The comp plan has been in the works for a year and a half, and county commissioners just recently got a finalized draft. They’ll have a hearing about it on Monday, where they can hear from the public about it directly. But several commissioners have said they won’t hold a vote yet because there’s so much to read and discuss.
Staff focused on community engagement to develop the plan, and followed the county commissioners' directive to focus on environmental stewardship and resilience, quality of place, and infrastructure and support services.
Planning Director Rebekah Roth says housing is certainly a key part of the plan, even if it's not a pillar.
“The plan still calls for a mix of housing types, so some of that is market-driven," she said.
According to state projections, New Hanover County will see a population growth of more than 107,000 people by 2050. At the same time, the average household size is going down, so there may be more need for smaller housing types in the future.
According to UNCW Regional Economist Mouhcine Guettabi, that kind of growth isn't a given; it's policy-dependent.
"I think growing well is what we should be striving for, as opposed to growth for the sake of growth," he said. "That is balancing the needs and the wants of the residents by maintaining quality of life, but by also attracting and retaining employers that will offer high enough wages for the residents to live in this area."
Guettabi added that infrastructure is an important component.
"One of the challenges that we've experienced over the last six years is we grew really, really fast, and clearly infrastructure responses lagged, and that's happened everywhere in the country. But now with this plan, there needs to be, I think those two things need to be moving in tandem," he said.
That's something addressed in the update — counties can't build roads, and NCDOT, which does build roads, is reactive, rather than proactive. Roth said that's been a major challenge.
"We've heard a lot over the past several years about: how do you really get a sense of what is the cumulative impact of development when you add it together? And that's not a straightforward equation, because sometimes things get built as they are initially permitted. Sometimes they don't get built at all," she said.
That's part of the reason the new Destination 2050 Comprehensive Plan Update sets up the most dense housing development in master planned developments in the northern area of the county.
Other residential development is set to largely mirror the existing neighborhood character. That looks like a lot of single-family homes in many areas, which is right up Commissioner Dane Scalise’s alley.
"I do want us to continue to endeavor to find places where we can preserve and conserve. I do want us to, wherever possible, make sure that single-family houses are still going to be able to be developed, and people will have the opportunity to purchase those," he said.
Commissioner Stephanie Walker said her biggest concern is really flooding — she said she’s concerned about intensive development for that reason.
"The water has to go somewhere, and I'll just leave that there. I really believe that we do have to that is part of smart growth. Single-family may be better, but it can't be expensive single-family; it has to be a variety of different price points for people to be able to afford to live here," she said.
Making new, affordable, single-family homes is a challenge, though, according to Realtor Clayton Hamerski, the former chair of the Cape Fear Housing Coalition. He said it would be hard to find a new construction single-family home worth less than $350,000 in Wilmington, where the median home price is around $450,000.
"I'm sort of going off of the median home prices right now. I just don't see those numbers are realistically taking this sort of Ogden approach, right?" he said. "I grew up over there, you know, with the sort of sprawling expanse of single-family houses that are pretty close together. Yeah, I don't see that being the way out."
Hamerski says he’d like to see the plan focus on more dense housing, since there’s limited available land for development within the city of Wilmington. He’d particularly like to see residential development permitted in more places, especially commercial corridors like Carolina Beach Road. Though staff say they’ve opposed that because of the limitations on road infrastructure.
While all the commissioners who spoke with WHQR agreed that growth is better than decline, Rob Zapple seemed the most interested in developing in a denser way.
"Obviously, if you can put a house, a smaller house, on a quarter or smaller acre land that's making better use of the land that we have left," he said.
He added that townhomes, duplexes, and triplexes are a great option for infill.
"Land prices are going to continue to go up as there's less and less land available, so the development community in the private market is going to have to be react to that and make better, better use of the land that we have, and that includes us going up in multiple stories as well," he said.
Zapple noted the comp plan’s focus on the northern section of the county, where new water and sewer infrastructure has been extended. The comp plan promotes master-planned development in that area, which would allow for developments that have a variety of building heights and more effectively plan their own infrastructure.
The county commission will review the plan on Monday.
Editor's Note: WHQR reached out to every county commissioner, but LeAnn Pierce and Bill Rivenbark did not respond before press time. Rob Zapple is a member of WHQR's Board of Directors, which has no say over editorial decisions.
