Tuesday, February 18, 2025

Brunswick County commissioner talks overdevelopment, as UDO revision is underway

A local official is hopeful long-awaited revisions to Brunswick County’s development regulations will help address the community’s over-development concerns. Those worries drove Commissioner Randy Thompson to propose a temporary moratorium to new residential projects last year, but it failed to pass. (Courtesy Ash Ramos)

BRUNSWICK COUNTY — A local official is hopeful long-awaited revisions to Brunswick County’s development regulations will help address the community’s over-development concerns. Those worries drove Commissioner Randy Thompson to propose a temporary moratorium to new residential projects last year, but it failed to pass.

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ALSO: No-go on development moratorium in Brunswick County, officials cite legal concerns

Commissioner Randy Thompson told Port City Daily he was optimistic updates in the new Unified Development Ordinance, completion of the long-delayed Northwest Water Treatment Plant expansion and low pressure reverse osmosis system, and an ongoing after-action PTC 8 flooding and infrastructure study will address the issues driving his previous call for a residential moratoria. 

“I’m willing to give staff and some of these communities an opportunity to show that we’re moving forward in a positive direction,” he said. “If I see that is not being done, then I certainly have the option to bring it back before the full board for consideration.”

Commissioners approved a $152,625 base fee and contract with consultant N-Focus Inc. to provide a draft update of the county’s Unified Development Ordinance last May; the UDO has not been fully revised since 2015. 

According to the contract, it’s anticipated to be ready for adoption by March 2025. The contract also includes $3,000 in fees for public engagement sessions. On Monday, the county announced three upcoming community meetings to gather input for the UDO revision. Planning staff will hold informal discussions and answer questions at the end of this month, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., at the following locations:

  • Monday, Jan. 27: Town Creek Community Building, 6420 Ocean Highway E, Winnabow
  • Wednesday, Jan. 29: St. James Community Center, 4136 Southport-Suppy Road, St. James
  • Thursday, Jan. 30: Brunswick Center in Shallotte, 3620 Express Drive, Shallotte

Because a full rewrite was anticipated to take between 12 to 18 months, commissioners instructed staff to send six recommended UDO text amendments to the planning board last March. They included several updates deemed necessary for swift adoption, including stricter tree, buffer, and wetland preservation requirements.

“It’s clear that folks in Brunswick County are not happy with the inaction of our elected leaders both at the county level and the state level,” Southport-based realtor Francesca Slaughter told Port City Daily. “Some things citizens are looking for can only be approved at the state level, such as clear-cutting. At the same time, the folks in office at the county level are not doing anything to advocate for the citizens regarding the issues with overdevelopment.”

The planning board denied or tabled the proposed text amendments multiple times last year. Planning board members argued the amendments should be included as part of the overall UDO revision rather than adopted separately. The amendments included requiring tree buffers between large developments and highways, creating a tree canopy percentage for open space within developments, expanding protections for heritage trees, and making projects include traffic impact analyses before board consideration.

Commissioner Thompson — who served as the board chair until December — lambasted the planning board for tabling proposed flood protection amendments last October.

“I think we still have some work to do with our planning board,” Thompson told Port City Daily Thursday. “I think they need to understand that they’re there to represent all the citizens and not just the development community.”

The Business Alliance for a Sound Economy — an influential association representing prominent developers and real estate professionals in Brunswick and New Hanover counties — expressed concerns about the proposed amendments’ impact on property rights, landowners, and businesses in an October advocacy report. 

BASE stated it met with some commissioners and planning board members to discuss the proposals, recommended continuing text amendments indefinitely, and transferring the items to the UDO rewrite process. 

Some residents have argued Brunswick County’s Planning Board has excessive authority and unfairly prioritizes the interests of the development industry. In other counties, such as in New Hanover, the planning board only provides recommendations to commissioners, who then sign off on developmental approvals. In Brunswick County, the planning board makes the final decision on rezoning approvals unless a proposal is appealed to commissioners.

“The planning board members are appointed by the county commissioners,” Slaughter said. “They’re the ones that do their bidding. This type of setup is rare for a county, because it takes accountability off elected commissioners and puts it on an unelected planning board.”

Thompson told Port City Daily he was open to changing Brunswick County’s approval process to give commissioners more control.

“We should have appointees that can be able to address some issues for us and bring us back something to consider or adopt,” he said. “I like that process, but I certainly would be willing to entertain discussion.”

Last fall, Thompson raised multiple motions to pursue a potential residential development moratorium to address the negative impacts of growth in the county, including strained water and wastewater capacity, flooding and stormwater management, and the adequacy of the county’s emergency services. Each motion was voted down amid concerns the proposal would leave the county vulnerable to litigation.

Thompson’s moratoria initiatives followed Brunswick Conservation Partnership founder Christie Marek’s request for a moratorium at the August planning board meeting. Marek argued PTC 8 demonstrated the county’s fast-paced development outpaced residents’  infrastructure needs after Tropical Storm Debbie and Potential Tropical Cyclone 8 caused severe infrastructure damage and more than 900,000 gallons of wastewater discharges in the county. 

Marek told Port City Daily Thursday she was worried commissioners would delay adoption of the new UDO. She said the new UDO should prioritize broader buffers around wetlands, tree protections, stronger stormwater control requirements, updated evacuation plans, and incentives to promote conservation and affordable housing.   

“I’ve had developers tell me we can’t be mad at them,” she said. “They’ve followed me out of the hall at a county meeting and they’re like: ‘You can’t be mad at us. I mean the county’s letting us do it so we’re just doing our jobs. There’s not a lot of guidelines or restrictions, so we’re just doing what we can do.’”

Thompson believes large, out-of-state real estate and development companies are primarily responsible for environmental damage to the county rather than local businesses.

“I have dealt with the growth of our county personally,” he said. “You can’t drive a mile down the road without seeing the impacts of clear-cutting. If we would not have had clear-cutting, and [developers] left road buffers for 100 to 150 yards, we wouldn’t be dealing with any of this discussion now. They want to go in and clear-cut from all the way back and it’s just bad. They brought it on us.”

The commissioner said staff is preparing a report on the impact of state legislation on the county’s ability to implement the revised UDO. S.B. 382 — a controversial, 131-page bill that passed in December — includes a provision expanding the definition of “downzoning” to include ordinances that create any type of nonconformity for land that is not in a residential district.

Nonconformities refer to land uses — such as structures or lots — that were present before the current zoning of the property, yet don’t match contemporary standards. The bill would require local governments to acquire written consent from property owners before reducing development density, permitted uses for a property, or creating nonconformities.

The North Carolina Chapter of the American Planning Association, the League of Municipalities, and several local governments have raised concerns the provision could cause expansive limitations to municipal zoning authority and undermine long-term planning strategies and Unified Development Ordinance revisions.

Rep. Frank Iler (R-Brunswick) told Port City Daily last month he’d heard concerns from Shallotte and Ocean Isle Beach officials regarding S.B. 382’s downzoning provision. He noted much of the bill could be revised in the 2025 legislative session.

“There’s a lot in there that needs to be adjusted,” Iler said.

Critics of S.B. 382 argued legislators had insufficient time to consider ramifications of the expansive bill before swiftly enacting it into law. 

“That’s the way I felt before I went up there and found out how things work,” Iler said. “Most of what we do is fixing old laws.”


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