The Wrightsville Beach Planning Board was deadlocked Tuesday night on a proposal to rezone the vacant commercial waterfront lot on Salisbury Street to residential property.
The board’s 3-3 vote reflected a split in opinion between seeing the previous location of a Scotchman store lie vacant and losing one of the town’s few commercially zoned lots.
New Carolina Properties managing partner Frank Martin proposed rezoning part of 100 W. Salisbury St. from commercial to residential to split the lot into two smaller lots to construct a single-family home. The vacant convenience store on the site would remain commercial and be sold to local businessman Reggie Barnes, who also owns the adjacent boat rental property, Martin said.
The planning board’s split decision will be passed along to the Wrightsville Beach Board of Aldermen, which will have the final say on the rezoning request during its October 13 meeting. Town staff opposes the rezoning change.
Although the rezoning would split the lot, Martin urged the board to think of the plan as a “horizontal mixed-use” development. The town has an ordinance allowing developments with both commercial and residential uses to encourage commercial development, but typically those plans involve both uses in the same building on the same lot.
Martin said he and his company contracted to purchase the property last year with the intention of building a mixed-use development with one floor residential and one floor commercial, but deemed it impossible because of flood zone building requirements and inadequate parking.
The lot is a high-risk VE flood zone, which requires new structures to be built 11 feet off the ground. Developers have argued businesses have less chance of surviving when patrons have to walk up multiple floors. There is also limited parking on site because a portion of the lot is a North Carolina Department of Transportation right of way.
Martin said his proposal solves both those issues. Under grandfathering laws, Barnes could purchase and renovate the convenience store property without elevating it. It would only require a few parking spaces, as would the proposed single family home next door.
Board members debated whether finally developing the vacant waterfront lot was worth losing a piece of commercially zoned property. Town staff didn’t think so; they opposed the rezoning because the town’s CAMA land use plan encourages commercial developments offering goods and services to residents.
Vice chairman Ace Cofer agreed, voting against the rezoning. He was in favor of waiting for a better mixed-use proposal, saying certain businesses dependent on ambiance, like restaurants, could survive on the second floor of a mixed-use development overlooking the water.
“People will walk up the stairs for the view,” he said.
Rezoning the lot and splitting it would eliminate the possibility of a restaurant because the remaining commercial lot would be too small.
Board members David Culp and Vivian “Zeke” Partin voted for the proposal, arguing doing something with the property was better than seeing it lie vacant for years to come.
While chairman Ken Dull acknowledged the unique lot posed a challenge for developers, he could not vote for the rezoning without seeing a project proposal, especially for what Barnes plans to do with commercial piece.
Wilson pointed out even if a seemingly valuable residential lot was created from the rezoning, there was no guarantee a multi-million dollar home would be built there.
“Remember the Pizza Hut property [across the street] was rezoned from commercial to residential, and it’s been sitting vacant for 10 or 12 years,” he said.
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