The Wrightsville Beach Board of Aldermen will soon take another look at adjusting maximum building height after the town’s planning board unanimously recommended approval of an amendment to zoning laws that would allow buildings up to 50 feet in the vacant lot by Johnnie Mercer’s Pier.
In approving the amendment to town’s zoning ordinances, the seven members of the planning board said they hoped it would prompt a discussion over the town’s 40 foot building height limit, which has stymied development of the beachfront lot for more than a decade. The planning board’s recommendation will put the proposed amendment before the town’s Board of Alderman at an upcoming meeting.
“We need positive things to happen on the beach, especially in places that sit derelict,” said Wrightsville Beach Planning Board Chairman Ken Dull. “People on the beach need direction.”
The planning board approved an amendment that would create an “overlay” district for mixed-used projects on the commercially zoned block that representatives of the Coastal NC Real Estate development firm said would apply only to that one area of town. But critics said that if the town approves the amendment, it would be used by other developers in other zoning districts, inviting more high rises and ultimately changing the character of Wrightsville Beach.
Efforts to adjust town height limits in the past have met stiff opposition from the public and town aldermen, who in 2015 voted unanimously against allowing town planning staff from receiving a proposed project that would violate the town’s height district. The town’s planning staff recommended rejection of the amendment, citing prior town decisions on changing the building height limits.
While the zoning change was submitted to support a proposed project for the lot by the pier, developers said that the zoning change issue was a separate issue. There is already a mixed-used project approved for the lot, dubbed “The Helm,” but developers said they weren’t confident they could make the ground-floor commercial units conform to government flooding regulations. Coastal NC Real Estate has a new proposal for the lot called the Island Center, which would also feature a mix of residential units, shops, restaurants and parking.
Making the legal case for the amendment was a local attorney and former Wrightsville Beach alderman who helped write the current 40-foot town building height limit. Joseph Taylor, a senior real estate attorney at Wilmington’s Murchison, Taylor & Gibson law firm, told the planning board that the current 40-foot building height limit didn’t conform with the intent of town leaders who in the 1970s set the height limit and “stopped the high rises.”
“Forty feet was not arbitrary, a lot of thought went into it,” said Taylor, who served as an alderman 1973-1977. “It made sense to have three stories, room underneath for parking and a nice roofline.”
But developers said changes in federal flood regulations following 2005’s Hurricane Katrina, along with state land use rules, have served to make several proposed projects for the vacant lot not “feasible.”
Three residents spoke in favor of the amendment, including the town’s chamber of commerce president, with only David Monaghan speaking against the zoning change. Monaghan said he wasn’t opposed to the project, just its height, and that making the change would invite more challenges to the height limit from lawyers and developers.
“We live here because of the way this beach is. You’re not going to find another beach like it,” said Monaghan, arguing that Wrightsville Beach stands out from other area beaches in North Carolina, South Carolina and New Jersey because of the limits on high rise developments. “Changing heights on the beach will be the death knell.”
Members of the planning board observed that the current 40-foot height limit led to a change in the architecture on the beach, leading to more boxy, flat-roofed buildings that would utilize the limited space. The architectural design of these buildings was limiting the light that reached some streets, creating what board member Ace Cofer called the “canyon effect.”
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