BELVILLE — After the loss of Mayor Mike Allen in July, a new mayor, mayor pro tempore and commissioner were sworn in on Dec. 15 to help lead the Town of Belville.
Mayor Chuck Bost, once the mayor pro tem and acting mayor after Allen’s death, won this year’s election to be the town’s mayor for the next four years, receiving around 67% of the vote and beating out Nia Moore.
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Bost and Allen were close, he confirmed, having worked together at the Leland Police Department for two years before Bost ran for office. Allen spent 44 years at various law enforcement agencies in Brunswick County, but during his tenure with Bost, he was an auxiliary officer. A lieutenant, Bost was his supervisor.
“I joked at the memorial that you really don’t supervise Mike Allen,” Bost recalled. “You just make sure that he doesn’t go off the rails too much. He was a great guy with a bigger than life personality.”
Allen, beloved by town and county leaders as well as residents, served seven terms as Belville’s mayor. Allen was the reason Bost decided to run for office in the first place. Allen approached Bost ahead of his 2010 commissioner campaign to ask Bost to file for office.
“He thought I would be a good person on the board and so I did it as a favor to him,” Bost said.
Bost served nine years cumulatively as mayor pro tem and took up the baton for Allen after his passing.
Both the mayor and mayor pro tem — the latter of whom is Ryan Merrill, a commissioner of six years and who won his seat unchallenged, alongside Commissioner Hunter Smith III — are looking ahead to continue Allen’s mission to expand the Brunswick Riverwalk Park. They also want to help Belville achieve a thriving and developed downtown area.
Town leaders have been working for years to grow downtown. In 2007, it entered a 20-year redevelopment contract with Urban Smart Growth, to develop a mixed use of residential, retail and restaurants on 37 acres off of the Cape Fear River.
“Unfortunately, that partnership hasn’t gone well,” Bost admitted. “Nothing has been done downtown. I know there were some developers interested in looking at it, or taking over the project.”
In 2007, Urban Smart Growth was contracted for the development; the group already owned 25 acres in the town. To complete the build-out, Urban Smart Growth also had an agreement with the North Carolina Department of Transportation that NCDOT would give the developer an additional 35 acres to build a downtown area for Belville if the developer constructed the necessary infrastructure for a new NCDOT site. Urban Smart Growth didn’t complete the construction by the required due date in order to trigger the land swap.
Thus the downtown development has yet to be completed.
In 2015, the town filed a lawsuit against Urban Smart Growth for breach of contract. The developer then countersued, claiming it was the town’s fault for deviating from the agreement and acting in bad faith.
While Urban Smart Growth won its countersuit in 2017, as the town had waived its right to arbitration in its contractual agreement, the town’s 2015 suit was suspended for the company and town to try and work out another development plan.
The town continues to work with Urban Smart Growth and in 2022 signed off on its third housing development project. However, the project has not come to fruition and in a recent turn of events, New Hanover County is trying to purchase 1.42 acres at 1450 Point Harbor Road and 17.13 acres at 1209 N. U.S. Highway 421. The Point Harbor Road address was part of the land in Belville originally intended to become a 13-acre, 160-unit apartment complex from 2022, though it was the third agreement in place. One outlined the land becoming a hotel, set of condos, restaurants, and even a boardwalk.
Urban Smart Growth is now under contract with NHC for the $2.24-million purchase, with plans to preserve the acreage.
Bost said that the sale would not affect the desired development of a downtown for Belville and told Port City Daily the town manager, Athina Williams, has been in consistent contact and communication with New Hanover.
“We continue to talk to USG but they have not been forthcoming on a lot of issues,” Bost said.
Though Bost was not shocked about the sale between New Hanover County and Urban Smart Growth, he added he’d be surprised if Urban Smart Growth sold the 25 acres in Belville to another developer.
Merrill said he wants to see the land sold to another developer, with whom the town can enter into a new agreement with, as the USG contract approaches its 2027 end date.
“We all really want to see some smart and thoughtful development that will expand outside activities, like retail, and possibly some housing areas that would benefit the community,” Merrill said.
Despite wanting to see an expanded downtown, Bost emphasized the importance of maintaining the area’s small town charm. Belville is about 1.9 square miles with a population of more than 3,100. Between 2023 and 2024, the town grew by 35.7% according to the North Carolina Office of State Budget and Management.
“A lot of people I talked to are very concerned about the growth,” Bost explained. “I think they’re conflating Belville with what Leland is experiencing as far as the rapid growth and the infrastructure having difficulty keeping up with it.”
He said controlling the growth of the small town was reliant on preserving green spaces. Belville’s Riverwalk Park was originally 21.6 acres, but in the last four years has preserved an additional seven acres to become additional green space and a walking trail.
Merrill added the effort to beautify and maintain the Brunswick Riverwalk Park is indicative of the town prioritizing green spaces and adding to Belville’s charm.
The Riverwalk was gifted to the town by Brunswick County in December 2013 and was a passion project of Mayor Allen who oversaw phase one and two of its expansion. This included the preservation of the original 21.6 acres of land for the riverwalk and the gifted seven acres from the North Carolina Department of Transportation. When all is said and done, it will include a revitalized boardwalk, and should phase three be completed as planned, a mixed-use downtown along the river with shops, restaurants, hotels, and condos.
“We’re not going to have apartments everywhere. We’re not going to have businesses everywhere,” Bost assured. “We’ve got to keep our area small because that’s what the community wants.”
Because of the rapid population growth, Bost said there have been concerns about Belville not being able to keep up infrastructurally and merging with Leland as a result. Confirming there “was a move to try to merge with Leland”, Bost said discussions were secretly happening with then-Mayor Jack Batson when Bost first joined the board in 2010. It was opposed by the rest of the board.
“We don’t have the same aspirations,” Bost said of the two towns, promising a merger is not in the works. “We’re happy with being our own little town.”
However, when it comes to infrastructure needs, Merrill and Bost both mention stormwater retention systems in town — describing how aging pipes remain an issue. Replacements of stormwater pipes and outfalls would help improve the situation.
A few years ago, a feasibility study on replacing the stormwater retention system, including pipes and outfalls, was requested by the town, but there wasn’t enough funding for both the study and replacements. Bost said town staff was able to acquire outside funding to get the feasibility study to happen, though it took those few years to do it.
Last year, some underground pipes, including in the Olde Towne Community, were restored, Merrill said. Repairs cost $21,500.
Olde Towne has been inundated with water for decades, including during Hurricane Debby, particularly on East Wood Lane and Two Pine Road. Adding to the flooding problems is litter clogging stormwater drains. Bost said while visiting this area, he saw storm drains behind residents’ homes filled with “mattresses and Christmas trees and kids’ pools.”
“I know a lot of citizens feel like we have moved slowly on this, but we’re doing [the replacements] judiciously to make sure we have the studies in place and we know what’s going to happen when we do these mitigation measures,” Merrill said.
In October, the town received the final results of the feasibility study, which split infrastructure changes into five projects at various locations: River Birch Ridge and Flatwoods Court, Winding Branches Drive and Oak Branches Close, Kingsworth Lane Crossing, North Olde Towne Wynd, and the intersection of East Wood Lane and Two Pine Road.
The most expensive of the five is in Olde Towne by Kingsworth Lane, at $1.9 million. Bost hopes to collect the funds this next year to complete it first.
He also mentioned the town is also looking to replace piping and upgrade the drainage system on Eastwood Lane. He added there was a need for construction by the stormwater outfalls that regurgitate water into the river, to limit erosion on the pipes and sediment there.
But the cost to fix infrastructure issues is around $4.5 million. Belville’s most recent budget ordinance, from 2024-2025, has the town breaking even, with revenue and expenditure totals of $4.8 million, which could mean funding the projects would result in a tax increase or debt issuance should a grant not be provided for them.
However, Bost was adamant about not wanting to overtax residents and explained staff would be working to find outside funding.
Commissioners also expressed interest in conducting impact studies for stormwater system replacements at project areas like Kingsworth Lane and Eastwood Lane, which would cost more money. The board wants to understand how residents living in the project areas would be affected by construction.
“We’re trying to work with the community to assist them where we can, but also educate them,” Merrill said. “A lot of our stormwater issues are homeowner issues that they were supposed to take care of but didn’t know they needed to.”
Commissioner Hunter Smith III, elected for a four year term in November, did not respond to Port City Daily for an interview by press.
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