The issue of who will pay for a beach nourishment project for north Buxton — expected to cost between $20 million and $27 million, depending on how long it is engineered to last — will be front and center at the next meeting of the Dare County Board of Commissioners on Monday, Nov. 16.
And it’s likely that raising taxes on property owners in Buxton — or all of Hatteras Island or even all of unincorporated Dare County — to pay for all or part of the project will figure into the conversation.
At its meeting last Monday, Nov. 2, Chairman Bob Woodard asked county manager Robert Outten and finance manager David Clawson to return to the board at its next meeting on the “possibility of establishing a tax service district for the Buxton area…or for all of unincorporated Dare.”
Dare County has asked for a special use permit from the National Park Service to restore about 2.5 miles of the beach in the area of north Buxton to stop ocean overwash that threatens Highway 12.
A joint environmental assessment by both the Park Service and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is underway before the permit can be issued. The project, Woodard said Monday, is on schedule to begin in the late spring or early summer of 2016, pending the permits.
Woodard also noted that Kill Devil Hills, Kitty Hawk, and Duck also have their own town beach nourishment projects planned for next year.
Part of the cost of all four projects will be paid out of the Shoreline Management Fund, which is funded by a 2 percent county occupancy tax.
However, as Woodard noted, the three towns have asked their property owners to pony up part of the costs with some combination of town-wide tax increases and the creation of municipal tax districts. The theory is that wider beaches are good for business and contribute to the value of all of the property in a town — both on and off the beach — with beachfront owners having the most to gain.
Nags Head nourished its beaches several years ago using county occupancy tax money and increased taxes from a beach nourishment district.
Woodard distributed a chart to the board members that details tax rates in all of Dare County, including special tax districts to pay for wider beaches. He asked Outten and Clawson to come up with some average figures that would compare to the tax rates in the towns. (Click here to see the chart.)
The report from county officials to the board is sure to start a most interesting discussion of who should pay for wider beaches on Hatteras Island, which can’t exactly be compared to town beaches for any number of reasons.
Furthermore, the stated purpose of the Buxton project — to protect Highway 12 — is totally different from the projects in any of the towns.
Many, of not most, of us would say it’s the state’s job to protect the only highway on Hatteras Island by widening the beaches, all of which are owned by the National Park Service.
And, in all fairness, both current and past boards of commissioners have tried their best to get the state to step up to the plate in Buxton — most notably after Hurricane Sandy in 2012 when Gov. Pat McCrory and then-Secretary of Transportation Tony Tata traveled to Hatteras Island to declare a state of emergency at the S-curves in north Rodanthe.
The state has refused to acknowledge that the highway is threatened to the point in Buxton that it was at the S-curves, where the state finally completed a nourishment project in the summer of 2014.
Furthermore, the area between Hatteras and Frisco, the site of an inlet cut by Hurricane Isabel in 2003, is in only marginally better shape than Buxton. The beach is extremely eroded along that stretch and is at risk in each storm.
However, since the state has not shown much interest in nourishing beaches on southern Hatteras — and the Park Service actually frowns on it in most cases — the county finally stepped up to the plate in north Buxton.
County officials have made it clear since the beginning of the project that it is not intended to protect or save privately owned oceanfront property — but to protect the highway. And the Park Service has made it clear that if it grants a permit to the county that it will be based in large part on the need to protect public transportation.
Actually, only a small part of the nourishment will be in front of private property — three motels — and several dozen cottages. The rest will cover park property from about the Canadian Hole to the north and the old Navy/Coast Guard base site to the south.
At the time the Buxton project was proposed and designed, Democrats controlled the county Board of Commissioners. Judge was chairman during that time, and Allen Burrus, Hatteras Island’s representative to the board, was vice-chairman.
The board never said exactly how the Buxton nourishment project would be paid for or if property owners would be asked to contribute. At a public meeting in August of 2014, Judge was asked, and he answered that the issue would be addressed when the project consultants “had a better handle on the cost.”
Republicans swept state and county races n the general election just months after that meeting, and the Dare Board ended up under GOP control for the first time in decades. Burrus and Judge were the only two remaining Democrats on the seven-member board.
Woodard, a Republican, was elected chairman last December. And Wally Overman is vice-chairman.
At a commissioners’ retreat on Feb. 20, the Buxton beach restoration project was discussed and the issue of fairness was raised. According to published reports at the time, three commissioners said they favored some financial participation by Hatteras islanders.
“The same rules apply to everyone,” commissioner Jack Shea said at the retreat.
“I’m in favor of some participation,” said commissioner Margarette Umphlett.
And commissioner Beverly Boswell also indicated some support for Hatteras financial participation.
Woodard and Overman, were noncommittal. The former chairman, Judge, has not recently indicated where he stands.
Hatteras Island commissioner Allen Burrus did not attend the February retreat, but said in a telephone interview afterward that he opposes taxing Hatteras island property owners to pay for nourishment.
He said again this week that he would fight any attempt by the board to impose a tax on Hatteras Island property owners to pay for the Buxton project — although it’s obvious to Burrus and to everyone else that Woodward can probably muster the votes to do it, if he wants to.
Burrus intends to fight on the grounds that Hatteras has not gotten its fair share of what it has contributed to county occupancy tax revenues.
Visitors to Dare County pay a 6 percent tax on the rental of accommodations, including cottages, motel rooms, and campsites. One percent of that goes directly to the Dare County Visitors Bureau to promote tourism. Another 2 percent is dedicated to the beach nourishment fund.
And 3 percent is shared by the county and its towns.
Burrus’ point is that since the 3 percent tax was enacted in 1985, Dare’s towns have received millions of dollars, much of which goes directly into their budgets for operating expenses.
While it is generally acknowledged that Hatteras Island contributes about 25 percent to the county’s total occupancy revenues, Burrus says, the island has not received its fair share in services.
Hatteras islanders, Burrus has said, would be better off if we kept island occupancy tax revenues and let a public board decide how to spend them on the island — the way it’s handled in Ocracoke..
Interestingly, visitors pay a 3 percent occupancy tax on Ocracoke rentals. Hyde keeps 10 percent for administration costs, and the remainder is returned to Ocracoke where a tax board decides how to spend it.
In the grand scheme of things, it seems almost unthinkable that our county officials would compare towns with their privately owned oceanfront and oceanside properties with Hatteras Island, on which about 85 percent of the land and all of the beaches are owned by the federal government.
The privately owned oceanfront and oceanside land is a very small portion of Hatteras Island and in no way could those property owners make a meaningful contribution to beach nourishment — at least one that would be in any way fair.
A 1-cent tax on real property on Hatteras Island totals about $219,000. You can easily see that it would take at least a 5 cent tax increase per $100 of valuation to scrape together a mere $1 million of the expected $20 million to $27 million cost. To get up to paying half or one fourth, you are looking at adding 30, 40, or 50 cents to Dare’s property tax rate, which is now a 43 cents per $100 of valuation base rate.
And make no mistake — Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge — and its beaches — and Cape Hatteras National Seashore — and all its beaches — are a major tourist draw not just for the villages on Hatteras and Ocracoke, but all of Dare County, Hyde County, and coastal North Carolina.
And that now brings us back to exactly who should pay to protect the only road on either Hatteras or Ocracoke and who should pay to widen the beaches of the seashore that are a huge economic engine for all of us.
The conversation begins on Monday, Nov. 16, at 5 p.m. in the Commissioners’ Meeting Room at the Dare County Administrative Building in Manteo. You can sign up to speak at the public comment part of the meeting.
Most don’t expect answers or decisions on Monday — just some testing of the waters to see how far the board can go in getting Hatteras islanders to pay for sand in Buxton.
So far, there doesn’t seem to be much outrage on Hatteras Island.
That, however, might change as folks figure out exactly what’s going on here.
A SURPRISING FOOTNOTE TO FERRY TOLLING BLOG
You might be as surprised as I was to learn that Dare County Commissioner Warren Judge, former chairman of the Dare board, actually went to a Hyde County Board of Commissioners meeting on Monday evening to apologize to the people of Hyde.
Connie Leinbach, editor of the Ocracoke Observer, covered the Nov. 2 meeting and interviewed Judge later.
“I own the vote”, Judge told the commissioners in person about the action that the Dare body took Oct. 19 unbeknownst to Hyde County officials.
“It was a mistake and if I have an opportunity to vote again, I will vote against tolls” he said in an interview Thursday. Click here to read the Ocracoke Observer story, and you can follow the political intrigue of the ferry tolling issue by checking out the newspaper’s coverage at www.ocracokeobserver.com.
By the way, other Outer Banks newspapers have reported that Judge might be interested in Paul Tine’s seat in the state House of Representatives. Tine has announced he won’t run for re-election next year.
