After a 5 ½-hour hearing, with two recesses, the Town Board of Adjustment voted unanimously last night to deny a variance to Anthony Mina that would have allowed him to subdivide the 46,500-square-foot property at 75 E. Dogwood Trail that he owns with his fiancée.

(See The Beacon, 10/19/24, for factual background.)

The hearing may have been excessively long, but the Board’s decision was made quickly and without discussion. It was a foregone conclusion. Mr. Mina did not have a meritorious case, just a personal grievance against the Town, in particular, against Town Deputy Manager/Planning Director Wes Haskett.

We are not acquainted with how this grievance escalated to the point of wasting 5 ½ hours of attendees’ time and public money spent on two attorneys (one representing the Town; the other representing the Board of Adjustment), one court reporter, three police officers (we believe one left early), and overtime for Mr. Haskett and Town Manager Cliff Ogburn, but we trust the Town will conduct a post-mortem and figure out how it could have handled interactions with Mr. Mina better.

We question the Town’s decision even to let Mr. Mina file a request for a variance, inasmuch as a variance is not the “appropriate remedy,” as Town Attorney Lauren Arigaza-Womble of Hornthal, Riley, Ellis & Maland said several times during the hearing, for the hardship that Mr. Mina claimed.

Ms. Arigaza-Womble quoted Professor Adam Lovelady, an expert in land-use law at the University of North Carolina School of Government, for the principle that: “A variance is not the appropriate remedy for a condition or hardship that is shared by the neighborhood or the community as a whole,” such as would be the case where a zoning ordinance, of which an individual complains, affects everyone in the community.

At the beginning of the hearing, it appeared that Mr. Mina had not even wanted to file a request for a variance, for which he paid a $350 fee. He sought to “preclude” the hearing and told the Board of Adjustment that the Town had “no legal basis to force me to be here.”

This posture was one of many confusing revelations by Mr. Mina, whose recourse with the Town is to attempt to change the ordinance that prevents him from subdividing his property in his favor.

TEDIOUS, EXHAUSTIVE HEARING

We did not stay for the conclusion of the hearing, dear readers, taking our leave at 9 p.m., when the second recess was called.  

By then, we had heard a tedious and exhaustive recitation of Mr. Mina’s Variance Application 24-01, which BOA Chairperson Andy Ward took him through, section by section, even though the application was available for all Board members and the public to read, and Mr. Mina, who represented himself, could have summarized it in his direct testimony.

We also had heard an excessive amount of irrelevant material introduced by Mr. Mina into the record, through his oral testimony and his documentation, even though Ms. Arigaza-Womble, properly and continuously objected to it.

Mr. Ward allowed Mr. Mina to have his say, while also trying to keep him focused on facts and not on “innuendo” and “accusations.”

But Mr. Mina’s argument was based on fraud, not on any of the criteria relevant to the granting of a variance.

“Fraud,” he said early on, after moving to “preclude” last night’s hearing—a motion that became moot as the hearing continued—“is a big factor in me obtaining the variance.”

Mr. Mina claimed that Mr. Haskett and the Town of Southern Shores had led him to believe falsely that the lot at 75 E. Dogwood Trail, which he purchased July 5, 2023, could be subdivided, when, in fact, regulations in the Town Code of Ordinances prevent such a subdivision. He repeatedly said that Mr. Haskett had “hidden” the zoning code(s) from him.

He alleged a “real estate scam” or conspiracy to defraud him, and he has sued those people he believes are co-conspirators in federal court. Mr. Mina filed his lengthy complaint in the Eastern District of the U.S. District Court of North Carolina. (The case number is 2:24-CV-00042.)  

Lest anyone be as confused as Mr. Mina clearly was about the zoning ordinances in the Town Code—which are sometimes referred to as the “Zoning Code” or the “Zoning Ordinance”—we would like to clarify that Southern Shores’ zoning ordinances are part of the Town Code, which is readily available on the Town website.

An ordinance is a municipal law: It is a law enacted by local government.  

Mr. Haskett could not “hide” the Town’s ordinances if he wanted to.

When the Southern Shores Town Council passes a Zoning Text Amendment (ZTA) or a Town Code Amendment (TCA), it is passing new law. The ZTA or TCA amends (changes) the text that already exists in the Town Code.  

The Town Code is made up of chapters, the 36^th of which is about zoning, and, therefore, is often referred to as the “Zoning Code.” The 30^th chapter is about subdivisions and is often referred to as the “Subdivision Ordinance.” The so-called Zoning Code and Subdivision Ordinance are not separate from the Town Code; they are part of it.  

ACCESS TO SUBDIVISION LOTS

Access to newly created lots is a significant issue with a subdivision.

Before Aug. 3, 2021, the Town Code allowed subdividers to create access by one of two ways: 1) by having all lots front on a public road; or 2) by creating a public-access easement that connected new lots to a public road and met certain standards of width, length, and the like.

On Aug. 3, 2021, however, the Town Council passed TCA 21-06, which eliminated the access-easement option then codifed in the subdivision chapter at section 30-96(f).

So, two years before Mr. Mina bought his property, the Town Council rendered it impossible for him to subdivide his lot without ensuring that each lot fronted on a public road.

Mr. Mina presented no evidence at the hearing to suggest, much less prove, that the required public notice of the hearing on TCA 21-06 was defective in any way. He insinuated that it was, but he presented no facts to bolster that insinuation.

As Mr. Haskett testified, he did not know Mr. Mina in 2021, and he was not the proponent of TCA 21-06. It was the Town Council that asked for a change in the law. (See our report of 10/19/24.)

Mr. Mina submitted to the Town two applications for a subdivision of 75 E. Dogwood, each of which had a preliminary plat and each of which appears to depend upon an easement for access to a back lot. The Town received both on July 3, 2024, and Mr. Haskett denied both. Mr. Mina did not appeal either denial during the 30 days allotted to him by ordinance for an appeal.

One of the denials also cited Mr. Mina’s failure to conform to a newly enacted zoning ordinance defining mandatory minimum lot size in the RS-1 single-family-dwelling residential district.

Contrary to Mr. Mina’s reading of the new lot-width ordinance, which is Town Code section 36-202(d), it only applies to lots created after June 6, 2023 through subdivision or recombination. It does not render all lots that are not 100 feet wide at every width measurement non-conforming.

The facts established that Mr. Mina exchanged many emails with Mr. Haskett in the month before the lot-width ordinance changed on June 6, 2023, which was about a month before he bought 75 E. Dogwood Trail. There were so many emails, according to Mr. Haskett, that it would take him hours to count them.

Mr. Mina states in his application that the Town Planning Director deliberately withheld from him “pertinent information” about the soon-to-be-changed lot-width ordinance.

Mr. Haskett testified that he had no reason to believe that minimum lot width would be relevant to any applications that Mr. Mina might submit.

Mr. Ward sustained objections from Ms. Arigaza-Womble about Mr. Mina’s allegations that the Town did not give proper notice for the public hearings that were held on the ZTA and TCA that changed the ordinances Mr. Mina cited. Mr. Ward stated for the record that the ordinances were legally adopted.   

COMMUNICATING WITH AGGRIEVED PROPERTY OWNERS

We are not able to comment with knowledge about what happened between Mr. Haskett and Mr. Mina to sour their communications—and between Mr. Mina and Mr. Ogburn—and we will not make any assumptions.

It is clear from Mr. Mina’s variance application and from everything he said last night that he is confused and operating under misconceptions. It is also clear that he believes people have mistreated him. We are not going to speculate as to why.

Mr. Mina came across at the hearing as frenetic—what people would describe as hyper—and intense, but also polite and respectful.

We all know people who cannot be reasoned with, who cannot accept the truth or their own responsibility, and who look to blame others or even believe others are out to get them.   

The question we are left with is the one we started with: How could the Town have prevented the exercise in futility that we witnessed last night?

No one benefited from what occurred, and if Mr. Mina appeals the Board’s decision to the Superior Court of Dare County—he has 30 days to decide, and he indicated last night he probably would—the Town will expend more hours and money on this case, as will Mr. Mina, who professed to be more interested in working on his home-improvement business than on litigation.

All we would suggest is that the next time a “problem” arises with an aggrieved property owner that the Town staff cannot handle that they have a means for resolving it that does not include referring that property owner to the Town Attorney. No one wants to talk to a lawyer. Unless they’re acting as independent dispute mediators, lawyers are adversaries and can be quite intimidating to people who are not accustomed to engaging with them.

A neutral third party might have been helpful in communicating with Mr. Mina.

By Ann G. Sjoerdsma, The Southern Shores Beacon

The evidentiary hearing you might have seen promoted on a large roadside sign at 75 E. Dogwood Trail, near the Dick White Bridge (see above photo), announces a hearing Monday before the Town Board of Adjustment (BOA) about a requested variance.

When you peruse the voluminous documentation in the Town file for this variance application, however, you quickly discover this is not your garden-variety variance request. In fact, it is unprecedented in Southern Shores.

The homeowners at 75 E. Dogwood Trail are asking for a variance that would allow them to subdivide their 46,500-square-foot property into two lots. We explain below why they believe they are entitled to that variance.

The BOA’s hearing, which is quasi-judicial in nature, will be held Monday in the Pitts Center at 5 p.m. The five-member Town Planning Board will sit as the Town’s BOA. The Planning Board Chairperson—or someone serving in his place, if he must recuse himself for any reason—will conduct the hearing much like a trial in a courtroom, only less formally.

Members of the public may not give their opinions as they may in legislative hearings.   

For information about Monday’s hearing, including the ground rules (“order” of hearing), see https://www.southernshores-nc.gov/bc-pb/page/planning-board-will-meet-october-21-2024.

HOMEOWNERS HAVE ALREADY SUED THE TOWN, 11 OTHERS

The same zoning matter that brings homeowners Anthony Mina and Jennifer Franz before the BOA also induced them to file suit in federal court in August against the Town of Southern Shores, Deputy Town Manager/Planning Director Wes Haskett, and 10 other defendants whom Mr. Mina and Ms. Franz have dubbed the “Dare County Real Estate Scam Defendants.”

The couple—Mr. Mina describes Ms. Franz in the file as his fiancee—are representing themselves before the BOA and in court. When parties represent themselves in court, they are said to proceed “pro se,” a Latin phrase meaning “in one’s own behalf.”

Inasmuch as Mr. Mina, a former Pennsylvania resident who is described in a 2020 opinion by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit as a “prolific pro se litigant,” authored all of the documentation in the Town’s case file, we will refer to the couple collectively as Mr. Mina.

(Most of the documents in the case file are irrelevant, including the 55 pages that consist of the complaint Mr. Mina filed in the Eastern District of the U.S. District Court of North Carolina. The case number is 2:24-CV-00042.)

(For the opinion of the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, see https://digitalcommons.law.villanova.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1479&context=thirdcircuit_2020.)

The nub of Mr. Mina’s dispute with the 12 defendants he names in his complaint and the reason for his variance request concerns the legal circumstances surrounding his and Ms. Franz’s joint purchase of 75 E. Dogwood Trail from its former owner, Linda Lauby. He contends that the Town of Southern Shores illegally amended the Town Zoning Code to prevent their subdivision of the property.  

Dare County records show that Ms. Lauby sold 75 E. Dogwood Trail to the couple on July 5, 2023 for $625,000. A wooden two-story house built in 1970 was on the property then and still is.  

The 46,500-square-foot, rectangular-shaped lot has frontage on East Dogwood Trail on its northern side and abuts a developed adjacent property on its eastern side. The property’s western and southern sides front on canals.   

Mr. Mina claims that he was led to believe by both the Town and the real estate listing agent, James Monroe of Outer Banks Realty Group, that the property possibly could be subdivided such that one lot would be situated behind another lot. The rear lot would abut the southern end of the front lot and not have any public road frontage.

Mr. Mina includes in his variance application a transcript of an email correspondence between Ms. Lauby and Mr. Haskett in which Mr. Haskett writes on April 30, 2021 (not 2023) that “Based on [Mr. Monroe’s] description [of the 75 E. Dogwood Trail property] it sounded possible to subdivide the property but further review would help.”

Indeed, Mr. Monroe notes on the listing document, which is dated Feb. 24, 2023, that the property is “potentially capable of being subdivided.”

After Aug. 3, 2021, however–as we explain below–such a representation would be false.

There is no evidence in the file to establish that Mr. Haskett tentatively approved a subdivision plan by Mr. Mina prior to his purchase of the lot.  

ZONING CHANGE AFTER PROPOSED SUBDIVISION ON HILLCREST

Subsequent to Mr. Haskett’s email exchange with Ms. Lauby, a preliminary subdivision plat for 279 Hillcrest Drive came before the Town Planning Board (May 17, 2021) and the Town Council (June 1, 2021) for approval.

Homeowner Lauren Van Riper sought to subdivide her 100,000+-square-foot lot into two lots, in the same manner as Mr. Mina proposes, with one lot in front of the other, and only the front lot having public-road frontage.

The Planning Board recommended conditional approval of Ms. Van Riper’s plat. The Town Council did the same, advising Ms. Van Riper that, under the Town Code subdivision ordinances then in effect, she would have to create a public-access easement from Hillcrest Drive to the back lot and that this easement would have to have a minimum pavement width of 16 feet and a minimum turnaround area of 20 feet.

She was also advised that, pursuant to the subdivision regulations, the back lot would have to have 30 feet of frontage on that access easement.

We recall the public hearing on Ms. Van Riper’s application very well. We were dismayed by what she proposed and spoke in opposition to it. We have no recollection, however, of a public hearing held on Aug. 3, 2021, the upshot of which was that the Town Council unanimously passed a Town Code Amendment (TCA 21-06), not a Zoning Text Amendment, to require that all lots in a subdivision must front on a public road.

TCA 21-06 eliminated the option of a subdivided lot having frontage on an access easement, instead of a public road, which had been permissible under Town Code sections 36-95 and 30-96(f) before the amendment.

Mr. Mina alleges that the Town failed to give requisite notice to the public of its hearing on TCA 21-06 and, therefore, illegally enacted the zoning ordinance change and violated his due-process rights. (His lawsuit is based on a violation of his constitutional rights.)

We are not going to analyze the merits of his argument. We will say this, however: Immediately after the hearing on Ms. Van Riper’s application, Town Councilman Matt Neal, who is now the Mayor Pro Tem, made a motion that Mr. Haskett work with the Planning Board to amend the language of the Town Code subdivision ordinances to remove the easement option. (See Minutes from the Town Council’s June 1, 2021 meeting, p. 10.)

Mr. Neal’s idea was to write a Zoning Text Amendment—not a Town Code Amendment, which originates with the Town Council—that would be subject to public notice and hearing in the Planning Board and the Town Council.

According to Mr. Haskett’s Staff Report for the Aug. 3, 2021 public hearing on TCA 21-06, Town Staff did draft a new Zoning Text Amendment, ZTA 21-07, to address the road/easement access concerns, and the Planning Board recommended its approval in June. But the ZTA was withdrawn, Mr. Haskett writes, when “further review . . . determined that the ZTA would render existing lots with frontage on an easement nonconforming.”

The further review was done either by the Town Attorney or members of the Town Council, or both. Mr. Haskett does not specify. When Mr. Haskett brought up the zoning change at the Planning Board’s July 2021 meeting, it was in the form of a Town Code Amendment, not a ZTA, so no hearing was ever held before the Board.

The Beacon mentions the Aug. 3, 2021 hearing on TCA 21-06 in a July 29, 2021 blog we wrote in which we previewed the Town Council’s agenda for Aug. 3, 2021. We did not cover the hearing. Instead, we filled August 2021 blog posts with news of Covid, cut-through traffic, the Marketplace proposal, and beach nourishment.

THE LOT-WIDTH “QUAGMIRE”

Mr. Mina also challenges as illegal the Town Council’s enactment on June 6, 2023 of ZTA 23-03, which altered the wording of Town Code sec. 36-202(d)(2) concerning the mandatory minimum width of a lot. He again cites deficient notice for the hearing.

He further states in his variance application that Mr. Haskett “illegally adopted” this ZTA—Mr. Haskett has no power or authority to pass ordinances—and that he “secretly planned without my knowledge to intentionally prevent lot subdivision. . . . All evidence indicates [that] Wes Haskett was helping a real estate scam.”

We are very familiar with what we now call the lot-width “quagmire.” ZTA 23-03 was enacted by the Town Council as a stop-gap measure to bring clarity to an ambiguous area of the Town Code, to wit, how to measure minimum lot width.

ZTA 23-03 replaced confusing language that relied for this measurement upon the “building setback line” from the front of a property. Unfortunately, the new language is rigid. The width of all lots created since June 6, 2023 is now measured from the front lot line at right angles to the rear lot line. In other words, in the RS-1 single family dwelling residential district, all lots created since June 6, 2023 through subdivision or recombination, must be 100 feet wide throughout.

A ZTA designed to replace this definition, and to allow for pie-shaped and other irregularly shaped lots, was tabled by the Town Council in May of this year. The stop-gap remains in force.

Mr. Mina consulted with Mr. Haskett in the months before his July 5, 2023 purchase of 75 E. Dogwood Trail and states in his application his belief that the Town Planning Director deliberately withheld from him “pertinent information” about the soon-to-be-changed lot-width ordinance. Mr. Mina says he relied upon the lot-width ordinance that was in effect before June 6, 2023, in buying the property and planning his proposed subdivision, and Mr. Haskett knew this.

We don’t see Mr. Mina even reaching the issue of lot width because he can’t hurdle the road frontage requirement for a subdivision. TCA 21-06 became law nearly two years before he bought Ms. Lauby’s lot.

Mr. Mina submitted to the Town in July two applications for a subdivision of 75 East Dogwood, and Mr. Haskett denied both.

Mr. Haskett denied what he calls Application 1 in a letter to the homeowners on the grounds that the two proposed lots do not front upon a public road. He denied Application 2 because the two proposed lots do not meet the Town’s lot-width requirement. Mr. Mina did not appeal either of these rulings to the Dare County Superior Court.

At the Town Council’s Oct. 1 meeting, Town Attorney Phillip Hornthal read a statement by Mr. Mina into the record, prefacing it by saying that Mr. Mina was “currently banned from Town property for 30 days.”

Mr. Mina sought in the statement to alert “Town property owners” to the Town actions that he now disputes and described the effect of the subdivision ordinance amendment as “down-zoning.”

It is clear from the case file and Mr. Mina’s statement that he has been hostile toward Town employees.

By Ann G. Sjoerdsma, The Southern Shores Beacon

Revised, 10/20/24

Earlier this month the Southern Shores Town Council appointed seven people to what is currently being called the Southern Shores Entry Corridor Enhancement Committee.

The idea for the “entry corridor” committee flows from Mayor Pro Tem Matt Neal’s long-held desire, as he explained at the Council’s Aug. 6 meeting, “to build a blue-sky vision” of Southern Shores, which would be, essentially, a future plan for the town that might extend up to 30 years.

Mr. Neal, a local builder, has described his goal as designing the commercial district—into which the “entry corridor,” or main entry route into Southern Shores, leads—as well as beautifying and improving the remainder of the town.

Mr. Neal nominated the following residents as committee members, all of whom were unanimously approved by the Council at its Oct. 1 meeting:

*Mayor Elizabeth Morey

*Mr. Neal himself

*Matt Savage Price, a partner in Savage Land LLC, a real estate holding company

*Wes Haskett, Deputy Town Manager/Town Planning Director

*Michael Zehner, an Alternate on the Town Planning Board and a professional planning consultant

*Jim Gould, Community Planner for the Town of Duck

*Linda Lauby, an independent publisher and writer

Mr. Neal said at the October meeting that he “canvassed our community” for members of the committee, but we submit that he didn’t conduct a very wide canvass. We know all of these people, and they do not represent what we would consider a cross-section of the community. Also, none of them is a commercial property owner in Southern Shores or likely to become one.

Further, it seems redundant to us to have three professional planners on the committee, even if Mr. Haskett serves exclusively as staff.

Mr. Zehner is the Director of Planning and Community Development for Berkley Group, a private consulting firm operating in Virginia and North Carolina that specializes in municipal planning. Since his appointment to the Planning Board as its Second Alternate—he is now the First Alternate—Mr. Zehner has functioned largely as a full member of the Planning Board, without voting power.

A former planning director for the Town of Nags Head, Mr. Zehner took a very prominent role in the Planning Board’s hearings during September-November 2023 on SAGA’s special use permit application for its Ginguite Creek project. He also has actively promoted affordable housing with the Board and the Town Council.   

Mr. Zehner would seem to be a better choice for an adviser to the “entry corridor” committee, rather than a voting member.

Why not appoint one of the five regular members of the Town Planning Board to the committee? They have their fingers on the pulse of Southern Shores residents and know the Town Zoning Ordinance.

In Mr. Neal’s selection of committee members, we do not see the “citizen input” that the Town Council spoke of seeking when it considered committee membership in September.

In response to a request by the Town Council at its August meeting that Town Staff make recommendations to the Council about developing a vision for the Town’s 38-acre commercial district, Town Manager Cliff Ogburn suggested at the September meeting that the working committee charged with this task consist of:

*The Mayor or another Council member

*The Mayor Pro Tem or another Council member

*Two commercial property owners

*Three at-large members

*The Deputy Town Manager/Planning Director

Mr. Haskett would serve as staff to the other seven people.

The Town Council—in particular, Council Members Mark Batenic and Rob Neilson—responded favorably to the inclusion of commercial property owners, as obvious “stakeholders,” and stressed “input” from the community. Either one could serve in lieu of the Mayor and bring a fresh perspective.  

Mr. Neal clearly has ideas for this endeavor, which he has called his “baby,” and spoke at the October meeting about “enhancing the commercial district” and “designing a small area plan.” He mentioned the interest that some residents have in a town square or a central gathering place in town.  

He also said that developing a “mission statement” and “goals” would be the first action items for the “entry corridor” committee.  

*******

In his presentation to the Council in September, Mr. Ogburn recommended that the “entry corridor” committee consider the following in developing a vision for the commercial district:

*Current Town ordinances

*Enhancements for pedestrians and bicyclists

*Connectivity

*Architectural standards

*Economic vitality

*Potential stressors, such as burdens on adjacent property owners

*A Process for continuous review for compliance and success

*Maintenance of the Town’s identity

To be honest, we’re not that keen on thinking of our small neighborly beach town/community as having an entry corridor, like a billboard-marked or banner-decorated roadway into a city, but if this is the direction that Southern Shores homeowners would like to go, we would not vigorously object. We also appreciate the concept of a “blue-sky vision” for Southern Shores, especially for the commercial district.

Regardless of what may emerge from the committee about the appearance of the entry corridor, Kitty Hawk, which shares that corridor, would have to be consulted.

We would like to point out, however, that Southern Shores is not Duck. (We note Mr. Gould’s participation.) Duck is a tourist village, a happy vacation playground with only 746 year-round residents, as of the 2020 U.S. Census. Duck was designed to cater to vacationers’ amusement, not year-rounders’ needs. Southern Shores is a year-round town with a population of 3,107 people.

Since Southern Shores’ 1979 incorporation, it has had a “small” commercial district located on “the southern edge of town” that has been focused on “convenience shopping and services” for residents, according to the vision statements of all of the Land Use Plans of the past 45 years.   

The recently approved Land Use Plan update, which is now being reviewed by the N.C. Division of Coastal Management, encourages the sort of planning that Mr. Neal proposes with his committee. We would just ask that the viewpoints of people in the larger community be considered, not just those of the relatively small sampling of committee members who have been handpicked to participate in the discussion.

One final thought: As a committee officially appointed by the Town Council, the Southern Shores Entry Corridor Enhancement Committee should hold all of its meetings in public, and minutes of its meetings should be recorded and readily available to the public.

The Council did not address the workings of the committee when it approved its membership.

A WORD ABOUT ACCESSORY DWELLING UNITS

Also at the October meeting, the Town Council expressed an interest in getting out in front of the N.C. General Assembly in legislating the legalities of accessory dwelling units in Southern Shores.

A pair of House and Senate bills introduced in the 2023-24 N.C. General Assembly session would have required local governments to allow at least one ADU per single-family dwelling.

The House Bill (409) passed; the Senate Bill (374) did not. Had it been enacted, the legislation would not have affected Chicahauk because it has private covenants among property owners relating to dwelling type restrictions.

See the text of the bill here: https://webservices.ncleg.gov/ViewBillDocument/2023/2431/0/DRS55034-MQ-72A.

Currently, the Southern Shores Town Code permits accessory dwelling units on residential property, as long as they are not used for “living space.” Living space has typically been evaluated by whether there are cooking facilities in the ADU.   

Viewing ADUs as a means by which affordable housing may be created, the Town Council decided at its October meeting to engage in pertinent information gathering before deciding what, if any, Zoning Code amendments it might recommend.

Mayor Pro Tem Neal suggested that all existing covenants that run with deeds to Southern Shores properties be ascertained to determine how many landowners already have the right to build an ADU.

It was fairly common for the original Southern Shores developers to create lots that would accommodate both a primary residence and a guest house. You still can see evidence of this trend on the oceanfront.

Mayor Elizabeth Morey also suggested that a count of the lots that still have coverage space for building be ascertained. New homeowners who have developed vacant lots or torn down existing structures in order to build have tended to max out the allowable 30-percent lot coverage.

Council members said they would try to enlist the help of the Southern Shores Civic Assn., the Chicahauk Property Owners Assn., and the Town staff in collecting this data—although Mr. Neal offered to do some searches himself and tried to draft his Council colleagues into doing the same.

The next Town Council meeting will be Tuesday, Nov. 12, at 5:30 p.m. in the Pitts Center.

By Ann G. Sjoerdsma, The Southern Shores Beacon  

The Southern Shores Town Council unanimously voted this morning to accept a bid of $1,667,178.70 by Smith-Rowe LLC for what is now being called the Trinitie Trail Bridge Construction Project and to authorize the Town Manager to execute a contract on behalf of the Town with the Mt. Airy, N.C. construction company.

Town Councilman Mark Batenic did not attend this morning’s meeting, described by the Town as a “reconvening” of the Council’s Oct. 1 regular meeting. The vote, therefore, was 4-0.

According to Town Manager Cliff Ogburn, the Town received four bids for the proposed bridge reconstruction project, ranging from Smith-Rowe’s low bid of nearly $1.7 million to the highest bid, which, he said, was $900,000 more.

Because the project involved a public construction contract financed by more than $500,000 in public money, the Town was required by State statute to award it to the “lowest responsible bidder,” after taking into consideration the quality, performance, and time specified in the bidder’s proposal. (See N.C. General Statutes sec. 143-129.)  

Smith-Rowe’s bid qualified it as both the lowest responsible and lowest “responsive” bidder, Mr. Ogburn said, explaining that a responsive bid meets all of the requirements of the bid submission process, as well as all applicable legal requirements.

North Carolina courts have interpreted “responsible” to imply “skill, judgment, and integrity, necessary to the faithful performance of the contract, as well as sufficient financial resources and ability.” (Kinsey Contracting Co. v. The City of Fayetteville, a 1992 N.C. Court of Appeals decision.)

To see a photo gallery of bridges that Smith-Rowe has built in North Carolina, see https://www.smithrowe.com/bridge- construction-services/.

The 32-year-old company claims on its website to have built more than 400 bridges in its service area, which includes Virginia, Tennessee, South Carolina, and Georgia, as well as the heart of North Carolina.

Mr. Ogburn said that Smith-Rowe will have 210 days, or about seven months, to complete the construction project after it receives a “notice to proceed” from the Town, which he said should happen soon. The Town Attorney will have to sign off on the contract first.

The Town Manager has previously said that the construction of the new cored slab bridge on Juniper/Trinitie trails would start in November and be finished by “summer 2025,” with the bridge being closed for up to six months. (See The Beacon, 3/8/24.)

Both Town Councilman Robert Neilson and Town Councilwoman Paula Sherlock expressed some concerns at today’s meeting about the design and “aesthetics” of the new bridge, saying they would like it to blend in with the surrounding neighborhood.

The Town has been engaged with engineering/planning/design consultant Kimley-Horn on this project for nearly two years. There has been ample time to explore aesthetics and to confer in public session with Kimley-Horn about design elements.

If members of the Town Council were unresolved about the replacement bridge’s appearance and suitability in Southern Shores, we are of the mind that they should have expressed their concerns long before the contract went out for bid in September.

Indeed, a special town hall meeting for the public to weigh in on Kimley-Horn’s design plans might have been beneficial for Council members and residents, alike.  

By Ann G. Sjoerdsma, The Southern Shores Beacon

The four-day 2024 Outer Banks Parade of Homes starts Thursday and features three properties in Southern Shores, one of which is a space renovation in the Southern Shores Crossing for the long-awaited coffee shop.

The homes in the 32^nd annual Parade of Homes will be open Thursday through Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. A trade expo and builder awards ceremony will be held Sunday, from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., at Jennette’s Pier in Nags Head.

Tickets are $20 each and may be purchased online with a credit card or for cash at one of the participating homes. For ticket information, see https://www.obhomebuilders.org/2024-tickets/.

Sixteen of the properties on display are located in the beach zone, from Corolla to Nags Head, and the remaining two are on the mainland, one in Currituck County and the other in Manteo.

The Manteo entry is actually a remodel by SAGA Realty and Construction of the Firetender Restaurant, which is past the Manteo Hotel on Hwy. 64/264. The other commercial remodel in the parade is Neal Contracting Co.’s renovation in the Southern Shores Crossing, at 1 Ocean Blvd., for Shore Coffee Roasters

A list of the 18 homes, with detailed descriptions of each, may be found at https://www.obhomebuilders.org/2024-homes/.

Unfortunately, the Outer Banks Home Builders Assn. (OBHA), which hosts the parade, did not include the addresses of the homes on its listing page. You have to click on the individual home links to uncover them.

An interactive parade map is available on the OBHA’s website, but we did not find it particularly helpful. Perhaps a free Parade of Homes magazine available for pickup at the properties will have an easy-to-use list of addresses.

The other two parade homes in Southern Shores are a renovation by Sandmark Custom Homes, Inc., of a beach cottage at 223 Ocean Blvd. (see photo above), and the construction of a new home by Maso Design Build at 97 Ocean Blvd., which is on the west side of Ocean Boulevard at its intersection with Chicahauk Trail. You may park in the town parking lot on Chicahauk Trail to tour 97 Ocean Blvd.

All three of the builders represented in Southern Shores are husband-and-wife teams who live in the town. Sandmark Custom Homes also has a home in Harbinger, at 204 Cynthia Ct., in the parade.

The 18 properties will be available for viewing online after the parade, according to FAQs on the OBHA website. Virtual tours will remain active for at least one year, it says.

See FAQ at https://www.obhomebuilders.org/2024-poh-faq/?fl_builder.

The Outer Banks Tourism Bureau is a parade partnership sponsor with the OBHA.

COMING UP: EARLY VOTING; BULK TRASH PICKUP

*You no doubt have heard that early voting for the Nov. 5 general election starts Oct. 17 and continues until Nov. 2. If you are a Dare County resident, you may vote at any one of the three voting sites, listed below. On Election Day, you may only vote at your assigned polling place.

Early voting polls are:

Kill Devil Hills Town Hall, 102 Town Hall Drive, KDH

Dare County Administrative Bldg., 954 Marshall C. Collins Drive, Manteo

Fessenden Center Annex, 47017 Buxton Back Road, Buxton

Voting hours are:

Thurs., Oct. 17, and Fri. Oct. 18: 8 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.

Mon., Oct. 21 through Fri., Nov. 1: 8 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.

Sat., Nov. 2: 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.

A list of all of the candidates on your ballot may be obtained on the Dare County Board of Elections website at https://www.darenc.gov/home/showpublisheddocument/12400/638398691853670000.

The ballot also includes an important proposed amendment to the N.C. Constitution that would restrict voting in state elections to U.S. citizens only. You are being asked to vote “for” or “against” citizens-only voting in North Carolina.

BULK TRASH PICKUP IS OCT. 18

The town-wide autumn bulk trash pickup will be held Fri., Oct. 18. You may begin putting approved items—a list of which is available through the website link below—on the roadside a week before. (No TVs, no building supplies, no rugs!)

See https://www.southernshores-nc.gov/community/page/bulk-waste-collection-semi-annual for details.

The Town has already scheduled the spring bulk trash pickup on April 4, 2025.

By Ann G. Sjoerdsma, The Beacon