NEW HANOVER COUNTY — A local official is calling for deeper analysis of the impact of a 4,000-unit development in a flood-prone area amid surging community opposition to the proposal.
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County commissioner Rob Zapple requested the planning department gather more information on a 4,030-unit proposed development at the Dec. 16 commissioner meeting. He asked staff to research the possibility of a permit modification to address several issues before moving forward, including:
- Verification of soil types
- Certification of marshlands and wetlands
- Ensuring the most current NOAA floodplain maps are being used
- Verification of transportation access and consideration of impacts on existing roadways
- Description of the extent of biodiversity on the proposed property
Two months ago, the county confirmed board approval and community input would not be required for the development, which will span 4,039 acres of land in Castle Hayne. It’s proposed by Copper Builders LLC and allowed by-right in an area known as “Sledge Forest,” of national significance as determined by the North Carolina Heritage Program.
Zapple’s request came two weeks after James Gregory — a NC State forestry professor and owner of Wilmington-based Watershed Hydrology Consultants LLC — submitted an analysis to county officials describing the Hilton Bluffs proposal as “untenable.”
Gregory determined forested floodplain occupies around 3,418 acres of the property. He noted jurisdictional wetlands and hydric soils likely compose a significantly larger portion of Hilton Bluffs’ proposed site than previously estimated.
“The Sledge Forest floodplain is subject to relatively frequent deep, high velocity flood events,” Gregory wrote. “Any buildings anywhere in the floodplain will be subject to catastrophic flood damage.”
A conservation movement led by local group Save Sledge Forest seeks to preserve the site. The Save Sledge Forest petition has 5,742 signatures as of press, up from a little over 800 six weeks ago. Zapple told Port City Daily he’d received at least 100 comments about the issue.
“The number of properties in our neighborhood that have gone up for sale since the announcement of the Sledge Forest project has skyrocketed,” resident Kimberlee Oplinger wrote in an email to commissioners earlier this month. “If our concerns are not addressed, we will be among them and will move our family and businesses as well.”
The county’s technical review committee reviewed Copper Builders LLC’s preliminary Hilton Bluffs plan in October. The property is zoned in the rural agricultural district — which allows a maximum of one residential unit per acre — but TRC determined the developer could count the property’s total acreage in its density calculation if it conserves approximately 3,072 acres of wetlands. A little over four units would be allowed per acre in the roughly 1,000 acres of remaining acreage.
Zapple said he hoped his request would clarify concerns regarding the density calculation for the proposed development.
“How much of it is really developable?” he asked. “How much is marshlands? And if it’s marshlands, that cannot be used for the density increase here.”
Port City Daily has repeatedly reached out to Copper Builders LLC about the Hilton Bluffs development but has not received a response.
Vice Chair LeAnn Pierce requested staff prepare information to clarify the county’s by-right development process.
“I think its important that our citizens to know: ‘What is the process?’” she said at the meeting. “What are those hoops that a developer would have to jump through, especially for those projects that don’t come to the county commission for us to comment on.”
Commissioner Dane Scalise similarly voiced support for Zapple’s proposal and expressed interest in pursuing alternatives for a voluntary purchase. The North Carolina Land and Water Fund approved $5 million in conservation grant funding to purchase 3,900 acres of the property last year but rescinded the grant after the property owners — five LLCs affiliated with Hilton Properties — accepted an offer to develop the area.
“I wanted to push back on the public perception that there is a forgone conclusion of a rubber stamp with this project,” Scalise told Port City Daily. “I’m not opposed to all development, but we’ve got to be deliberate about preserving greenspace and wetlands. I’d like to know what our options truly are.”
Nonprofit Unique Places to Save conservation director Michael Scisco reached out to county officials to discuss potential strategies to preserve a portion of Sledge Forest in October. He described conserving one of the last large scale properties in New Hanover County as a “once in a lifetime opportunity.”
At the Nov. 18 meeting, resident Logan Secord urged commissioners to appeal the development. G.S. 160D-405 allows development decisions made by staff to be appealed before the New Hanover County Board of Adjustments and other quasi-judicial bodies.
Secord argued the density calculation for the proposed development is a “clear deviation” from the intention of the rural agricultural zoning district. The stated purpose of the county’s RA zoning designation includes:
- Allowing very low density single family residential development that is compatible with rural and agricultural settings
- Encouraging rural farming activities
- Promoting exurban development that does not require public infrastructure or services
Hilton Bluffs’ preliminary plan includes mini horse ranch rentals and a golf course. The project will require a traffic impact analysis; it is anticipated to generate 30,261 daily trips, 3,209 peak hour evening trips, and 2,153 peak hour morning trips.
Several Castle Hayne residents questioned the technical review committee’s density calculation during public comment at the Dec. 16 meeting.
Bill Jayne, a founding member of the Alliance for Cape Fear Trees, said county regulations indicate marshland should be subtracted from gross acreage in residential density calculations.
“It would seem that the 3,000 acres of the marsh never should have been zoned RA,” he said. “It was never practical to build even one home per acre there.”
Save Sledge Forest founder Kayne Darrell sent an email to county officials earlier this month highlighting a separate concern with the Hilton Bluffs development application — the absence of any mention of a hazardous waste site on the adjacent property.
General Electric identified a plume of groundwater contamination at its Castle Hayne nuclear fuel facility in the 1990s. The Department of Environmental Quality ranks the property as its ninth highest priority out of 528 sites on its Inactive Hazardous Waste Sites Priority List.
“This omission is particularly alarming given the known presence of a plume that has leached over from the General Electric site onto the Sledge property,” Darrell wrote. “There is a recent discovery, just this year, of a second plume for which data has not yet been collected and analyzed.”
The Hilton Bluffs preliminary plan was signed by five property owners — including Hilton Properties LP partners Jennifer Martin and David Sledge Fort — who sought to develop a sand mine on a 63 acre parcel of the Sledge Forest site a decade ago. Commissioners rejected the proposal in 2019 after years of pushback from Castle Hayne residents regarding the dangers of toxic groundwater.
The property owners also excluded information about the site’s groundwater contamination from their 2012 sand mining permit application and 2013 county rezoning application. The Department of Environmental Quality sent Hilton Properties LP a 2014 letter requesting a permit modification due to its failure to include information regarding contamination and mitigation strategies to avoid harming nearby residents.
Ten years later, Darrell urged the technical review committee to investigate the issue before allowing Hilton Bluffs to commence.
“The potential environmental impact of such a development in close proximity to a known hazardous waste site cannot be ignored,” she wrote.
Save Sledge Forest will host a community gathering at 3 p.m. Monday, Jan. 6, at New Hanover County Courthouse to discuss the conservation effort before members provide public comment on the issue at the commissioner meeting that afternoon.
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