Dear Beacon Readers: Please post your comments about this weekend’s cut-thru traffic and the effectiveness of the mitigation measures that the Town implemented on this blog entry. Thank you!

Motorists traveling east on East Dogwood Trail this weekend will be physically barred from turning left (going north) on Hillcrest Drive, Sea Oats Trail, and Wax Myrtle Trail, the Town of Southern Shores announced today.

There will be post-and-chain barricades “placed in the middle of [East Dogwood Trail] or [its] median,” according to a special announcement released by the Town this morning.

A closure of Hickory Trail at its intersection with East Dogwood Trail is also being considered for “a later date,” the release said.

The Town Council discussed the cut-thru traffic problems at length at its meeting Tuesday and gave the Town Manager discretion to implement closures among East Dogwood Trail in order to mitigate traffic.

According to the announcement, “Our goal is to take away any advantage for those using South Dogwood Trail and East Dogwood Trail as shortcuts to points north.”

The announcement also indicated that the barricades will be removed if Town staff determine that “negative impacts warrant their removal.”

While The Beacon congratulates the Town Council and Town Manager for continuing to pursue additional cut-thru traffic mitigation measures, we consider it readily apparent that these closures will adversely affect the traffic flow, both north and south, on Hickory Trail, which is the favored road for northbound vacationers.

Not only will motorists cutting through on the Dogwoods overwhelm Hickory Trail, residents in the dunes trying to return to their homes by taking South Dogwood Trail will be forced to use it as well.

Local-traffic-only barriers will be placed at Hillcrest Drive, Sea Oats Trail, and Wax Myrtle Trail, off of Hickory Trail, but experience thus far indicates that many northbound motorists ignore these prohibitions.

The left-turn ban at the U.S. Hwy 158-South Dogwood Trail intersection will be in effect Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Ann G. Sjoerdsma, 7/9/21

The Southern Shores Town Council will hold five public hearings on proposed amendments to the Town Code—four of them related to zoning—when it meets tomorrow for its regular monthly meeting at 5:30 p.m. in the Pitts Center.

You may access the meeting agenda and packet here:

Click to access MEET-Packet-48998bb075534a13bc081abf2497163a.pdf

Among the four zoning text amendments that the Council will consider is a revamp of a ZTA misconstrued by the Planning Board upon its first reading April 19 that permits temporary healthcare structures as accessory uses in single-family residential zoning districts.

This amendment would bring Southern Shores in conformance with N.C. law. The initial version of the ordinance was drafted by the Town’s consultant, CodeWright Planners.

The purpose of ZTA 21-06, which seemed to elude the Planning Board earlier, is to enable caregivers and legal guardians of mentally or physically impaired relatives to live in close temporary physical proximity to the relatives for whom they care.

Long-term living arrangements are not contemplated by the amendment.

According to the ZTA, a “temporary family healthcare structure” is a structure that is assembled at a location other than its installation site, is transportable, and has no more than 300 square feet. The proposed ordinance specifies that the temporary structure shall be located on residential property owned or occupied by the caregiver (or legal guardian) and that it shall be occupied only by the “mentally or physically impaired person.” (The qualifier, and/or, is not used in the description.)

Impairment is defined by the number of activities of daily living (so-called ADLs: bathing, eating, toileting, ambulation, etc.) with which the impaired person needs assistance. A minimum of two ADLs are required.

The Beacon addressed this ZTA at length in a 4/20/21 post in which we characterized the Planning Board as confused and in need of guidance from Town staff and Town Attorney Ben Gallop. Mr. Gallop has since reviewed ZTA 21-06, as well as the amendments recommended by the Planning Board, and rewritten it.

Such review should have occurred before the Planning Board took up ZTA 21-06 on April 19, so that Mr. Haskett could have adequately prepared the Board, whose members are not accustomed to reading and interpreting State legislation.

Otherwise, we frankly do not understand why a mentally or physically impaired person could not erect a family healthcare structure on his or her residential property to be used temporarily by a caregiver, but that option is not included in the ZTA.

We also think some of the language of the ordinance is imprecise and confusing—a sure sign that the N.C. State Legislature originated it.

PUTTING A STOP TO ‘FRONT-BACK’ SUBDIVISIONS OF LOTS

The only other proposed ZTA that we would like to elaborate upon is ZTA 21-07, which the Town Council requested of Mr. Haskett at its June 1 meeting after holding a public hearing on a homeowner’s request to subdivide her property into two lots, one of which would be behind the other and would not front on a public or private street.

The Town Code regulations on lot access currently provide that a lot must abut a public right-of-way or a private street or easement. (Sec. 36-95(a)(1).)

ZTA 21-07 would remove the possibility of creating new lot(s) that only have frontage on an easement. Access by a public or private street would be required.

The June 1 hearing concerned approval of a preliminary subdivision plat submitted to the Town by Lauren Kirby-Van Riper, who owns a 2.29-acre lot at 279 Hillcrest Drive with her husband.

Ms. Kirby-Van Riper is seeking permission to subdivide this large lot into two: one at the front that would measure 65,393 square feet and include all of the current development (house, swimming pool); and the other behind the first that would measure 34,720 square feet and be vacant.

The first lot, which abuts Hillcrest Drive, has been designated Lot 4A in documents; the second lot, which abuts a canal, has been designated Lot 4B.

The rub is there is no access to Lot 4B.

Ms. Kirby-Van Riper proposes remedying this deficiency by constructing a 30-foot-long public easement on the northern boundary of the property, starting at Hillcrest Drive and going west. All but a small section of this easement would be on Lot 4A.

Both the Planning Board and the Town Council gave conditional approval to Ms. Kirby-Van Riper’s subdivision plans, provided she meets all of the Code requirements.

We spoke at the public hearing about Ms. Kirby-Van Riper’s subdivision proposal not being in compliance with the longtime vision of Southern Shores—as set forth in the Town’s Land-Use Plan—as a low-density residential community comprised of single-family dwellings on large lots. We wondered how many other landowners might seek to subdivide their large property tracts in a similar fashion.

We are happy to see the language about low density quoted in Mr. Haskett’s report to the Town Council about ZTA 21-07, which fine-tunes the Town’s lot access requirements to eliminate access by easement only. If the Town Council passes the amendment, it would apply prospectively, and not to Ms. Kirby-Van Riper’s proposed subdivision.

EAVES: The Planning Board also has recommended to the Town Council a change in building setback requirements so as to allow eaves to extend three feet into the back, side, and front setback space without this encroachment reducing the setback calculations.

Previously, the Town Code exempted this encroachment in calculating the front building setback line, but not the side and back setbacks.

ZTA 21-02 would effect this change by amending the definitions of “building setback line” and “yard” in Town Code sec. 36-57.

PUBLIC COMMENTS: There will be two public-comment periods during tomorrow’s meeting. Returning to its pre-pandemic procedure, the Town Council is no longer accepting written comments submitted by email or U.S. mail. You must appear in person if you would like to make comments.

You may view the meeting live at https://www.youtube.com/user/TownofSouthernShores.

Because of a family member’s failing health, we will not be able to attend tomorrow’s meeting in person or to watch the livestream. We will view the videotape and report on any news as soon as possible.

Ann G. Sjoerdsma, 7/5/21

Mayor Pro Tem Elizabeth Morey filed her candidacy for mayor of Southern Shores yesterday, the first day of the Dare County Board of Elections’ two-week candidate filing period for the November municipal elections.

The four-year terms of two Southern Shores Town Council members are expiring this year: those of Mayor Tom Bennett and Town Councilman Jim Conners. Mr. Bennett has served two terms as mayor, first being elected in 2013.

All positions on the Town Council, as well as the election, are nonpartisan.

Ms. Morey, who lives on Ginguite Trail, was elected to the Town Council in 2019 and chosen by her Council peers to be the mayor pro tem.

When The Beacon interviewed Ms. Morey in 2018, she told us she was self-employed as a political campaign manager and counselor.

Ms. Morey’s biography on the Town of Southern Shores website indicates only that she “owns and manages a home-based business.”

The mayoral candidate has been active in local Democratic Party politics. Ms. Morey’s husband, Tommy Fulcher, ran unsuccessfully last year for the N.C. House of Representatives, losing to Bobby Hanig (R).

In the event Ms. Morey is elected mayor in November, N.C. municipal law specifies that her seat on the Town Council will be filled by appointment until such time as the next town election is held.

Previously, Ms. Morey served two three-year terms as a regular member of the Town Planning Board and two years as a Planning Board alternate.

At the time of her election to the Council, she was in the fifth month of a third three-year term and serving as the Board’s chairperson, a position she held first on an interim basis upon the death of Glenn Wyder in November 2018.   

In our June 29, 2018 interview, Ms. Morey told The Beacon that she retired from the Dare County health department in 2014 and previously worked in Raleigh for a division of the N.C. Dept. of Environmental Quality. She started her political consulting business in 2016.

Ms. Morey is originally from Fulton County, Georgia.

Anyone wishing to run for one of the two expiring Southern Shores Town Council offices has until noon on July 16 to file his or her candidacy with the Board of Elections.

LONGER NO-LEFT-TURN HOURS, MORE ROAD CLOSURES THIS WEEKEND

Motorists will be prohibited from turning left from U.S. Hwy. 158 on to South Dogwood Trail today from 10 a.m. until 8 p.m. and tomorrow from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., according to the Town of Southern Shores newsletter published yesterday.

The Town also announced in the newsletter the addition of three more “no local traffic” northbound road barriers, bringing the total number of such closures along the cut-thru route to eight: the original four at Hickory Trail, Hillcrest Drive, Sea Oats Trail, and Wax Myrtle Trail, off of East Dogwood Trail; three additional at Hillcrest Drive, Sea Oats Trail, and Wax Myrtle Trail, off of Hickory Trail; and the eighth at Hillcrest Drive and Sea Oats Trail.

According to the newsletter, the Town also “has been able to work with the travel app, Waze, to have [these] eight road closures indicated on their travel routes.”

People using the Waze app will not be directed through these closures. (Hooray!)

Please feel free to comment on The Beacon blog and Facebook page about the cut-thru traffic you witness during this height-of-the-season, holiday weekend.

Happy Fourth of July. Stay safe.

Ann G. Sjoerdsma, 7/3/21

As of today, you can add Wednesday to the days when summer vacationer traffic cuts through Southern Shores on South Dogwood Trail.

Yes, that was cut-thru traffic that you saw all afternoon streaming up South Dogwood Trail, running the stop sign at East Dogwood Trail, turning left on Hickory Trail, and then making another left on Hillcrest Drive.

Homeowners in the 200 block of Wax Myrtle Trail also reported watching a steady flow of cut-thru traffic on their street during the afternoon. They traced it to traffic turning off of a backed-up Duck Road at Porpoise Run and Dolphin Run.

I also saw “jump-off” traffic on Ocean Boulevard north of the Duck Road split, as I came and went several times today from the Southern Shores woods to the beach.

Bob Woodard , chairperson of the Dare County Board of Commissioners, recorded a videotaped message last Friday in which he asked Dare residents to “be respectful” and “patient with those around us,” as we experience “record-high visitation numbers at Dare County beaches and attractions” this summer.

The cut-thru traffic in Southern Shores yesterday and Monday was noticeably greater than it usually is on a week day during the summer, but it did not reach the volume of traffic heading north on our roads today. 

At different times, northbound traffic on N.C. Hwy. 12 backed up to Chicahauk Trail.  

Mr. Woodard advised us in his message that we are going to be confronting “some challenges” this summer, “particularly in the amount of traffic” on the roads.

He told us to “expect some delays and traffic jams on [our] way to work and to visit [our] friends and family,” as well as “longer lines and wait times” at restaurants and at shops.

He told us to be “prepared” for these challenges and to make allowances, as he once again held aloft King Midas’s golden cup of vacationers’ money, calling our out-of-town visitors “the lifeblood of Dare County.”

You may recall that we heard that same refrain last summer when the tourist hordes arrived in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mr. Woodard told us then: “Be respectful. Be patient.” Nice words. I don’t disagree.

At no time in his four-minute video, however, did Mr. Woodard ever mention what Dare County would do to help to alleviate the congestion, the crowds, the unsafe conditions, the sheer misery in what the Chairman called “our little slice of Outer Banks paradise.”

Government unquestionably played a role in creating the “challenges.” So where is government now? Backing up to a laissez-faire stance, taping messages about respect.

I know tourism makes resort areas go round. No surprise there.

I also know how resort areas are ruined by over-developing land with high-occupancy “structures” like those you see on the Kill Devil Hills and Nags Head oceanfronts, one after another, where modest cottages and family motels once stood, and by constructing over-sized houses in remote places that are not served by adequate infrastructure.

Sorry, Mr. Woodard, telling me to be patient just doesn’t cut it.  

It took me an hour and 15 minutes to travel round-trip today from the intersection of East and South Dogwood trails to the Outer Banks Hospital–an essential errand–and I considered that good time.

It was the middle of the day; the sun was shining brightly; and people were on the U.S. Hwy. 158 bypass, jamming it up, as if a mandatory evacuation were in effect.

I took Woods Road to Kitty Hawk Road to the bypass and stayed on it until I reached the Dare Centre. At that point, I saw no future in driving on the highway and diverted to the beach road. I returned to the bypass at Dowdy’s Park, near the YMCA, and took it past the Nags Head Woods Preserve and Jockey’s Ridge, and on to the hospital.

Thank goodness for the nature preserves and parks. If only the Outer Banks had more.

I’m going to give you better advice than the Chairman of the Dare County Commission gave you: Avoid N.C. 12 in Southern Shores and take the beach road if you have to drive anywhere south of the Kitty Hawk Post Office.

I also encourage restaurant owners and other businesspeople to remember their local clientele by offering us special incentives (discounts, hours, nights) for coming out. We don’t want to avoid you, but patience can only get us so far.

Ann G. Sjoerdsma, 6/23/21

Residents of Hillcrest Drive seem to have borne the brunt of the cut-thru traffic in Southern Shores yesterday when both a left-turn ban from U.S. Hwy 158 on to South Dogwood Trail and “local-traffic-only” road closures were in effect, according to reports received by The Beacon from homeowners as well as comments posted on our Facebook page that were mixed, but mostly favorable.

(In a background story on 6/18/21 about this weekend’s traffic mitigation, we called the addition of road closures to the left-turn ban at the 158 intersection “Plan B.” The Town Council authorized Town Manager Cliff Ogburn to implement the Plan B local-traffic-only barriers if, in his sole discretion, he thought they were warranted.)

Homeowners in the 300 block of Wax Myrtle Trail, where traffic—including a commercial-size bus—came to a standstill on Memorial Day weekend for hours, emailed The Beacon that “Whatever the town did today 100 percent solved our problem at this end of town. . . . [There was] absolutely no backup or cut-through traffic of any type” yesterday. The couple described the change as “Absolutely wonderful.”

“Without question, the Local Traffic Only signs were a success!” emailed another homeowner in the 200 block of Wax Myrtle Trail.  

The reason for the traffic backup on Hillcrest Drive, which extended westward from Duck Road (N.C. Hwy. 12) up the hill well past the SSCA tennis courts, was obvious to any observer of the South Dogwood Trail-to-East Dogwood Trail cut-thru traffic flow:  Despite a local-traffic-only barrier on Hickory Trail, out-of-towners were routinely turning left there and then taking a left on Hillcrest Drive.

With Sea Oats Trail closed because of road construction, most motorists reached N.C. Hwy. 12 via Hillcrest Drive, not Sea Oats.

Mary Ann Hurd, who lives in the closed 300 block of Sea Oats Trail, which is generally jammed with cut-thru traffic on a summer Saturday, said it was “relatively quiet” on her street yesterday. Traffic seemed to have increased today, Mrs. Hurd reported, noting, “I can hear them crunching by” on the gravel pavement.

Homeowners who live on Sea Oats Trail between Hickory Trail and Hillcrest Drive also told The Beacon that yesterday’s traffic was “relatively quiet, but we did see several cars race by quite quickly.”

Hickory Trail homeowner David Watson said he watched through traffic making illegal turns on to his street yesterday whenever he went out to walk his dog. Motorists with out-of-state license plates only obeyed the barrier, Mr. Watson said, when a police officer was on the scene. As soon as the officer left, they resumed turning illegally on to Hickory Trail.

Mr. Watson also noted that the heaviest cut-thru traffic flow on Hickory Trail occurs between 5 p.m. and 8 p.m., a time when there typically is no police coverage.  

While one homeowner who lives on East Dogwood Trail near Holly Trail commented that “there seemed to be more than normal traffic on East Dogwood” yesterday, it would appear that Hickory Trail, the westernmost of the four cut-thru streets restricted by the Town yesterday and today, experienced the heaviest flow of scofflaw motorists, while the other roads were largely spared.

This same homeowner said he had no trouble driving to the Hillcrest Beach in the morning, but on his way home around 2 p.m., he saw a backup of about a dozen vehicles waiting at the Hillcrest Drive-Duck Road intersection.

The Beacon heard from only one oceanfront/oceanside homeowner, who reported in the late afternoon yesterday that the “traffic wasn’t that bad on Ocean Boulevard before the [Duck Road] split and pretty non-existent on the split,” meaning on Ocean Boulevard between the cell tower park and Hickory Trail.

Remaining on Ocean Boulevard past the cell tower has been a way that northbound vacationers have tried to get around the congestion on Duck Road.

No one from Chicahauk contacted The Beacon yesterday to weigh in on road conditions there.

The Beacon looks forward to a comprehensive assessment from the Town about the effectiveness of Plan B on the weekend cut-thru traffic.

We also welcome comments from all Southern Shores residents about their experiences this weekend with traffic. We especially would like to hear from people who went through the U.S. 158-South Dogwood Trail intersection. Police presence there appears to have made a difference in the volume of traffic on South Dogwood Trail.  

Ann G. Sjoerdsma, 6/20/21