NEW HANOVER COUNTY — The New Hanover County manager has intervened in staff’s review of the site plans for Hilton Bluffs, a 1,800-neighborhood planned for Castle Hayne. County Manager Chris Coudriet has cited public safety concerns over the plans’ single access point.
The county provided Port City Daily with a letter Coudriet sent to Copper Builders on Wednesday, Sept. 16. The manager writes he has reviewed the Hilton Bluffs plans and the technical review committee comments from the Aug. 2 meeting.
“The change to a single point of ingress and egress raises significant public safety concerns. Therefore, I am administratively denying the updated plans for the Hilton Bluffs development on public safety grounds. The TRC shall not move forward with any type of further review or determination as it relates to the most recent submitted plan.”
READ MORE: Fire marshal yields to Copper Builders’ single access point in Hilton Bluffs TRC meeting
Coudriet goes on to say a single access point for 1,800 homes presents “unacceptable operational and life safety risks” in the form of delayed emergency response and traffic delays from regular traffic.
“These risks would ultimately be born by the county, its public safety agencies, and the future residents of the development,” Coudriet wrote.
The rejection of the site plans does not prevent Copper Builders from submitting new plans with additional access points.
Though a response was not provided by press, Port City Daily asked the county for its legal basis for rejecting the plans.
Copper Builders’ development is proposed by-right, meaning as long as it follows all local, state and federal regulations, county staff should approve the development. The state fire code requires at least one secondary entrance for emergency access with developments of Hilton Bluffs’ size. However, the state law also says a fire code official “shall either not require two fire apparatus access roads” or allow for alterations to make some sort of access road possible for developments where compliance is “technically infeasible.”
However, as previously reported by Port City Daily, the developer has claimed all other connection options were explored and deemed unviable.
Copper Builders said it sought out a secondary access with all other adjacent property owners, which are already limited because the property is largely bordered by wetlands in Sledge Forest and the Cape Fear River. These property owners included Nuclear Fuel Holding Co., Inc. (General Electric) and three individuals — Robert Payne Jr. and Laurie Payne, Kevin Hommes, and D. Webster Trask.
Copper Builders said the property owners did not agree to an easement using their land after 14 months of negotiations. Additionally, the General Electric property was ruled out due to “sensitive materials, controlled operating conditions, and site security requirements.”
The original site plans, however, did include two other access points into the Wooden Shoe and Marathon Colony neighborhoods, though these were removed in July amid resident pushback and a lawsuit alleging the connection was illegal.
Copper Builders took the two connections off the table after Fire Marshal David Stone issued a determination a month prior that a single access was allowed due to the property’s constraints. However, Stone later rescinded the letter before reverting back to his permissive stance in the Aug. 3 TRC meeting.
Copper Builders founder Wade Miller did not respond to Port City Daily’s request for comment by press, nor did any of the New Hanover County commissioners aside from Dane Scalise.
“I support County Manager Chris Coudriet’s decision-making and trust his judgment,” Scalise wrote in an email to PCD.
This story will be updated upon further responses.
Kayne Darrell with Save Sledge Forest, an advocacy group that made an appeal on the validity of the Hilton Bluffs site plans, shared a statement Thursday:
“This is very good news for our community and the more than 25,000 people who oppose the Hilton Bluffs project. I am incredibly grateful that the County and our county manager, Chris Coudriet, put public safety first. Maybe the most important thing in the County Manager’s letter may be his recognition of who would bear these risks—the County, our public-safety agencies, and the people who live in this community now and the families who would own those homes in the future. No one should have to inherit unacceptable safety risks simply to make this particular development work.”
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