OAK ISLAND — Despite town council’s desire to increase its revenue by attracting more businesses to Oak Island, its members ultimately rejected a four-story height limit in latest state documents up for renewal to help guide the island’s development.
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The Oak Island Town Council voted unanimously to pass its new CAMA Land Use Plan on Oct. 14 after removing building height language, leaving the plan without those specifications. The board’s reasoning was to avoid conflict with the town’s UDO and noted the proposal drew in complaints from residents as well.
CAMA Land Use Plans are a state requirement for coastal towns in order to prepare for and guide development, to create a balance between economic needs, like commercial development, and environmental protection and sustainability. While CAMA also acts as a guide for the town’s unified development ordinance, the UDO is the enforceable legal document for a jurisdiction. The land use plan is also subject to review every five to 10 years, while the CAMA plan projects the town’s population growth, economic development, and environmental conditions over the next two decades. The last land use plan was published in 2017.
The latest plan stirred up the Oak Island community after the town manager’s original update, in the works for over a year, included four-story structures to be allowed, though the current plan doesn’t specific stories, only height — 35-feet.
Locals put together a petition, which, according to Oak Island resident Gigi Donovan, garnered 870 signatures by the time of the board’s Sept. 9 meeting, when council first took up the plan. Donovan was concerned Oak Island was not going to remain quiet and family-oriented.
“Instead, it’s a race to develop every available inch, often with 41-foot tall, three-story rental monstrosities on the beach,” she said. “The winners are out of state LLC investors, developers, and realtors who make millions, while the town gets more tax revenue. The losers are the permanent island residents whose valid objections are ignored.”
According to staff, the move to bring in four stories would attract more business to the town’s commercial sector, aligning with its desire to increase the town’s revenue. The desire to stipulate four stories in the CAMA plan was influenced by trying to improve the aesthetic of the commercial district as well.
But council was concerned the language would only further frustrate constituents and invite more businesses to attempt to exceed the 35-foot height limit. In order to receive a variance, or a conditional permit, developers would need to be in compliance with the land use plan. Making the building four stories would achieve that.
With the four-story provision, the CAMA plan would go against the UDO’s height limit, set to 35 feet, or about three stories; however, developers can apply for a variance to exceed the limits. The variance requests are viewed more favorably if a developer is within the confines of the CAMA plan.
However, the plan also does not supersede the town’s UDO, but some council members believed the CAMA guidance provided was problematic. Council member Bob Ciullo said at council’s Sept. 9 meeting because the land use plan would have to be considered when amendments to zoning ordinances were proposed, the language of permitting four stories compared to not discussing it in official documents gave him pause.
“This is a land use bible, and to have our land use bible be in violation of our UDO would be a very slippery slope,” Ciullo said.
Council member Terri Cartner echoed the sentiment at the same meeting: “We got some developers, that the minute they see four stories in this thing, they’re going to go crazy.”
The Oak Island Planning Board voted unanimously in favor of the CAMA plan to pass to town council on Aug. 28, with the caveat that the language in the draft about four stories be removed, as height should be decided by referendum.
Despite Ciullo and Cartner’s concerns, some council members thought the four-story inclusion wasn’t a bad idea.
Council member Bill Craft agreed with staff’s assessment, noting he would like to see the four-stories curtailed to commercial developments only. He said more business would bolster the town’s revenue and help pay for other components of the CAMA plan, including bike-ped projects.
“We have to pay for that somehow,” he said at September’s meeting. “I’ve voted against raising taxes the four years I’ve been here. I’d love to vote against raising taxes next year.”
Mayor Pro Tem John Bach recalled in 2017 when Oak Island was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy after its finances “cratered.” With hurricanes and the COVID-19 pandemic that followed, recovery only served to further deplete the community’s finances.
“These plans are projections,” Bach said. “They’re best estimates of the direction we should steer in. They are subject to the real world.”
Bach noted at Oak Island’s recent October meeting the rest of the plan was “quite good” and the distress from the height limit recommendation deflected people from that fact. While he voted to remove the language to prevent further distress or concern, he reiterated a point he made previously.
“Know that eventually, as I said at the last meeting, reality will overcome this plan as it does all plans,” Bach said, “and we may, at that point, be desperate for commercial. We may desire a different streetscape. It’s hard to predict, but it’s not the Bogeyman it was made out to be.”
The plan will now be sent to the Coastal Resources Commission for review and upon certification, can then be implemented as a guide for the jurisdiction.
More information about the CAMA Land Use Plan can be found here.
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