I was listening in on the meeting by phone and heard questions and answers shared between county planners and representatives of various local, State, and Federal government agencies discussing technical issues for a high-density, high-end, eighteen-hundred-home subdivision proposed for a compelling natural asset that local developers and policymakers shamelessly call their “Last Frontier.”
In truth, the property is a state-recognized Significant Natural Heritage Area and County-recognized Animal and Plant Area of Special Significance; in addition to being a flood-prone Coastal Management-recognized Wetland Resource Protection Area. It’s a rare natural treasure.
Surprisingly, none of the agencies offered expert opinions regarding environmental and public risk that comes with housing people in a flood-hazard area. They relied instead on making sure all their boxes were checked on their respective technical review sheets. However, there was some discussion between County Planning and the County Fire Marshall regarding what kind of curbing would be best for the single entrance of a dead-end road serving an eighteen hundred-home subdivision.
I hoped the single road discussion might address what-ifs, as in, what happens during an emergency if that single dead-end road is blocked by something such as a traffic accident? A fallen tree is unlikely because, in keeping with County Unified Development ordinances, crafted with guidance from the development community, existing large trees will be removed to make way for asphalt, concrete, and houses. But those grand old trees will be replaced by two-inch diameter saplings that any small car can safely ride over in an emergency.
And speaking of emergency, local planners and policymakers will do well to think deeply about where exactly this development is proposed. It’s an area of scarcely upland ground ranging from three to ten feet above sea level, surrounded on three sides by tidal rivers that communicate with the expanding and rising global ocean. The fourth side of the property is an F-rated, traffic-congested, two-lane, rural road.
As regards developing this particular property, which I explored just a few years ago with its former land manager, I think and wonder about storm surge. In September 1996, Hurricane Fran created a twelve-foot storm surge north of Cape Fear, which is precisely where 1,800 new homes are proposed to be built, surrounded by flooded swamps. In 1996, the ocean was five inches lower than today, and there were no houses on this site. While replacing relatively low-lying pine woodland with asphalt, concrete, and houses will be an interesting experiment for the next generation to observe, I also think just because a thing can be done doesn’t mean it should be done.
And speaking of risk, I’d be careless to not mention the known hazardous chemical waste plume migrating in poorly understood directions and speeds through the property’s underlying groundwater; water that neighboring people drink.
History proves our species does not respond well to slow, chronic change. We react to rapid and sudden change such as earthquakes and hurricanes. Ironically, we know these hazards are in our future, but still we fail to prepare for the inevitable.
That said, in my opinion, based on more than four decades of Cape Fear River exploration and study, this development is going to one day be a costly public expense. Mortgage-holding financial institutions and their insurers may hope the houses will be viable 30 years from now, when the global ocean is conservatively estimated to be one and a half feet higher than in 1996, but that environmental risk is intentionally placed on the shoulders of taxpayers, not long-gone developers and their investors.
In the meantime, while seeming to turn a blind eye to public risk, the Committee’s happy talk resolved the entry road curbing standard and checked off that important technical review box.
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