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Controversial Porters Neck townhome project withdrawn after public pushback

The roughly 33.5-acre site at 8138 Market Street in Porters Neck in the northern part of New Hanover County.
New Hanover County
/
WHQR
The roughly 33.5-acre site at 8138 Market Street in Porters Neck in the northern part of New Hanover County.

At last night’s New Hanover County Board of Commissioners meeting, a controversial rezoning in Porters Neck was withdrawn after significant public criticism of the project's density, lack of greenspace, traffic impacts, and potential ecological damage.

The project, located at 8138 Market Street in northern New Hanover County, proposed rezoning 33.5 acres with 348 townhome units. The area is currently a mix of highway commercial, industrial, and lower-density residential zonings; much of the site is currently undeveloped land.

Neighbors protesting the development have pointed to overcrowding in nearby schools, traffic congestion, a lack of green space, and inadequate stormwater management, which opponents claim would harm the water quality in Pages Creek.

The Carroll Companies, which is developing the project through its construction wing CIP Construction Company, had earlier postponed the rezoning request last year after facing these complaints.

On Monday night, after again hearing opposition during the public hearing, county commissioners voted to reject the rezoning.

However, that vote took place before the public hearing was formally closed. This technicality voided the vote, and allowed the developer to withdraw their application — and avoid a one-year moratorium on resubmitting a similar request.

Developer Ronald Carlock, representing the Carroll Companies, said they would “go back to the drawing board” and consider a new approach to the project.

It's not clear what that might look like. Carlock told commissioners that scaling back density would be difficult because of the cost of the property parcels.

According to Allison Engebretson from Paramounte Engineering, which is designing the project, the developer had several options. Engebretson told commissioners that 'by-right' development (i.e. without a rezoning or other county action), would allow commercial development along Market Street, with 75 'performance residential' housing units in the back of the property. With a Special Use Permit, a more aggressive type of application with stricter guidelines on how county commissioners review a project, a maximum of 405 units could be built, she said.

Ben Schachtman is a journalist and editor with a focus on local government accountability. He began reporting for Port City Daily in the Wilmington area in 2016 and took over as managing editor there in 2018. He’s a graduate of Rutgers College and later received his MA from NYU and his PhD from SUNY-Stony Brook, both in English Literature. He loves spending time with his wife and playing rock'n'roll very loudly. You can reach him at BSchachtman@whqr.org and find him on Twitter @Ben_Schachtman.