BRUNSWICK COUNTY — There is new movement for a subdivision project on a peninsula enwrapped by the Saucepan Creek in Brunswick County. It’s located inland of the Shallotte Inlet that flows between Ocean Isle Beach and Holden Beach.
Since the 1970s, at least two corporations have had control of the roughly half-dozen acres called Village Green. Waterside land was sold by the lot for decades. Bigger plans approved in 2006 never materialized.
Most of the undeveloped acreage was sold this summer, reportedly for far below market value. On Monday the Brunswick County Planning Board approved an application from the new owners to expand the subdivision with 86 additional lots.
The development team includes Nathan Sanders, the owner of Sanco Builders and its sister company Dominion Land, who is listed as a member of the company that bought the 67 acres in July.
According to LandWatch, the peninsula is under contract for $870,000 in an off-market sale, “aggressively priced at $500,000 less than the reported tax value.” (The taxable value is listed as $1,279,920, property records show.)
Along the stretch of the property that faces the Intracoastal Waterway, homes have already been built on most of the lots. The previous owner, a South Carolina family corporation, worked to sell lots in the 1980s and more recently. A few unbuilt coastal lots were also sold to the new owner, but not included in the development application.
The existing subdivision spans 52 single-family lots on 25 acres. The newly approved expansion will add the new lots to 48 acres on the peninsula’s northern coast and inland parts.
Water will be provided by Brunswick County and sewer will be served by individual septic tanks. Two of the roads within the subdivision are private, while one is maintained by the N.C. Department of Transportation.
The entity Zeitgeist, Inc. sold lots in Village Green during the 1970s. Its registered agent was Brunswick Plantation developer and attorney Mason Anderson, who is credited with putting southeastern N.C.’s coastal allure on the map. Reportedly, during the gas shortages of the 1970s, Anderson noticed the travelers trekking from the northeast to Florida, ignorant of the beaches to their left that they passed along the way.
He placed advertisements in Long Island’s Newsday and the Philadelphia Inquirer to bring northerners’ attention to Brunswick County’s beaches, according to a 2005 StarNews article.
The successor group of Zeitgeist was Piver Corporation, made up of members of the same-named family from South Carolina, which made the recent sale to the new development team’s LLC.
The Piver family put forward plans to add 105 single-family lots to 68 acres on the peninsula in 2006. The project was approved but never built, and that go-ahead has since expired.
The 2007 stormwater permit has also expired and the developer will need to renew it.
One development proposal also considered by the planning board Monday night was previously denied for stormwater concerns.
READ MORE: Brunswick development nixed due to flood concerns is reapplying
Given the county’s coastal conditions and abundant wetlands, prepping a stormwater system that can accommodate a 100-year storm event is encouraged by planning staff. (The previously denied project was approved at the Monday hearing after the site plans were revised to prepare for the 100-year event.)
Members of the development team and previous owners did not immediately respond to requests for interviews.
The Village Green subdivision expansion, which could bring to finality a pre-recession project decades in the making, is part of a large number of development proposals that have been approved this year by the Brunswick County Planning Board.
A collaborative interstate roadway project that includes both Carolinas — designed to create a better bypass of Myrtle Beach that will connect into southwestern Brunswick County — has attracted a cluster of developments on the Brunswick side of the border area.
READ MORE: 4 major developments in Brunswick County considered this week
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