Fate of new Outer Banks marina, condo development still up in the air

SOUTHERN SHORES — No action was taken on the topic that dominated Monday evening’s over-2.5-hour-long Southern Shores Planning Board meeting: SAGA Realty & Construction’s proposed mixed-use development of commercial space and 36 “luxury condos” on undeveloped land at 6195 N. Croatan Highway in Southern Shores.

The proposed site plan shows two three-story buildings. The eastern building is residential, and the western building has residential units and retail, office and restaurant space. The submitted site narrative shows 197 vehicle parking spaces and three bicycle racks that “count toward retail parking,” bringing total parking to 200 spaces. The site plan also shows a marina with 38 boat docking slips.

Nearby residents have pushed back on the project since its inception, and that continued during Monday evening’s meeting.

The property is located between Martin’s Point Road and Landing Trail in Southern Shores, and it includes the Ginguite Creek Basin.

About 20 people shared concerns during public comment that included the loss of wetlands, increased traffic and increased flooding and related problems from potential stormwater drainage off the property.

Andy Ward, planning board chairperson, said at the meeting that the board will be thorough in its review of the special use permit application and may not even finish its review during next month’s meeting on Oct. 16.

“We are not in any hurry,” Ward said, noting he “can tell it upset the applicant a little bit.”

He added, “We’re going to make a real hard effort to hold the applicant accountable and try to dial down a little bit of the grandiose proposal that we have in front of us.”

Town staff recommendations shared in a Sept. 18 report to the planning board also highlight some disagreements with the proposal.

Staff recommended denial of the site plan’s proposed marina, noting that the “series of docks and piers” are not allowed in the town’s “C” general commercial zoning district, according to the report.

Staff recommendations also include maintaining a 50-foot setback from both the eastern property line with Southern Shores Landing and from the northern property line with All Saints’ Episcopal Church.

The proposed site plan includes a 20-foot vegetative buffer between the development and the church, and a vegetative buffer alternating between a single tree and a single understory shrub between the property and Southern Shores Landing, according to the staff report.

SAGA CEO Sumit Gupta said during Monday’s meeting that the only town-imposed condition with which he didn’t agree was the 50-foot buffer with Southern Shores Landing.

Previous town meetings revealed that because Southern Shores Landing is a planned unit development (PUD), it is zoned commercial, and commercial properties bordering other commercial properties are not required to have a buffer—just a 15-foot building setback.

Gupta said Monday that his team followed town rules precisely and “submitted something which we thought had some consideration to the neighbors,” noting the closest building is more than double the required setback distance, at 34 feet away.

During his public comment on Monday, Matthew “Matt” Huband said he is the designated Southern Shores Landing representative and expressed appreciation for the staff’s buffer recommendation. He suggested that the planning board consider adding a condition related to the Landing Trail entry and exit.

“The entry/exit as shown on the site plan has potential to cause a lot of issues due to the abrupt turning radius off the bypass and the small size of the road entrance and exit,” Huband said, noting the potential risk of injuries.

Huband also shared concerns related to the wastewater treatment facility, which the applicant owns and the Southern Shores Landing community also uses.

“Any approval for this development should include a long-range plan for maintenance and capacity to ensure the viability of this facility,” he opined.

SAGA doing business as “Ginguite, LLC” bought the land tract in June 2014 for $535,000, which was less than half its asking price at the time of $1,260,000. As of 2020, the land is valued at $1,197,500, according to Dare County tax records.

The land’s elevation ranges from 0 to 10.25 feet above sea level, according to the site plan.

When asked during Monday’s meeting where on the property the 10.25-foot elevation is, Gupta said it’s located right along U.S. 158, which is the property’s southern border.

Lynn Usher of All Saints’ Episcopal Church said during his public comment that he is concerned with the development’s potential effects on the church.

“An increased volume of stormwater runoff would jeopardize church operations,” Usher said, explaining that the church is home to a Montessori school and has an outdoor sanctuary and walking paths.

“A recent article in The Virginian-Pilot that I shared with you described efforts in Kitty Hawk to quote-unquote, ‘alleviate the over-densification of our town,’” Usher continued. “While densification may not be standard parlance in land use planning, it captures the risk of misusing wetland areas to justify more intensive development in areas that should be protected.”

Arline Arnold, also of All Saints’ Episcopal Church, said she worries about increased mosquitoes affecting the church, school and community children who use the playground, since a planned retention pond is “right next to the playground.”

Arnold said she and her husband provided the playground in memory of their granddaughter Madeleine “Maddy” Hsu, who was one of 20 first-grade students killed during the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.

Audra Krieg passed a Kitty Hawk Elementary School yearbook to planning board members before her public comment. She asked them to consider future generations and “every one of those sweet little faces” in their decision-making process.

“Those kids are the ones riding their bikes,” the mother of four said. “They’re going from fishing hole to fishing hole…they’re going to grandma’s house.”

Krieg called the condos “needless,” opining that the proposed project “doesn’t solve anything for us. All it does is increase our traffic [and] make our roads and our sidewalks less safe for kids.”

Tim Baker, president of the Martin’s Point Homeowners Association, said that “without a traffic light, it’s going to be impossible to turn left” from the development, noting that left is the direction of local stores, schools and the beach.

Baker suggested “an aggressive traffic study” and expressed hopes for a new traffic light. If not, he said vehicles from the development would turn right and use the Martin’s Point intersection as a turnaround, contributing to “danger” and congestion there.

Dixie Kirby, a town resident, said that Southern Shores was founded as a low-density, year-round residential community.

“I think this really goes against the spirit of a residential area in a beautiful natural area, where you try to preserve the natural environment,” Kirby said.

She also expressed consternation that the lot includes the creek’s headwaters and that “anyone would even consider building there and [claim] that it would not affect the natural waters for recreation, for fishing, for the environment.”

Mike Strader of the engineering team at Quible & Associates, which developed the site plan, pushed back on residents’ stormwater and wetlands concerns when he spoke during the meeting.

“I heard a lot of comments and concerns about wetlands,” Strader said. “If I’m not mistaken, there are no proposed wetland impacts associated with the development.”

Strader said that the project would exceed the state’s water quality requirements. He said there is currently “no stormwater control” on the property, and highway runoff goes “straight to Ginguite Creek.”

Both he and Gupta indicated they are open to traffic-related modifications.

SAGA submitted its proposed site plan to the Town of Southern Shores on June 6, 2023, after going through a zoning text amendment process the previous year that succeeded in changing town zoning to allow mixed-use development—building commercial and residential together—as a special use in the general commercial zoning district.

At the June 7 Southern Shores Town Council meeting, Gupta said there is “a major crisis of having workforce housing and multifamily rentals,” but emphasized, “that would not be our intention with this property. We are working on that in other places. This would be luxury condos.”