
As the Logan Homes company prepares to begin selling lots next Spring, specialists from the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality address key coastal environmental issues surrounding the development. One supervisor says high-growth areas like Hampstead and Leland are ‘overbuilt.’
HAMPSTEAD — The 308-lot Salters Haven development is in the works on the Intracoastal Waterway in Hampstead, with sales expected to begin next Spring of some of the 119 lots planned for the first phase of construction; the project is zoned residential performance, which allows two to four residence per acre, making it one of the denser residential developments.
Construction crews are currently digging out a 75-slip marina that will connect with an existing water channel while preparing future homesites and installing utility infrastructure.
READ MORE: Salters Haven subdivision coming to Hampstead with 308 homes, 75-slip marina
High-end homes
Craig Wheeler, president of Destination Realty Corporation, said he expects homes to sell in the range of $400,000 to $1 million while waterfront lots could sell for up to $6 million. This follows a trend of growth in the high-end home market in Pender County’s coastal corridor.
“The primary buyer [will be] the baby boomer — the retiree from the northeast,” Wheeler said.
He said his company, which has been contracted by Logan Homes for the marketing and sales of Salters Haven, has also received interest from families in the Hampstead and Porters Neck areas who are attracted to a community with a marina and water access.
Wheeler is planning to put in a sales team, including former UNCW basketball standout Brett Blizzard, recently retired from the Italian League, in an office adjacent to the property at the corner of U.S. 17 and Factory Road by October. A grand opening event at the clubhouse is expected in April, when potential homebuyers can first buy lots.
According to Wheeler, three local homebuilders — including the developer of the project, Logan Homes — will build out the majority of the community’s homes inland while custom builders will construct elevated homes on the waterway.
He pointed to Salters Haven’s “sister community,” Helms Port in Wilmington which has a marina and a similar layout stretching from the waterway inland, for a clue on future prices. The last ten homes there, he said, have sold for $225 to $275 per square foot.
The timeline for the second phase of construction — another 189 lots — is still being considered, according to Wheeler.
‘Suburban areas around Wilmington are overbuilt’
Dan Sams, an environmental program supervisor for the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) office in Wilmington, said the project received its stormwater permits in February and its erosion and sedimentation control in June. Because it is in its initial phases of marina and sediment pond excavation, he said more inspections will be required as the project moves forward.
He also addressed growing concerns of coastal environmental issues due to an increasing number of developments growing outward from Wilmington in areas like Hampstead and Leland, as more and more open land gives way to impermeable surfaces.
“Are you asking me if the community is overbuilt? I’d say, yeah, Leland and a whole lot of the suburban communities around Wilmington are overbuilt,” Sams said. “Unfortunately we don’t get to weigh in on zoning — that’s the local government. All we can do is take the project that’s in front of us and say, ‘Okay, are you going to build a high-density or low-density [development].’”
At 308 planned homes, he said the dense Salters Haven project will require a significant amount of stormwater retention ponds; 9 such ponds are currently planned to limit sediment inflow into the Intracoastal Waterway.
“The closer to the water you get, the more expensive real estate you get and the more things [developers] want to do with it,” Sams said. “We don’t get to say anything about density or zoning. Believe me, if we had that opportunity, we’d probably make a whole lot of people happier. Because I wouldn’t want to see it developed as thickly as it is.”
Robb Mairs, an environmental specialist with the DEQ’s Division of Water Resources, said Salters Haven is dealing with the same water quality requirements as Helms Port.
“They did their homework and I think they learned a lot from the Helms Port project — how to design it to avoid substantial impact, especially out to the surface waters,” Mairs said.
Like Helms Port, the central issue has been ensuring that the proposed marina would not trigger shellfishing closures in an adjacent sound, according to Mairs. Waters adjacent to Salters Haven in Topsail Sound are classified as high-quality Outstanding Resource Waters, and to avoid any impact on productive shellfish habitats, developers decided to utilize an existing channel to connect to an upland basin.
“They are essentially digging out of the high ground area to have an open water marina … It was far away enough from the sound, based on the number of vessels that are associated with this marina, that it didn’t trigger shellfishing closure,” Mairs said.
According to the most recent plans submitted to the county in April, low impact design features also include rain gardens and swales, infiltration basins and trenches, the preservation of specimen trees on site, and limiting runoff volume to less than or equal to the volume prior to development.
Mark Darrough can be reached at Mark@Localvoicemedia.com or (970) 413-3815