10/4/23: CANDIDATES’ FORUM VIDEO IS ONLINE; PLUS A Closer Look at the Dare County Housing Provision in the State Budget.

The Beacon will only be publishing this post this week. We encourage you to view the videotape of Monday night’s Town Council candidates’ forum, hosted by the League of Women Voters of Dare, which you may access at https://www.ywatch?v=mOkCDKGozAgoutube.com/.

There was considerable discussion among the candidates about a controversial housing provision just passed in the N.C. General Assembly’s 2023 appropriations bill that restricts the authority and governance Dare County towns have over State-financed affordable housing projects within their limits.

Most of the candidates’ discussion was not about the provision itself, however, but about who had authored the provision and arranged to insert it in the budget, questions that remain unresolved. We would have liked to have known more about the provision.

The N.C. General Assembly allocated $35 million to Dare County in 2021 to construct “affordable,” aka essential workforce, housing. The Dare County Board of Commissioners thereafter partnered with Coastal Affordable Housing, Inc., a newly created, North Carolina-based consortium, to build workforce housing using these nonrecurring funds.

Dare County also partnered separately with the Ohio-based Woda Cooper Cos. to build other workforce/affordable housing initially just on Roanoke Island; later, Woda Cooper identified a Nags Head site. Dare County has reportedly committed $12 million to Woda Cooper projects.

No State- or Dare County-funded housing project has been greenlighted on Roanoke Island or the beach because of local resistance.

The Outer Banks Voice has done an excellent job of reporting on these developments, and we refer you to their coverage, which includes an article yesterday about the Dare County Board of Commissioners’ decision on Monday night to form an affordable housing task force made up of representatives from the county and all six of its municipalities.

All six towns, including Southern Shores, have officially protested the N.C. legislature’s budgetary provision as an encroachment of their powers and control—i.e., a heavy-handed usurpation of local authority by a State legislature increasingly inclined to usurp such authority.     

We were curious about what the provision actually says and looked it up online.

Titled “Dare County Affordable Housing,” it is section 24.8 of the “Current Operations Appropriations Act of 2023” (House Bill 259) and consists of just three subsections. We quote:

“SECTION 24.8(a) The following shall apply to all construction of buildings and infrastructure under the agreement or series of agreements entered into pursuant to Section 24.1 of S.L. [Session Laws] 2022-74 to construct affordable housing units in accordance with Dare County’s longstanding master development plan to increase workforce housing:

“(1) With respect to building permits and inspections of the new construction, the State of North Carolina and any local government with jurisdiction over the new construction shall expedite the issuance of permits and prioritizing the conduct of all necessary inspections.

“(2) With respect to development regulations:

(a) “Articles 6 and 7 of Chapter 160D of the General Statutes shall not apply to the new construction under the agreement or series of agreements.

(b) “Approval under Article 8 of Chapter 160D of the General Statutes shall not be required for the new construction under the agreement or series of agreements; however, a plat of any subdivided land shall be recorded by a selected qualified private partner.

 “(3) With respect to utilities, and provided that the local government has sufficient capacity, any local government within a 1-mile radius of the new construction under the agreement or series of agreements shall provide all utilities in the same manner as that local government provides utilities to all other new construction in that jurisdiction.

“SECTION 24.8(b) This section is effective when it becomes law.”    

Chapter 160D is the “Local Planning and Development Regulation.” Article 6 pertains to development regulations; Article 7 to zoning regulations, and Article 8 to subdivision regulations.

This is, indeed, a sweeping usurpation of municipal powers by an autocratic legislature whose intentions we will not speculate upon. We do think that the formation of a task force is a positive step, provided its membership is not too unwieldly. Affordable workforce housing is a county-wide issue that should be approached by the towns and county acting in concert. It’s one for all and all for one. We all can benefit.   

Ann G. Sjoerdsma, 10/4/23