Mayor Elizabeth Morey will hold a Mayor’s Chat Wednesday, Aug. 9, in the Pitts Center—the first of four Town meetings worthy of your attention in August. Two others will involve Planning Board business, and the fourth will be what the Mayor promoted at the Town Council meeting two days ago as a “town hall” to enable residents and property owners to weigh in on future sidewalk construction.
The Mayor’s Chat next week will be her first chat since July 2022, when attendees primarily discussed cut-thru traffic. (See The Beacon’s report, 7/14/22.)
If the Mayor’s informal Q&A session lasts more than an hour, it will have to be continued in an upstairs room in the Pitts Center or in the parking lot because the Town Planning Board is scheduled to hold a special session on the same day and location at 5 p.m. to review the final draft of the updated CAMA Land Use Plan (LUP).
Mayor Morey protested at Tuesday’s Town Council meeting that the unusual heavy scheduling, which may prematurely terminate her chat, “was not my doing. That was staff’s.”
Having attended the July 17 Planning Board meeting, during which Planning Director/Deputy Town Manager Wes Haskett tried unsuccessfully to schedule a convenient time for the five Board members, representatives of LUP consultant Stewart Engineering, and himself to meet to discuss the final draft, however, we have to assume the Mayor had the more flexible schedule. (Just sayin’.)
The public is welcome to comment during the Planning Board’s session on the LUP final draft. If the Board recommends approval of the draft, it will be sent to the N.C. Division of Coastal Management (DCM) for its State-mandated review, a process that could take months to complete. The DCM serves as staff to the N.C. Coastal Resources Commission, which must certify the plan before it can take effect.
You may access the final draft at https://file.ac/zgMqa-4Mjt4/. The document is a 180-page PDF that takes a few minutes to download—at least, it did for us.
AUG. 21: The Planning Board is unusually busy during this traditional summer-vacation month. According to Mr. Haskett, the Board will take up at its Aug. 21 regular meeting the Special Use Permit (SUP) application submitted by Quible & Associates, a local engineering firm, on behalf of Ginguite LLC, the SAGA investor group that owns the land at 6195 N. Croatan Hwy. (U.S. 158), next to the Southern Shores Landing. The application includes plans for a future mixed-use development reportedly comprised of luxury condominiums and commercial buildings, including retail shops and a restaurant.
This will be the first time that the Planning Board has considered Ginguite LLC’s SUP publicly. The Beacon will cover the meeting, which will be held at 5 p.m. in the Pitts Center.
TOWN HALL ON SIDEWALKS
AUG. 29: At the Mayor’s suggestion, the Town Council will hold a town hall on Tuesday, Aug. 29, at 5 p.m., in the Pitts Center, to hear from residents and property owners about their priorities regarding continued construction in town of “multi-use pathways.”
Mr. Haskett asked the Town Council at Tuesday’s meeting to schedule time during its Sept. 5 meeting for public comments about priorities for future multi-use-path construction. He conveyed this request on behalf of Town Manager Cliff Ogburn, who was home recovering from surgery and could not attend the meeting, according to the Mayor.
During the Council’s discussion of the request, Ms. Morey suggested a longer town-hall-style meeting to hear from the public, and her four Council colleagues agreed.
The Town is currently committed to, and has financing for, installing a sidewalk along the east side of N.C. Hwy. 12/Duck Road from Triangle Park at the Duck Road split to East Dogwood Trail. The question the Town has for residents and property owners is where should it next install sidewalks? What should be the order of priority for future construction?
At its March 2022 retreat, the Council drafted the following priority list for future sidewalk segments:
1A: the Triangle Park-to-East Dogwood Trail walkway
1B: N.C. 12/Duck Road from East Dogwood Trail to 13th Avenue (This would be new construction on the west side of the road, not repair and improvement of the east-side sidewalk, as some residents have requested. Mayor Pro Tem Matt Neal indicated Tuesday that he does not endorse this segment as a high priority because of the existence of the east-side sidewalk.)
2A: Hickory Trail from East Dogwood Trail to Hillcrest Drive
2B: Hickory Trail from Hillcrest Drive to N.C. 12/Duck Road
3: Hillcrest Drive from Hickory Trail to N.C. 12/Duck Road
4A: Sea Oats Trail from East Dogwood Trail to Hillcrest Drive
4B: Sea Oats Trail from Hillcrest Drive to N.C. 12/Duck Road
5: Wax Myrtle Trail from East Dogwood Trail to Hillcrest Drive
6: Chicahauk Trail from the cul de sac to Trinitie Trail
7: Skyline Road, its entire length from the cul de sac to N.C. 12/Ocean Boulevard
8A: Ocean Blvd. from Triangle Park at the Duck Road split to East Dogwood Trail
8B: Ocean Blvd. from East Dogwood Trail to Hickory Trail
The Town Council also indicated an interest in improving the connections between Spindrift Trail and Skyline Road in Chicahauk and between North Dogwood Trail and Hillcrest Drive (i.e., the “fire road”).
Council members said they will not limit the town hall discussion just to a consideration of their list of street segments, expressing an interest in hearing residents’ and property owners’ opinions about sidewalks on other streets.
Dare County Tourism Board grant monies are available for sidewalk projects.
REVISED ORDINANCE ON BEACH DRIVING
In other action on Tuesday, the Town Council unanimously passed a revision of the current Town Code ban on beach driving to specify that operating “any vehicle of any type, excluding bicycles and e-bikes” is prohibited in the “ocean beach area” of Southern Shores—unless the operators are with Ocean Rescue, the police or fire departments, the U.S. Coast Guard, and other authorized entities, such as beach-nourishment contractors and sea turtle nest volunteers, or the operators are engaged in an “extreme emergency situation.”
The amendment (TCA 23-01) rewrites Town Code sec. 20-109, which prohibited “motor vehicles” from operating on the beach, and “aircraft” from landing or taking off on the beach, with the express exclusion of certain motor vehicles and aircraft, including those needed in an emergency.
The amendment retitles the ordinance from “Driving or landing aircraft on beaches” to “Driving on the beach” and, according to Mr. Haskett, “modernizes” it and “mirrors similar language” in other Dare County towns. The new ordinance defines “vehicles of any type” as “motor vehicles, pickup trucks, airplanes/helicopters, beach buggies, jeeps, motorcycles, any; one, two, three or four wheeled vehicles powered by any type of motor or physically propelled.” (We don’t know what that “any” means, either–perhaps a word was omitted?–and we’re not sure what physical propulsion is, but we’re don’t have a say. The Council approved the amendment as-is.)
The impetus for the revision arose during a staff presentation last year about the regulation of electric bicycles. The Council wanted to ensure that e-bikes, which might be considered motor vehicles, were expressly permitted on the beach.
TOWN COUNCIL ELECTION
As we previously reported, four candidates will be vying for three positions on the Town Council in the Nov. 7 election. They are incumbents Matt Neal and Mark Batenic and challengers Robert E. Neilson and Michael Guarracino. Incumbent Leo Holland is not running for re-election.
It is customary for political candidates not to start campaigning until September, although they are certainly not precluded from starting earlier. This tradition has developed because of State and Town regulations that restrict the placement of political signs in street and highway rights-of-way to the time period between the 30th day before the “one-stop” early voting period begins and the 10th day after the election.
Regulations also require candidates and/or their campaign teams to obtain the permission of the owner of the property that fronts on the right-of-way before erecting a sign there.
August is usually a vacation month for Outer Bankers, who are not keen on talking election politics quite yet. But, with a Mayor’s Chat, a new Land Use Plan, consideration of the Town’s first-ever mixed-use development, and a town hall about sidewalks, which not everyone likes, that may change this year.
Ann G. Sjoerdsma, 8/3/23
The Southern Shores Beacon 
I guess since the Town is not going to do ANYTHING about the traffic through the neighborhood, they should consider sidewalks before someone gets killed. Victoria Green
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Sounds like our town officials want to open our quiet neighborhood to be like the northern beaches. No more private quiet neighborhoods. They think more of vacationers than their own residents. Don’t like the idea of people walking by my home and possibly checking it out.Maybe time to think of another place to live.
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