The Dare County Board of Commissioners unanimously voted yesterday to “halt” its efforts to build affordable housing in the county and to return the $35 million loan that the State of North Carolina gave it for this purpose.
The Board’s surprising decision came after the seven commissioners listened to nearly 2 ½ hours of public comment, some of which was critical of chosen developer, Coastal Affordable Housing LLC, and to County Manager/Attorney Bobby L. Outten elaborate in detail upon all of the actions taken by Dare County during the past 4 ½ years to make affordable housing a reality.
By the time all of the commissioners had an opportunity to speak, it was clear that a majority of them had become frustrated and exhausted with one major hurdle preventing Dare from going forward with an affordable housing project: the “NIMBY” attitude of homeowners in the vicinity of the sites where such projects have been proposed.
“Not in My Back Yard,” some of the commissioners said, defeated the County’s sincere efforts to bring affordable housing to an essential workforce that is increasingly forced to live outside of Dare County because housing rents and prices here are too high.
For our money, the commissioners gave up too soon. No one ever said it was going to be easy. Worthwhile objectives rarely are.
HOW DID WE GET HERE?
In explaining “How did we get here?” Mr. Outten went back to Dare’s early efforts to network with housing authorities in Raleigh and to work with the non-profit Development Finance Initiative at the UNC School of Government that was poised to help it by identifying developers willing to participate in a public-private partnership to build the housing that Dare County needs.
During its consultancy with the DFI, the County created a $12 million fund for an affordable housing project. It did not move ahead with DFI, however, because it “got word” in 2021, Mr. Outten said, that the State had budgeted $35 million to Dare County to develop such housing. The State money, he said, came out of an American Rescue Plan (ARP) stimulus fund established by the U.S. government during the COVID-19 pandemic.
This money, which was set up as a forgivable loan, was not sought by Dare County and came as a surprise to the Board of Commissioners and Mr. Outten.
Because of its source, federal rules attached some “strings,” the County Manager said, one of which was the requirement that Dare County issue an RFQ—Request for Quotation—to solicit developers. It was through the RFQ process that the County identified developers Woda Cooper Cos. and Coastal Affordable Housing and elected to work with both.
Woda Cooper already owned land in Nags Head that was zoned for multifamily housing and planned to develop it, according to Mr. Outten. The County decided to apply its $12 million housing fund to this project, which, unfortunately, fell through after many people in the Nags Head community objected to it, and the Town of Nags Head rezoned the property to prevent it.
Coastal Affordable Housing offered to invest $65 million of its own money to bring a total of $100 million to what was originally envisioned as a single project of about 400 affordable housing units. The County adjusted this design, however, to include a project of multiple sites, rather than one housing site, because of community opposition to large projects proposed by Coastal on the beach and Roanoke Island.
(We believe four projects, including the one in Nags Head, were defeated. Mr. Outten did not specify the number.)
During the past year, Coastal Affordable Housing has been unable to locate a suitable property site or multiple sites to buy and develop, Mr. Outten said, but the County Manager concluded his briefing with the indication that the County was “waiting” for the right situation to emerge.
We would have liked to have heard Mr. Outten’s recommendation about how to proceed. We believe he would have advised the Board to stay the course.
‘UNWINDING’ THE PROJECT, RETURNING MONEY
Commissioner Steve House, who lives in Southern Shores and represents Duck, Southern Shores, and Kitty Hawk, made the motion that led to Dare’s “bailout.”
He prefaced it by saying: “Everyone understands that there’s a need for essential housing, however, they do not want it in their backyards, and there are no backyards left.”
Mr. House then made a vague and awkwardly worded motion that other commissioners sought to clarify.
“I make a motion,” he said, “to halt this project and give the County Manager the authority to take the appropriate steps to unwind it.”
After Commissioner Bea Basnight seconded the motion, Commissioner Rob Ross (Nags Head, Colington, Kill Devil Hills) pointedly asked: “By unwinding the project, we are saying the money will be returned to the General Assembly, yes or no?”
Mr. House softly replied, “Yes,” then more loudly said, “That’s the only way it can go.”
Mr. Outten then clarified that, besides “stopping [County] efforts on affordable housing,” he would have “to go to the Office of Management and Budget and get instructions on what we have to do.”
(We assume because the money comes from an ARP, Mr. Outten is dealing with the U.S. OMB, not with the North Carolina equivalent, which is the Office of State Budget and Management. Mr. Outten certainly should know that.)
When Mr. Outten reiterated that he would have to go to the “OMB and find out what to do with the money,” Chairman Woodard quickly added, “And how to return it.”
Before Mr. House made his motion, each Commissioner responded to—and, in some instances, pushed back against—the public comments he or she heard and talked about the substantial efforts that the County has made to learn about, contract for, and develop affordable housing.
To truly appreciate the hurdles, the complications, and the commitment and delays of time, we strongly urge you to listen to Mr. Outten’s talk, which begins at two hours, 19 minutes into the meeting videotape, and ends around two hours, 45 minutes. His talk is dense, so you may have to listen a few times to glean all of the details.
The Commissioners’ frustration with the public—with misinformation and lack of information, with misguided ideas of what the County can and cannot do legally—came through in their remarks, but it wasn’t until Ervin Bateman (At Large), the fifth Board member to speak, that the word, “NIMBY,” was uttered.
Mr. Bateman opened the door, with some regret. Chairman Woodward had no difficulty saying, in his rebuke of the status quo, “It is clearly a NIMBY situation, and I don’t know how we overcome it.”
The plainspoken Commissioner Ross admonished members of the public for their false assumptions and erroneous conclusions and expressed disappointment and sadness about the way things have progressed, while Mr. House wondered if “the citizens of Dare County actually want” affordable housing.
Mr. Bateman, a restaurant owner who provides rental housing for his employees, recalled the euphoria he felt when he learned from a friend in the Governor’s office about the $35 million loan.
“It was a gift from God,” he exhorted. “It just dropped out of nowhere, and all of a sudden $35 million just landed in our laps. . . .”
Mr. Bateman and his fellow commissioners “were excited as the dickens,” he continued. “We were high-fiving each other” as they went into “housing summits.”
“We can make a difference in Dare County!” he said. “We can make things happen here!”
We believe you still can, but not if you quit when the going gets rough. Thirty-five million dollars is a big price to pay when it costs nothing to let things ride for a while.
TASK FORCE MEETING: The Dare County Housing Task Force has not disbanded and will meet next Tuesday, at 9 a.m., in Room 168 of the Dare County Administration Bldg. in Manteo. The task force should feel free to do the creative brainstorming that the Board of Commissioners apparently does not wish to do.
By Ann G. Sjoerdsma, 4/10/24
The Southern Shores Beacon 