfront conservation place type secures commissioners’ vision for what they’d like to see happen across the current Wilmington riverfront, it doesn’t disallow projects from moving forward by-right, as long as plans meet zoning specifications. The zonings allowed on the western bank remain regional business and industrial, the former which makes way for hotels and motels.
Wilmington Hotel and Spa submitted a plan in 2021 for a 100-foot facility, featuring more than 100 rooms and rooftop pools on 14 acres between the Cape Fear Memorial Bridge and the U.S.S. North Carolina. It was allowed by-right, but the property owner pulled the plans as county commissioners began discussing updates to the comprehensive plan.
PCD reached out to the land owner to see if plans were underway to move forward but did not hear back by press.
Battleship Point also was pitched in 2021 at Point Peter with a request for rezoning, but it, too, was withdrawn by KFJ Development as the county worked through comprehensive plan changes and commissioners decided on their vision. Kirk Pugh, one of the developers, told PCD last fall he would rescale the development as needed according to county changes, but he spoke out against the conservation place type at the planning board meeting this summer.
“Staff has not received any submissions for development projects on the western bank,” county spokesperson Alex Riley said, “but some property owners are exploring the by-right standards that would apply to their properties.”
In a previous meeting, staff and Commissioner Barfield revealed they also had spoken with Chuck Schoninger of USA InvestCo. about ideas he had for business along the western bank. Schoninger, who owns Port City Marina — which includes the marina, two restaurants and Pier 33 entertainment — didn’t return PCD’s phone call Tuesday. Last month, staff indicated to commissioners it would be recreational and require structured parking, perhaps water and sewer connections.
County Manager Chris Coudriet clarified to commissioners at this week’s meeting that if a project was brought forth that met the zoning’s technical specifications it would be allowed.
“The county, to my knowledge, other than when it put zoning in place in the late ‘60s and early ‘90s, has never done preemptive rezoning,” Coudriet added, meaning the county has never initiated a change to zoning, only voted on what an applicant requests it.
The incongruency between the zoning and low density place type was a concern brought forth at the planning board meeting by Cameron Moore earlier in the summer. His motion suggested zoning be assessed carefully before implementing changes. Planning board recommended commissioners put the western bank amendment “on hold potentially, as a shelf item,” to instruct staff to work through zoning first. Moore expressed concern there would be inconsistencies in the UDO otherwise.
Planning director Rebekah Roth has been clear to both the planning board and commissioners that staff would not recommend a large-scale development to move forward if it was counterproductive to the low-density place type commissioners envisioned.
When Barfield asked Roth for clarification about zoning on Monday, she added: “The last direction we received from this board is there was not an interest in looking at different zoning. So we had not anticipated that. If there is direction to move in that way, then, yes, we would identify zoning options.”
Initially, when staff was looking at the 2016 Comprehensive Plan amendment, they included language to consider new zoning districts as part of low-intensity riverfront place type. Yet, that changed to riverfront conservation without zoning alterations.
Port City Daily asked all the commissioners Tuesday if they would be favorable to changing zoning on the western bank as well. No one answered by press, but this will be updated upon response.
At the meeting, Dane Scalise leaned more into the county’s efforts to explore buying parcels from current landowners on Eagle’s Island to preserve. Assistant County Manager Jessica Loeper has been researching state and federal programs that would allow commissioners to acquire the properties for conservation purposes. There are nearly a dozen privately owned parcels on the western bank.
Roth clarified Loeper has been taking meetings to assess funding options, with more scheduled later this month as “related to the properties in Eagles Island,” one-half of which are made up of wetlands located within a FEMA floodplain.
Zapple noted, if successful, then the county could zone them how they wanted.
Coudriet explained to the board it fielded projects like Battleship Point because the comprehensive plan listed the place type as one of the most intense of development types — a decision made years ago when leaders thought they wanted the western bank to mirror the current riverfront.
“Nothing about the on-ground zoning authorized that,” Courdiet said. “It was the vision.”
However, in the last two decades storms have increased in intensity and sea level data has shifted, causing opinions to change with it.
Environmental advocates Robert Parr, a retired physician, and Roger Shew, a UNCW professor, spoke in favor of conservation at Monday’s meeting. Both have provided information in previous meetings indicating the amount of flooding that takes place on Eagles Island and near the Battleship, both of which make up the western bank region. They informed the board of commissioners the area flooded 30 or so times since Sept. 17 alone.
“The height of the flood over there, at times, was 7 feet,” Parr said. “This will get worse because this is with present sea level. … It’s going to accelerate.”
He compared some areas of the western bank to Rodanthe Beach in the Outer Banks, which lost 10 homes in the last decade due to beach erosion. Parr noted by the county’s 2050 UDO update, if structures are built in places inundated with water, they, too, could be faltering due to increased water infiltrating the region.
Parr said losing infrastructure would have aftereffects countywide and worsen in coming years, eventually affecting the tax base, and impacting funding for other necessities, like transportation or schools.
“We already know that the insurers have an eye on New Hanover County,” he said. “We already know that there are developers and realtors that are going to be losing money whenever we go into a title flood plain.”
Shew, who serves on the board of the Eagle Island Nature Park, called it a “poor decision” to do anything other than conservation on the western bank. He encouraged commissioners to invest in monitoring studies and preserve existing and constructed wetlands to help with stormwater mitigation.
He added any development allowed near the Battleship will result in water rise around one of downtown’s most visited tourist attractions. Shew suggested eco-tourism — birding trails, educational programming — be considered instead. He also also praised the board for their joint meeting with the planning board last week, including a discussion on soils and stormwater — ”which we definitely need to consider in any of these things that we’re looking at.”
“Using requirements for a 25-year storm mitigation is simply not enough,” he said. “The landscape has totally changed.”
This was broached by resident Beth Hansen of the League of Women Voters of the Lower Cape Fear’s environment team. She addressed the once-in-a-century flooding that affected the region with the unnamed storm three weeks ago, followed by once-in-a-century flooding also taking over the western region of the state by Hurricane Helene a week later.
“[It] highlights the need to emphasize resiliency throughout our comprehensive plan as we look to the future,” she said.
Wilmington Chamber of Commerce CEO Natalie English echoed Scalise’s sentiments from earlier in the meeting to take a slower approach in addressing the western bank amenment. Scalise didn’t understand why the county needed to fast-track the update to the comprehensive plan; staff has been working on it for three years now.
“I do want to hear from everybody else, but I think that we ought to probably press pause for a while longer and make sure that we’ve fully vetted what opportunities are available to us,” Scalise continued.
English was introduced by Chair Bill Rivenbark as speaking in opposition, though she clarified it wasn’t necessarily against the amendment but more out of concerns expressed by her board, members and public policy committee.
“Tread lightly,” English said. “Maybe hit the pause button.”
She was concerned that “putting the brakes” on development on the western bank could impact the economy, in constant flux. While sympathetic to sea level rise and flooding, she also was open to considering every available option, whether in engineering or contsruction.
“If there are ways that cleanup activities could actually improve flooding, and I believe there are, we should consider all of those,” English added, also praising the county staff for allowing consideration of development projects case-by-case.
Discussion about raising the roads in the area and adding infill on properties to fire code requirements also took place. Shew said the county should be looking at doing what’s “least impactful” and used the example of raising a boardwalk on a nature trail as less intrusive than constructing higher roads.
“At least with ecotourism, you can do some things with the property,” he said. “With development over there, you’re risking life and limb, and safety and cost as well.”
Before voting, Barfield asked Roth if larger conversations around zoning per the western bank would continue forth. His question came as a motion was made to vote on the riverfront conservation place type.
“I’m trying to figure out next steps because the place type, in my opinion, doesn’t solve the problem,” he said. “It’s just putting it out there that this is what our desire is but doesn’t change a whole lot.”
The motion did not include zoning language, but Zapple called voting on the place type singularly as the first in a series of positive steps forward. Barfield called it merely a document to “make people feel good” but without teeth.
“I don’t want the environmental community to think that we’ve won because we’ve not won anything yet, until we actually find a way to change zoning or buy property there and then preserve it and conserve it in perpetuity,” Barfield said.
Scalise chimed in that brownfields mitigation and finding programs that could allow the county to buy private property to preserve the land was his main priority and why he was voting on the amendment. He was clear the board was in agreement the most important aspect was to work toward maintaining green space for the community.
“This doesn’t mean that we say, ‘We’re done — we did it!’” Scalise said. “We haven’t done it yet. We have to continue on to the finish line.”
The county plans to also engage with the Battleship and other community partners on leveraging resources and opportunities in coming months.
Comments or tips? Email info@portcitydaily.com
Want to read more from PCD? Subscribe now and then sign up for our morning newsletter, Wilmington Wire, and get the headlines delivered to your inbox every morning.
