Town offices will be closed tomorrow in observance of Good Friday, which is a holiday in North Carolina and nine other states, but not a federal holiday.
Recycling will be picked up in Southern Shores tomorrow, and banks, which observe a federal holiday schedule, generally will be open, but Dare County schools, offices, and other facilities, and State offices, such as those serving the N.C. Dept. of Motor Vehicles, will be closed.
U.S. mail service will not be affected by the State holiday.
(According to our online research, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, New Jersey, North Dakota, and Tennessee are the other nine states that observe Good Friday as a state holiday. Texas has designated the day as an “optional” holiday.)
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REMINDER: THE SPRING LARGE-ITEM COLLECTION IS FRIDAY, APRIL 12. Approved items should be placed on the roadside by April 11, but not before April 5.
Among the excluded items that we often see out for pickup are televisions, building materials, roofing, doors, screens, windows, toilets, carpets, rugs, and basketball goals.
Furniture, mattresses, exercise equipment, appliances that do not contain freon, and properly bagged vegetative debris are acceptable. See the link above for a list of do’s and don’ts.
The Town has already announced that the fall large-item pickup will be Friday, Oct. 18.
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THE TOWN COUNCIL NEXT MEETS ON TUESDAY, APRIL 9, NOT ON THE FIRST TUESDAY OF THE MONTH. The Beacon will publicize its agenda when it is posted online.
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Be on the lookout for increased traffic this weekend. We can expect a sunny weekend with mild temperatures after today’s storm system exits our area.
In our blog post of March 21 about the Chicahauk Property Owners Assn.’s enforcement of a covenant violation, we misstated the law vis-à-vis town ordinance. Local laws generally supersede homeowners association rules, but HOA rules may be more restrictive.
We regret any confusion this misstatement may have created.
We also should have elaborated upon the House Bill in the N.C. General Assembly that seeks to require municipalities to allow one accessory dwelling unit per single-family residence.
H.B. 409, which was overwhelmingly passed last year in the N.C. House of Representatives, but has stalled in a Senate committee, has exceptions for homeowners associations’ restrictive covenants and historic properties. It seemingly would not affect Chicahauk.
We have edited the March 21 blog to reflect these updates. Our haste to publish during a busy time last week created errors for which we apologize.
We trust the CPOA Board of Directors will make an effort to resolve covenant violations involving accessory dwelling units without holding adversarial hearings and imposing fines. Accessory dwellings have been allowed to be built and to be rented in Chicahauk, and homeowners have come to rely upon the income that their rental provides. We hope that fairness prevails for all parties, in light of the circumstances, and that all divisiveness can be resolved.
The annual meeting of the Board of Directors of the Chicahauk Property Owners Assn. (CPOA) will be held tomorrow (Saturday) at 10 a.m. in the Pitts Center.
In light of recent legal action taken by the Board to enforce a CPOA covenant that prohibits both the building of guest houses and other accessory dwelling units on lots and their rental, we note that Town Manager Cliff Ogburn will be attending this meeting. Chicahauk residents may wish to invite Mayor Elizabeth Morey to attend, as well.
A recent letter to Chicahauk residents from an attorney representing the Chicahauk Property Owners Assn. (CPOA) informing them that CPOA will be levying stiff fines against owners who use their property for other than “single-family residential purposes” has the social media site Next Door abuzz today with confusion, anger, suspicion, and a lot of concern.
The March 13 letter, written by attorney Louis J. “John” Hallow, III of Hornthal, Riley, Ellis & Maland—the same law firm that represents the Town of Southern Shores—puts CPOA members on notice that after March 31, CPOA will begin imposing fines of $100 per day for violations of a protective covenant that prohibits the erection or placement of “guest houses and/or suites or ancillary or accessory structures” on a lot in the subdivision, without prior written approval.
The letter, a copy of which The Beacon obtained, quotes from Article III, Section 1, “Residential Use,” of the CPOA’s Amended Declaration and Restatement of Protective Covenants and Conditions, for the restriction that:
“Only one single family residence may be placed on and [sic] lot, and duplexes or multiple family houses are expressly prohibited. No guest house and/or suites ancillary or accessory structures may be leased, rented or sold separately from the main residence.”
So Chicahauk homeowners can neither build guest houses, suites, or accessory structures, nor rent such structures—if they do indeed build them. The current version of these restrictions dates back to 2010, which is the last time the CPOA covenants were revised.
Although in this age of Airbnb rentals, homeowners are increasingly renting out rooms, suites, and other accommodations in their primary residences, the language of the CPOA covenant clearly applies to what are customarily called accessory dwelling units (ADU), not to rental spaces within homes.
ADUs are commonly understood to include guest houses, granny flats, in-law units, cottages, apartments above detached garages, and other secondary dwellings that share the same building lot as a larger, primary home, but not the same structure. They may be attached to a house or garage or stand alone. They may be rented by the homeowner, but they cannot be bought or sold separately.
To put the CPOA covenant into a larger context:
**The Town of Southern Shores does not permit accessory dwelling units, except those that are temporary family health care structures, which, e.g., an elderly parent or his/her caregiver may occupy (See Town Code sec. 36-168(5).)
The Town, however, does allow “accessory structures with living space” in all of the zoning districts except for the RS-10 residential district, Deputy Town Manager/Planning Director Wes Haskett confirmed with us today. RS-10 is the high-density residential district, such as where Pelican Watch is located.
We have always found this distinction between ADUs and “accessory structures with living space” to be confusing.
“From a zoning perspective,” Mr. Haskett explains, “someone can live in an accessory structure with living space, and they can be rented, but it can’t have all of the elements that make up a dwelling unit.”
This has meant in the past that accessory structures in Southern Shores cannot have ovens and other cooking appliances. A hot plate is all right, but we think microwaves are forbidden. (To be verified later.)
**TheNorth Carolina State Legislature may be on the verge of passing a bill that would require all local governments to allow the development of at least one accessory dwelling unit for each single-family detached dwelling. The N.C. House passed the bill, H.B. 409, last year. The Senate equivalent, S.B. 374, passed a first reading in the N.C. Senate in 2023, but it has stalled in committee. (The General Assembly’s sessions last two years; the 2023-24 session ends July 31.)
This pro-builder state legislation has bipartisan sponsorship and is touted politically as a means to provide affordable housing. The Town of Southern Shores Planning Board and Town staff are well aware of H.B. 409/S.B. 374, but Mr. Haskett could not tell us more than we already know.
H.B. 409, which critics claim would undesirably increase real estate density and congestion, has exceptions for HOA restrictive covenants and historic properties.
Southern Shores Town Code section 36-94 provides that only one “principal building” and its “customary accessory building” may be erected on a lot in town, except as otherwise authorized, such as with the temporary family health care structure.
A “customary accessory building,” according to Code section 36-202(b)(2), which applies to the RS-1 single-family residential district where most homeowners live, includes, but is not limited to, swimming pools, tennis courts, and garages, “provided no dwelling unit is located in the accessory structure.”
Got it? We honestly don’t. How many violations regarding accessory structures do you think exist now—or have occurred—in Southern Shores, outside of Chicahauk? Guest houses, sometimes used as quarters for domestic employees, were once common on the oceanfront lots that front on Ocean Blvd. How many exist today?
LONG-STANDING TENSION AMONG HOMEOWNERS
The Beacon is aware that there has been tension between individual homeowners, including some CPOA Board of Directors members, about ADU rentals in Chicahauk, as well as Airbnb rentals in people’s homes. We do not know the specifics, but we do know that such tension is not exclusive within the town to just the Chicahauk subdivision.
We have heard the Town Planning Board grapple with how to regulate ADUs, assuming that the N.C. legislature will open the floodgates, and can attest that members generally do not view them favorably.
According to Mr. Hallow’s letter, the CPOA Board of Directors notified Association members last September by letter that it would begin imposing fines for violations of the “Residential Use” covenant. Unaware of this, we wrote on Dec. 11-12 about a CPOA meeting to discuss a review of the covenants and bylaws and the drafting of a membership survey.
We spoke then to CPOA president, David Stager, who told us that the purpose of the meeting was to “gather” questions for a survey to be sent to CPOA members regarding whether to “change or adjust” Association covenants.
Judging by the comments on Next Door today, we conclude that no such survey was done.
“A board operating from less of a dictatorship, one who genuinely wants to have a FAIR CONVERSATION would benefit us all,” Kiirsten Farr of Chicahauk Trail writes in a lengthy Next Door post that summarizes many of the objections to the new enforcement action taken by the CPOA Board of Directors.
“The drama and unnecessary tension amongst community members this is causing when we’ve had such a dream sense of community for decades,” she continues, “is incomprehensible.”
Writes Dan Lester of Trinitie Trail: “My problem here is that one person had an issue and now it has consumed money and a lot of stress for people. Before making it a legal problem, the process should have been to evaluate whether it was time to make an adjustment to the covenants.”
Judd Snapp of Spindrift Trail acknowledges on Next Door that “our property unfortunately started all of this.” He describes how he and his wife went to “great lengths” to save trees on their lot and to design a house that they believed captures the “Outer Banks look and feel.”
Mr. Snapp’s objection to clear-cutting is not shared by all in Chicahauk, however, as he describes in his Next Door post being told by the “current Chicahauk ARB” (Architectural Review Board head) at a meeting that “he has no right to tell new construction owners that they can’t cut down all the trees on [their] lot.”
In fact, section 9 of Article III of the CPOA’s covenants is designed to do just that. It prohibits property owners from disturbing, removing, or destroying existing “vegetation” during construction without first getting express written consent from the CPOA, which can deny them permission.
CPOA’S PROPOSED FINES ARE EXCESSIVE
But the CPOA Board of Directors is not interested in preventing clear-cutting or in preventing other covenant violations. It is focused on rental ADUs and has brought out the heavy fire.
Per Mr. Hallow’s letter, CPOA will begin enforcing violations of this “Residential Use” covenant after March 31: The Board of Directors, the attorney writes, “will properly notice and call a special meeting . . . to hold a hearing to determine whether a violation . . . has occurred, and if so, whether a lot owner should be fined or if planned community privileges or services should be suspended.”
Mr. Hallow cites N.C. statute for the Association’s authority to take this punitive action.
The allegedly “violating lot owner,” he explains, will be given notice and an opportunity to present evidence at the hearing, at the conclusion of which the Board will either announce a decision or defer decision-making to a later date.
Per a decision make by the Board on March 7, Mr. Hallow writes, fines will be $100 per day, for each day the violation continues. This penalty is comparable to what the Town of Southern Shores levies for zoning violations. According to the State statute cited by Mr. Hallow, $100 is the most severe fine the CPOA could impose.
N.C. General Statutes sec. 47F-3-107.1, which is part of the N.C. Planned Community Act, actually states that a homeowners association may impose a fine of up to $100 for “each day more than five days after the decision that the violation occurs.” Mr. Hallow does not qualify the potential fine imposed by the CPOA, and, therefore, it exceeds the penalty authorized by the State act.
The CPOA’s declaration of covenants also does not give notice to members that they may be subject to stiff fines and the suspension of community privileges if they are found to have violated a covenant. It also does not prohibit the CPOA from imposing them.
We agree with those homeowners who believe that the CPOA Board of Directors has gone too far. The CPOA should have made an effort to discuss the underlying issues of its enforcement action and to hire a professional mediator, rather than a lawyer, to resolve community conflicts. Cooler heads should have prevailed with reasoned problem-solving. Pitting neighbor against neighbor is never a good approach.
The most recent version of the CPOA covenants is nearly 15 years old now and reflects rule-making decisions made decades ago. Radical changes in technology, in market value of Outer Banks property, in the U.S. and the local economies, and in contemporary lifestyles and personal needs, to name just a few variables, have occurred since 2010, and homeowners associations’ governing rules have to keep pace. In updating covenants, CPOA leaders must listen to the many voices in the community, not just to the voices that they want to hear.
Where was the CPOA Board when accessory dwellings were built many years ago? Why has it allowed these dwellings to be built and rented and failed to enforce the covenant?
We also question why one of the Town’s attorneys is involved in this community dispute. The CPOA and the Town are separate entities, with differing interests. If, in fact, Chicahauk homeowners are paying Dare County occupancy taxes on their accessory rentals, the Town of Southern Shores is benefiting.
It is well-established law that local laws supersede homeowners associations’ rules and regulations, but HOA rules may be more restrictive. As noted above, the Town Code allows accessory structures with living space as long as they are not dwelling units. They also may be rented.
We trust the conversation that began on Next Door today will continue and will grow to include the entire community of Southern Shores.
Residents of Southern Shores Landing spoke in opposition yesterday to a doubling of their monthly sewage costs, as requested by the SAGA Realty & Construction subsidiary that operates their wastewater treatment plant, at a consumers’ hearing held in Manteo before an examiner for the N.C. Utilities Commission (NCUC).
The Outer Banks Voice covered the hearing, which it reports was held at the Dare County Courthouse before NCUC examiner Anne Winstead, identified as a public utilities regulatory analyst on the Commission’s website. We refer you to a news article by Kip Tapp about the hearing in today’s Voice and thank him for his coverage.
A full hearing on the rate increase requested by subsidiary GWWTP, LLC, whose acronym stands for Ginguite Woods Wastewater Treatment Plant, will be held in Raleigh on May 7, according to The Voice.
A GWWTP representative reportedly testified before Ms. Winstead in a hearing on March 11.
GWWTP, which was appointed in January as the emergency operator of the Ginguite Woods treatment plant, has proposed a rate increase of $90 per month—from $90 to $180 per month—according to an order by the Commission that approves the increase on a provisional basis.
The rate requested is based on a “single family equivalent” (SFE) usage of 360 gallons per day.
In the same order, the NCUC grants a motion by GWWTP to serve as the Ginguite wastewater treatment plant’s emergency operator and discharges Enviro-Tech of N.C., which had been serving that role.
The N.C. Utilities Commission is a state agency that regulates the rates and services of public utilities in North Carolina. The consumer public is represented in rate hearings by a member of the Commission’s Public Staff. Attorney Davia Newell, of the Public Staff, will be representing Southern Shores Landing residents as their public advocate.
Ms. Newell reportedly attended yesterday’s hearing and visited the Ginguite Woods site.
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JUST ANNOUNCED: The Town of Southern Shores’ springtime large-item collection will be Friday, April 12.
The Southern Shores Planning Board will take up a strikingly altered version of a tree-removal ordinance that was proposed, then withdrawn and redrafted, by the Town, and consider the Town’s latest wording about minimum lot-width measurements for all residential districts, at its regular meeting Monday, to be held at 5 p.m. in the Pitts Center.
The meeting will be live-streamed on the Town’s You Tube website.
Originally included in ZTA 24-01, which, according to Deputy Town Manager/Planning Director Wes Haskett’s meeting report to the Planning Board, was approved, with revisions, by the Town Council at its March 12 meeting, ZTA 24-02 now applies only to the commercial district and not to any Southern Shores residential districts. It also applies only to trees in setback zones.
(Regretfully, we have not had an opportunity yet to review the March 12 meeting videotape, except for its end, which we checked to learn who was appointed to the Planning Board. See below.)
The now independent and revised ZTA 24-02 proposes amending Town Code sec. 36-171, which concerns lot disturbance and stormwater management (“LDSM”), to require a landowner to obtain an LDSM permit in order to remove trees greater than 6 inches in diameter that are measured at 4.5 feet above the ground and are within a front-, side-, or rear-yard setback “on any unimproved lot in the general commercial zoning district.”
These are significant changes from ZTA 24-01, which required permits for such tree removal on “any” unimproved lot, not just commercial lots, and covered tree removals from any location on a lot.
(See The Beacon, 2/18/24, for our reporting on the original ordinance.)
Question: Who is responsible for watering down a proposed change that we viewed as good stewardship and community protection by the Town?
Answer: Clearly someone who has authority over the Town staff.
If the point of the newly required permit is to guard against stormwater runoff into adjacent properties and roadways caused by the removal of old-growth trees, then ZTA 24-02 should address all unimproved lots, not just those in the commercial district. We urge the Planning Board to take that position under consideration.
The Beacon would go a step further and impose a permit requirement for such tree removal on all lots, regardless of whether they are improved or not.
Increasingly, we see new homeowners taking down large trees soon after they move in.
Stormwater runoff is a major hazard in Southern Shores, and causing it is not an “individual property right.” The Town owes it to the community to guard against runoff, when it has the means to do so.
ZTA 24-02 provides civil penalties for a commercial property owner’s failure to obtain a permit to remove trees greater than 6 inches in diameter measured at 4.5 feet above ground in a yard- setback space. It proposes that each tree removed in violation be viewed as a separate offense and requires the Town to issue a warning citation to an offender before taking enforcement action.
The offender has 30 days after receiving the warning to “abate” the violation by replacing the removed tree with a tree “similar in size.” If this is not done, the ZTA proposes that the Town may fine the offender, as outlined in Town Code sec. 1-6(d), which imposes a civil penalty of up to $500 for each violation, and establishes that each day that a violation exists is another violation.
LOT WIDTH ZTA
The minimum lot width required by the Town Code varies according to the zoning district. It is 100 feet in the RS-1 single family residential district and the R-1 low-density residential district; 75 feet in the RS-8 multifamily residential district and the RS-10 residential district; and 50 feet in the government and institutional district.
Question: At what point—i.e., where—on a lot is width measured?
The Town staff tried a year ago to make the answer to this question less ambiguous in the Town Code than it was. This turned out to be a difficult task that was not achieved.
On June 6, 2023, the Town Council voted 3-2 to enact a stopgap ordinance on minimum lot width that had the effect of requiring all lots created after June 6 to be rectangular, i.e., uniform in width throughout, while the staff continued to work on a revision. The stopgap meant that a conforming lot on a cul-de-sac could not be created.
The two dissenting Council members were Mayor Pro Team Matt Neal, who wanted to resolve definitional difficulties last year and not delay, and Councilwoman Paula Sherlock, who supported him.
ZTA 23-05 proposes new definitions for “building setback line,” a demarcation that has been used to determine the point at which width is to be measured on a lot, and “lot width,” amending Town Code section 36-57.
The proposed definition in ZTA 23-05 for building setback line is the “line parallel to or concentric with the front lot line establishing the allowable distance between the front lot line and the nearest portion of any building, [etc.].”
In the RS-1 district, where most of us live, for example, the Code provides that the minimum width of all lots is 100 feet “measured at the building setback line.”
For those lots that front on a cul-de-sac, ZTA 23-05 proposes that the building setback line is “25 feet from the front lot line, or the point where the lot is 100 feet wide, whichever distance is closer to the front lot line.”
For all other lots, ZTA 23-05 proposes that the building setback line is “25 feet from the front lot line.”
This same language is repeated in the width requirements for the other districts mentioned above.
Is it unambiguous? Is it reasonable?
Does it help to know that the Town Code defines the front lot line as “the line separating said lot from that street which is designated as the front street on the building permit, certificate of occupancy, or subdivision plat”?
We leave it to the Planning Board to sort out the ZTA and decide.
Regretfully, again, we are unable to cover the Planning Board’s deliberations at its Monday meeting. We will try to catch up with zoning issues before the Town Council’s April meeting, which is April 9.
CHARLIE RIES JOINS PLANNING BOARD
The Town Council unanimously approved Charlie Ries’s appointment to the Planning Board as the Board’s Second Alternate.
Current Second Alternate Michael Zehner will move up to the First Alternate position, from which Dan Fink recently resigned, thereby creating the vacancy.
Mr. Fink’s appointment was set to expire June 30, 2024.
The Town had two applicants for the alternate position: Mr. Ries and Richard W. Filling.
Before nominating Mr. Ries for the appointment, Mayor Elizabeth Morey, who said she met with both applicants, borrowed a phrase from Planning Board Chairperson Andy Ward in describing them both as “totally over-qualified.”
According to his application, Mr. Ries spent three decades in U.S. diplomatic service, concentrating on economic affairs and Europe. After leaving the State Department, he joined RAND Corporation as a Senior Fellow and went on to serve eight years as Vice President, International, overseeing the non-profit global research organization’s three international offices.
Mr. Ries’s appointment takes effect immediately and runs through June 30, 2027. He lives on South Dogwood Trail.
Mr. Filling is an engineer who had a 30-year career with Baltimore Gas & Electric, during which he acquired extensive experience in land development and zoning projects, according to his application. He had a second career as a home improvement contractor and finish carpenter. Mr. Filling has been active with Better Beaches, N.E.S.T., and the SSVFD. He lives in Chicahauk.
Contractor Kimley-Horn will formally present the design for the structure that will replace the Juniper Trinitie Culvert Bridge to the Southern Shores Town Council at its regular meeting next Tuesday, at 5:30 p.m. in the Pitts Center.
Town Manager Cliff Ogburn, who has kept the Town Council up to date on Kimley-Horn’s progress, previously announced at a Council meeting that construction of the bridge replacement will likely start in November.
Also featured on the Town Council’s meeting agenda are:
A public hearing on, and the Council’s consideration of, Zoning Text Amendment 24-01, which received unanimous approval from the Planning Board last month, subject to wording changes it suggested (See The Beacon, 2/18/24, 2/23/24);
The Council’s consideration of a Town resolution to oppose the release of “helium or lighter-than-air balloons into the atmosphere” within the limits of Southern Shores, an environmental concern that has been championed by Chicahauk homeowner Debbie Swick;
The appointment of one of two highly qualified candidates to fill the vacancy on the Planning Board for a second Alternate, and the reappointment of Wanda Brett-Jordan as an Alternate on the Southern Shores Historic Landmarks Commission;
An update on the previously approved 101-square-foot addition to the Town Planning and Code Enforcement Dept.’s file room and the possible scanning of documents stored in the file room for digital preservation;
A planning discussion led by Town Manager Ogburn about the Town’s FY 2024-25 budget;
February reports by the Deputy Town Manager/Planning Director, the Police Chief, and the Fire Chief; and
Recognition of Eagle Scout Austin Bellinger for the Town Hall Little Free Library.
As usual, there will be two public-comment periods during the meeting.
You may live-stream the meeting at https://www.youtube.com/@SouthernShores/streams. If you choose to view the meeting on You Tube video, after it is over, be sure to click the “Live” link in the menu at the top of the page.
The Town has received the approval of the U.S. Coast Guard to lower the culvert bridge on Juniper/Trinitie trail when it is replaced by a cored slab bridge—thus, reducing the opening of the structure—in order to improve the lines of sight of drivers who cross it.
Kimley-Horn has signed two contracts with the Town, one of which covers project tasks that were not dependent on the Coast Guard’s response and the other of which covers tasks that were. The Raleigh-based engineering firm has been working on the pre-Coast Guard tasks. The total cost of the bridge replacement is expected to be about $434,500, according to Mr. Ogburn.
Mr. Ogburn has given a tentative starting date of November for construction of the replacement bridge and a completion date of Summer 2025. He also has said that the bridge potentially could be closed for six months.
We would like to thank Ms. Swick for her dedicated efforts to rid the coastal environment of contamination by Mylar and latex balloons, which, when deflated, pollute the land and waters and pose a serious hazard to the lives and health of animals, birds, and fish.
Proposed Town Resolution 2024-03-02 states that such balloons “represent the most common form of floating garbage and flotsam within 200 miles of the shore” and that their effect on “marine life is incalculable at the present time,” although research indicates that marine life and animals ingest the balloons when they appear on the surface of waters.
We also would like to thank Ms. Brett-Jordan for serving as an Alternate on the Historic Landmarks Commission for the past three years and for volunteering to serve another three-year term in that position, and Charlie Ries of South Dogwood Trail and Richard W. Filling of Crooked Back Loop for volunteering to serve on the Town Planning Board.
Although the position open on the Planning Board is that of First Alternate, Planning Director Wes Haskett has suggested in a report to the Council that it name the new appointee to be Second Alternate and promote the current Second Alternate, Michael Zehner, to the First Alternate’s position.
The Town Council usually observes seniority in its alternate appointments, such that the promotion of Mr. Zehner should be pro forma.
The Beacon will be unable to cover Tuesday’s meeting. We will watch Kimley-Horn’s presentation as soon as we can and report on those details that we believe would be of most benefit and use to residents, especially those residents who live in Chicahauk.
Don’t forget: Daylight Savings Time starts this weekend. We’re springing forward again.
About 25 percent of Dare County’s registered voters cast ballots in yesterday’s primary election, a turnout that, although typical for primaries, resulted in two Republican candidates for the Dare County Board of Commissioners (BOC)—newcomers Carson Creef and Michael Burrus—winning seats on the seven-member board with less than 9 percent of the electorate’s support.
Republican Robert L. Woodard, Sr., the longtime chairperson of the BOC, had a stronger showing in his primary race, garnering about 10 percent of the Dare County electorate in his defeat of newcomer Christian Thomas Hayman. Unlike Mr. Creef and Mr. Burrus, however, Mr. Woodard has a Democratic opponent in the November general election.
According to unofficial results from the N.C. State Board of Elections (NCSBE), Mr. Creef, a Wanchese commercial fisherman who openly campaigned as “pro Trump,” ousted longtime BOC Vice Chair Wally Overman, who was first elected in 2013, by a vote of 2,924 to 2,294, and Mr. Burrus, a Wanchese businessman, defeated Bea Basnight, who was appointed to the BOC in December to fill the seat of the late Jim Tobin until the November election, by a vote of 2,942 to 2,355.
Both Mr. Creef’s and Mr. Burrus’s vote totals represent about 8.8 percent of the 33,310 registered voters in Dare County, of whom 8,159, or 24.49 percent, voted in the primary, according to the NCSBE.
Mr. Creef received 56.04 percent of the votes cast in his primary race, to Mr. Overman’s 43.96 percent, to win one of the two District 1 seats representing Roanoke Island and the Dare County mainland. Mr. Burrus received 55.54 percent of the votes cast in his race, to Ms. Basnight’s 44.46 percent, to win the other District 1 seat.
Mr. Woodard defeated Mr. Hayman by a vote of 3,437 to 1,652, or 67.54 percent to 32.46 percent of the votes cast. He will face Democratic challenger Katie Morgan of Colington in November for his District 2 seat, which represents Nags Head, Colington, and Kill Devil Hills.
Ms. Morgan announced her candidacy last December, and The Beacon has been remiss in not being aware of it. We apologize to readers for this significant oversight. Ms. Morgan was a passionate opponent of both SAGA Realty & Construction and its Ginguite Creek mixed-use development during public-comment periods in the three Special Use Permit application hearings held last fall by the Southern Shores Planning Board.
Also in November, incumbent Commissioner Steve House, a Republican who represents Duck, Southern Shores, and Kitty Hawk, will face Democratic challenger Dennis Zaenger for his District 3 seat, and Democrat Aida Havel and Republican Mary Ellon Ballance will vie for the District 4 seat (Hatteras Island), currently held by Commissioner Danny Couch, who decided not to run for reelection.
Thanks to Mr. Creef’s and Mr. Burrus’s victories yesterday, and Mr. Couch’s decision not to run, there will be at least three new members of the Dare County Board of Commissioners in December.
All BOC members serve four-year terms, and elections among the seven members are staggered.
To see all of the Dare County election results, or to see all results statewide, go to the N.C. State Board of Elections website at www.ncsbe.gov and click on the link at the top of the home page.
The turnout statewide was 24.02 percent, according to the NCSBE.
Voting for Southern Shores residents this Tuesday, Primary Election Day, will be in the Kern Pitts Center from 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. The regular first-Tuesday meeting of the Southern Shores Town Council has been rescheduled to March 12, in the Pitts Center, at 5:30 p.m.
The Town has already announced that a public hearing on Zoning Text Amendment 24-01, recently approved by the Planning Board with changes, will be held during the Council meeting. (See The Beacon, 2/23/24.)
Registered Republicans, Democrats, and Libertarians will have their own ballots in the “Super Tuesday” primary, while voters who are registered Unaffiliated, the most popular party designation in North Carolina, with 37 percent of all registered voters, will be able to choose the party primary in which they participate.
Voters will be choosing their preference for U.S. presidential nominee, as well as party nominees for N.C. governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, and other statewide offices.
Republicans and Unaffiliated voters in the Republican primary will decide two of the three seats on the seven-member Dare County Board of Commissioners that are up for election this year because only one of the candidates has an opponent in the Nov. 5 general election. These candidates are:
Wally Overman vs. Carson Creef for one of the two District 1 seats that represent Roanoke Island and the Dare County mainland on the Board;
Christian Thomas Hayman vs. Robert L. Woodard, District 2, representing Nags Head, Colington, and Kill Devil Hills; and
Bea Basnight vs. Mike Burrus, for the other District 1 seat, to fill the unexpired term of the late Jim Tobin that runs until 2026.
The victor in the Hayman-Woodard primary will face Democratic challenger Katie Morgan of Colington in November.
The Beacon published a rundown of the primary election on 2/14/24, with links to information about candidates.
TICKETS FOR FLAT TOP TOUR ARE NOW FOR SALE ONLINE
Tickets are now for sale online—for the first time ever—for the 2024 Southern Shores Historic Flat Top Tour, which is scheduled Sat., April 27, from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.
You also may purchase tickets in person, with cash or a check, on the day of the tour, from 10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., at the Southern Shores Historic Flat Top Cottages owners’ tent in the Southern Shores Crossing at 1 Ocean Blvd. (The Crossing is the shopping center behind Southern Shores Realty Co.) Tickets will not be for sale at the individual cottages, as has been the case in past tours.
All proceeds will benefit the Flat Top Preservation Fund of the Outer Banks Community Foundation, whose offices formerly occupied the flat top at 13 Skyline Road.
This year’s self-guided tour features 14 flat top cottages, five of which have been designated historic landmarks by the Town of Southern Shores. They are, traveling from north to south:
The Southern Shores Beacon 