Avon beachfront property owners facing 62% property tax hike to pay for beach widening
Avon property owners are set get beaches more than 100 feet wide next year, but it comes with a price.
They’ve known for a few months that a steep tax hike was on the horizon, so the Dare County Board of Commissioners’ vote Monday to initiate the creation of two tax districts in Avon came as no surprise.
It’s the first step in what will be a 62% property tax increase for the homes closest to the beach, a hike that actually wasn’t as high as the 100% increase initially reported by the county.
The board must hold a public hearing to form the tax district and then approve the tax hike in the new county budget in May or June. The tax would take effect on July 1 when the county’s new budget year begins.
If approved, more than a million cubic yards of sand will be dredged from an offshore sandbar and pumped onto 2.5 miles of beach. The shoreline will be expanded to 125 feet wide in an area where high tides now lap at the bottom of the dunes in places.
Beach widening will begin at the south end of Avon and extend two and a half miles north, to Due East Road. The estimated $11 million project would begin in April 2022 and be done in three months.
Storms and strong winds push ocean currents into streets and neighborhoods. Flooding can trap vacationers in their homes and hinder responses by police and fire departments. Wooden decks are broken up and debris spreads along the beach and through neighborhoods. The water flows onto the coastal community’s main road, N.C. 12, slowing traffic or blocking it altogether.
The road that runs alongside the beachfront homes, Ocean View Drive, arguably gets hit the worst. It becomes impassable when the sea water encroaches.
“It’s not a question of if, it’s a question of when,” County Manager Bobby Outten said last month of the need for the beach restoration project. “And now is as cheap as it’s going to get.”
Most of the roughly 40 people who commented favored the project, but many questioned the amount of the tax and the makeup of the tax districts.
Tax districts in other Dare County towns have been successful, Outten said.
Property owners east of N.C. 12 would be charged an extra 25 cents on top of the county tax rate of 40 cents per $100 of real estate value. A property valued at $500,000 would be taxed an additional $1,250 a year.
Homes west of N.C. 12 would get a five cent increase.
The total tax revenue would bring in $750,000 more per year.
The tax revenue and the beach nourishment fund will each pay about half the cost of the beach-widening project. The beach fund is drawn from occupancy taxes, a fee charged for beach rentals and motel stays. The fund typically earns about $10 million annually. In 2020, it earned more than $11 million.
The surplus in the beach fund allowed the county to reduce the amount of the proposed Avon tax from 40 cents to 25 cents. The property taxes do not include an extra 15 cents charged to Avon owners for police, fire and trash collection.
For information go to www.darenc.com/avonbn.
Jeff Hampton, 757-446-2090, jeff.hampton@pilotonline.com
