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Empty outrage
While visiting the Outer Banks around 20 years ago, we decided to do some exploring and take a drive north toward Corolla.
It couldn’t have been too long after the road running past the Dare County line and into Currituck County was opened. The scenery was striking. Rolling dunes as far as the eye could see. Few signs of civilization until the road reached the village of Corolla near the Whalehead Club and the Currituck Beach Lighthouse.
After the experience, I remarked more than once that I felt like I was on another planet — in a good way.
Years later, I was startled by what I saw heading up N.C. 12. One of the first sights was a long row of mansions along the oceanfront. Not beach cottages. More like something you would see in Hilton Head or parts of the Florida coast.
Development had taken over. One of the big new beach communities was Pine Island, where the property owners association is now leading a campaign against the Audubon Society’s sale of a 13-acre oceanfront lot to a development company that wants to build a hotel, condos and shops.
The dispute has seen an aggressive public relations campaign, some intense news coverage and now legal action challenging Currituck County’s endorsement of the project.
Twenty years ago, I could have understood the uproar. But now, it seems beside the point. Here’s a community of huge houses with pools and dune walkovers and the operators of a Hampton Inn teaming up to challenge a hotel development on a vacant tract of scrub and sand that spans about 1,000 feet of oceanfront.
There are so many ironies here, I hardly know where to start.
Part of Pine Island was built on oceanfront land that once belonged to Audubon. Years ago, the late Earl Slick — a developer or conservationist, depending on which hat he wore — donated oceanfront land to Audubon. Later, Audubon gave most of it back to him in exchange for property along the sound that Slick wanted preserved for hunting and fishing anyway. Audubon’s only remaining oceanfront property was the 13-acre lot.
On the surface, Pine Island’s objections seem like a classic last-one-over-the-bridge story. But if you keep an open mind, you might understand why the community’s property owners would not want a hotel, condos and shops wedged into the last piece of open oceanfront in their neighborhood. Of course, you would have to overlook the fact that a Hampton Inn already sits at the southern end of the property.
We’ll stipulate that it might knock down property values a notch. But please spare us the pitch about preserving a pristine habitat.
The twist that Audubon is selling this land has not been lost on Outer Bankers, either. This is the same non-profit that has helped wage a years-long legal battle to limit off-road vehicles at the Cape Hatteras National Seashore to protect birds and turtles. Now it is willing to sell a piece of oceanfront land to a hotel developer. Hatteras Islanders are really teeing off on that one.
Audubon has also joined other conservation groups in objecting to the proposed mid-Currituck County bridge, saying it would pollute the Currituck Sound and encourage more development in Corolla. No need to explain the contradiction there.
In Audubon’s defense, the group says it is simply weighing the potential to make money to invest in conservation elsewhere — like its preserve on the west side of the Currituck Outer Banks — against sitting on a small piece of oceanfront land already surrounded by development and with little conservation value. I suppose I can buy that argument, too.
Still, this is a story with plenty of material to stir up public outrage if you choose to — villains and heroes, half truths and hypocrisy. Bulldozing dunes and scaring off rabbits. Greed.
Where was the outrage 20 years ago?
This column originally appeared in The Virginian-Pilot.
See our series on the Audubon land deal.
Part One: Audubon’s benefactor in Corolla wore two hats »
Part Two: Pine Island leads the fight against hotel project »
Part Three: Huge preserve is Audubon’s main focus in Corolla »
Part Four: Map mixup became Audubon site’s official zoning »
Part Five: Developer walked into a firestorm of opposition »
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Gail says:
So in other words, the Audubon are only concerned about the birds in Hatteras but not concerned about the birds in Corolla, because they can’t make money in Hatteras. Wow, the greed really does take over doesn’t it. I don’t feel pity for the property owners in Pine Island either. The very beach that their property sits on now was also once a pristine stretch of beach that now is littered with oversized properties so excuse me if I don’t feel too much sorrow for you. No hotel is needed in that area. As we all know there are more than enough houses to be rented. If the birds in Hatteras are endangered then surely they must be endangered in Corolla or are they super birds and immune to more development. I think I’ll be sick now!
Ray says:
Gail,
Surely you know the type of beach it takes for shorebirds to nest and survive. No offense intended, but anyone who doesn’t know should educate themselves about it if they are interested in the Hatteras/ORV issue.
Allan Dooley says:
And of course Audubon is dedicating the funds it will get for the puny 13 acres to protecting the bird habitat on the sound side, which is where the birds do nest and feed in migration. This has been carefully described in the series of articles you are ranting against, Gail. Pay attention.
Marie says:
Where was the outrage 20 years ago? That is a good question. There should be outrage now further north, where developers continue to press to want ot develop hotels/stores/restaurants in the last remaining underdeveloped residential area–They want to bring hotels to the off road area where the wild horses roam. Can we all come together to save this part of the outer banks before it becomes another over developed Corolla?
YiLi says:
I think folk posting need to look at the current issue in more depth and take a look at the developer’s site plans- this is not about residential architecture of Pine Island- it is about willful disregard of the intent of a land donation; county negligence and incompetence transitioning to electronic land use maps; decimation of dunes (vs. walkovers) in violation of state and federal coastal preservation; environmental insult to a barrier island and putting residents and visitors at risk as the ecology and infrastructure cannot support the development as designed.
oh and yeah I agree Corolla sure has developed over the years and yep too bad there were not enough voting residents back then to counter the disregard from the county officials- but let’s also look at the national track record of Audubon selling off donated lands- oh and while your at it- visit their NY digs whoooeee and go check public information on salaries for the ‘not for profit’ CEOs.
Corolla Sandcrab says:
YiLi has pretty much nailed the overall context of this situation. Empty Outrage?? The column is loaded with half-hidden support for the developer who has already done more than his share of self-serving over-development through the Outer Banks. And the argument that it is “too late” is ludicrous and that because so much of what has made the Outer Banks a special place has already been trampled we might just as well sit back and let what little is left turn to cement.
This whole thing is a prototypical example of how the money behind developers works to manipulate public officials, existing neighborhoods and communities, and entire eco-sytems to satisfy their most current short-term scheme to make additional money for themselves and their backers.
I dare anyone to describe how the implementation of this project plus the bridge will bring real long-term benefit and value to the Outer Banks. Can you imagine trying to drive from Corolla to Kitty Hawk or what will happen to the water supply/quality problems that already exist or what the total added infrastructure support costs will be?
If the writer of the article and the Currituck Commisioners are just anxious to create another Ocean City, MD they should say so because that is where this is all headed unless we stand up and declare that “No, it is not too late to preserve what little remains of a barrier island environment to be proud of.”
Billy Griggs says:
The first nail in the coffin for the overdevelopment of Corolla Village/Northern Beaches was the day the Guard Gate came down in 1984. Ironically, it was the mere handful of residents and property owners of the still peaceful village that led the push for the gate to come down, and some of them were my own family. They resented having to stop for 15 seconds to identify themselves as residents or property owners of Currituck Banks and show their permit to use the private road. Up until then Corolla was pretty much an undiscoverd paradise where you could tell who was coming by the house at night just by the sound of their truck engine. I can’t help but be amused at all this yakking by the Johnny-come-latelys on both sides of this issue regarding this proposed hotel on one small parcel of Currituck Beach. It’s more than a little too late to worry about the cows now, when the entire barn burned down years ago.