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Ozzy

SirKristoff is a poopiehead
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The area this article is talking about is prime cp land.


[b said:
Quote[/b] ]So long, rural byways

By Paul R. Jefferson
Staff Writer

It's all about the traffic. And some developers are betting that a new bridge and thousands of new homes will create just the kind they need.

Around the intersection of Midway Road and N.C. 211, the seeds are being planted for a retail mecca bigger than any existing commercial centers in Brunswick County.

Where a convenience store best known as "Worms and Coffee" now stands alone, a trio of shopping centers will soon rise, with a combined area of 150 acres and commercial space totaling almost 870,000 square feet. It will be more spread out but almost as big as Westfield Independence mall, which has 1.1 million square feet of store space.

The Midway Road/N.C. 211 corridor, for a long time a stretch of roadway identified more for an absence of residential or commercial development, has become the hottest spot on county Planning Department maps.

The near-coast area is rapidly getting filled up, said Helen Evans Bunch, Brunswick County zoning administrator.

Spurring the developments are the road's location and its role as the transit point for future traffic from the second Oak Island bridge, scheduled to be built by 2010.

At Midway Road, nearly all of the surrounding land on either side of N.C. 211 has been rezoned from rural residential to commercial use. "All of the land has been rezoned, but not all have projects on them," Bunch said. "And all of them are mixed-use projects," combining residential with retail and commercial projects.

In the past two and a half years, she said, the county has approved 13,004 homes for the N.C. 211 corridor - more than a third of the total 35,606 approved for the unincorporated areas of the county.

Motor vehicle traffic is expected to grow exponentially there as new residents move in and the new bridge provides access to the county's largest town.

Three large commercial developments are converging to serve as anchors at the Midway Road/N.C. 211 junction. Both the planned Midway Landing commercial development, comprising 13.1 acres on the intersection's northeast quadrant, and the 98-acre Midway Station site on the southwest quadrant were approved by county planners in November, though no construction has begun.

In mid-June, Lowes Foods announced plans to build a retail and business center on 39 acres of the northwest quadrant, directly behind the Midway Trading Post, aka "Worms and Coffee."

The Lowes project will include 80,000 square feet of retail space, and an additional 80,000 square feet of leased space for additional stores or medical offices. The supermarket, the third Lowes in the county, is expected to be open in 2009, said company spokeswoman Dianne Blancato.

"Since the project is in its initial stages, we do not know who the other tenants will be at this point," she said. "It is possible that some of the retail space could be leased to companies that operate in other Lowes Foods shopping centers.... We anticipate we will begin marketing the space in October."

According to Planning Department documents, Midway Landing will include four buildings up to 40 feet tall fronting both Midway Road and N.C. 211. The project developer is listed as William Batuyious.

Midway Station, across the way, will have more room for retailers, with 11 buildings planned for the site. Tom Young is listed as the land's owner.

Midway Station is the largest commercial development approved to date in an unincorporated area of the county, Bunch said.

Dan Weeks, a land planner and landscape architect from HadenStanziale in Wilmington, represents the developers on both sides of N.C. 211.

With 98 acres to work with, the Midway Station property is more than double the size of Westfield Independence mall, which covers 44.2 acres in the middle of Wilmington.

"We see a hotel site, a professional/medical office, retail and home improvement," he said.

Weeks said construction of the commercial centers would take from 2006 until 2012 or perhaps longer, depending on factors such as the pace of residential growth and road improvements. Across the road, the smaller commercial project could house a grocery store, a drugstore with a drive-through window and a bank branch, among other things, Weeks said.

For comparison purposes, at 13.1 acres, Midway Landing is roughly the size of the Hanover Center, across from Westfield Independence mall.

Karen Sphar, executive director of the Southport-Oak Island Chamber of Commerce, said the new retail projects bode well for the area, promising to cut down on drive times for current and new residents.

She said the chamber has a minor role in recruiting retailers to populate the shopping centers.

"We do provide information to companies looking for relocation. What happens is they go out and solicit for the anchor store. If they need data on types of businesses and where they are located, we give it to them. Or they ask people on our board what they might like to see. Most of the time, they come in and don't identify themselves with any particular firm and do a lot of work on what type of businesses are in the area," Sphar said.

The head of the Brunswick County Chamber of Commerce in Shallotte, Mitzi York, said shopping centers are an expected offshoot of the residential boom along N.C. 211.

York said the Midway Road retail sites will add a third or fourth major commercial center to the growing county, joining the Leland area, with a new Wal-Mart center on the way; Shallotte, with a Belk store anchoring its main shopping plaza; and the Southport-Oak Island market.

She said optimism over the economic growth is tempered by concern about increased traffic.

"Everybody knows that we should be concerned. There will be a lot of impact on 211. Transportation and infrastructure improvements will be a big part of what's to come, especially with the new state port also coming in," York said. "It will be important for it to be done right."

Shelley Lesher, mayor of St. James, said that while she and other St. James residents look forward to commercial development, the proposed Midway Road projects are in the St. James Fire District and would increase the coverage area.

At planning hearings last fall, she originally wanted planners to delay the retail projects until improvements were made to beef up the number of fire hydrants. Only two hydrants, widely spaced, are currently located in the area.

Unless developers contribute money to build another fire substation, the shopping centers would put too much demand on the fire departments from St. James, Sunset Harbor/Zion Hill and Bolivia, she said.
 
Ozzy,

The scale of that development looks staggering.
Sounds like they're building a whole town?
Explosive unplanned growth sucks....

Kirk
Fitchburg, Mass
 
There is no town there right now. It's just an intersection, with a country store.

I'll try to get out there next weekend and see if I can get some pics for you.

I'll also start trying to locate property owners.
 
i dunno, i have mixed feelings. on one hand, save the plants! on the other, i love progress. i wish we could have it both ways.

i'm glad i'm not a public official.
 
We can have both, but the people who wants to save the natural areas, wants to save all the natural areas, and the people who wants to devlope the land wants to develope all the land. Money talks so the plants always lose.
 
Like the song Big Yellow Taxi goes:Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you got 'til it's gone
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.


That really sucks Ozzy!



Jerry
 
Ozzy -

As usual (and IMHO, of course), some politician has decided it's time to give himself a raise, and the only way to justify it is by increasing tax base. Build more buildings to raise more tax...I hate it!

If your area is anything like the suburbs of Houston, there seem to be as many unoccupied retail/commercial stores as there are OCCUPIED ones. Why can't people learn to use what they have and be content to leave the undeveloped areas alone until absolutely necessary?!?

You know, everyone down here wants to own a house with a nice big yard; the American Dream, I guess. But the vast majority of our neighbors have done nothing to their yards. Our next-door neighbor has the largest cul-de-sac lot in the subdivision. You know what he has in his back yard? grass and concrete...no yard furniture, no plants...nothing. If people want to go from their air-conditioned house to their A/C car to their A/C office, and not spend any time enjoying the outdoors, then they shouldn't buy a chunk of land! Buy a highrise condo, and live like rats, dangit!

Development really sickens me. The ONLY species on the planet that goes entirely unchecked is the human race, and we are the biggest destroyers of the REST of the species and their habitat.

Makes me that much more glad to be a part of the NASC...
 
I'm opposed to capital punishment in all cases, except when a suburbanite loads the big, unused lawn with water, fertilizer, & pesticides and then complains about having to mow so often.  No form of death is painful enough for them.

When local governments depend on property taxes to finance themselves, they'll fight each other for large-scale commercial development.  Look how often big commercial areas straddle government boundaries, so developers can play town vs. town, county vs county and so on.  But the experiences of some towns around here seem to be showing big boxes and other big retail developments aren't the revenue windfalls developers claim.
 
I honestly dont understand how all this developement can keep going on all over the country..especially the billions of new houses built every year.

up here in Rochester, which im sure is no different than anywhere else in the country, we have untold acres of farmland eaten up every year for new tracts of McMansions...thousands of them every year.

The Rochester region is LOSING jobs every year, mostly due to downsizing at Kodak, and the population of the area is shrinking all the time..
the economy isnt great in Western NY...
and yet, new developement continues at a rapid pace.
so my question is...who are the people buying these thousands of McMansions and where are they coming from?!
I dont understand it..

Scot
 
  • #10
I agree with you Scott. I can't see how your area is having a housing boom because the reason we are having so much land developed is because or all the people from NY, NJ an OH moving here. The county I live in is one of the fastest growing in the country. So the best cp area , worldwide, is also the fastest growing.
 
  • #11
I visited the site today. When I first got there I saw that the side of the road where I think the first stage will take place was not a good site for cp's. It looks to be farm land.
On the oppisite side of the road, there was a sign that said something about the sheriffs dept and Oak Island police are monitoring the site to prevent trespassing. No unauthorized vehicles. So I walked a little farther down the road and entered the woods where there were no signs. 100ft from the road I spotted the first cp. A D.intermedia, or is it a D.capillaris trying to be a D.intermedia?


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Another plantlet on the flower stalk.

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The black thing in this next pic is a polution barrier that constuction sites have to have around wetlands.

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You can't see it here but there is a path that was cut into the woods. In some of the later pics I have you can see this path better..

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I found this along with many surveying flags. I don't know what it is. I'll have to do some reserch on it.

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Another pic of the path.

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  • #12
Along this path where there are wet spots, there's more sundews growing.

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This cut path, goes into a very dark wooded area. In this area, across the path there were a lot of spiders.

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This is the strangest spider I have ever saw. It seam to have swept back wings. It almost looked like a jet. On closer look the wings were thorns.


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The next spider was very big. You can't tell by the first pic. On the second I put my hand next to it to show it's size.

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This path opens up into a classic pine savanna. Prime cp land.

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I know there was some cp's in this area, I could just feel it. The hard part was finding them. The savanna borders the main road. So I walked up to the road to look in the ditches.
I saw a cardboard box and I can't resist the urge to see if there was a snake under it. I picked it up and this venomous creature popped out.

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There was also a male black widow that crawled away as soon as I picked the box up.I probably saved his life.
 
  • #13
I walked all the way across the savanna without seeing any cp's. The cut path makes it way behind the pine savanna so I continued on the path. In the next pics you can see how the path is cut.

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I came up on a big clump of dried spagnum.

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Apearently, they have also done some draining here too.

All down this path I found clump after clump of dried spagnum.

Off to the side I saw a little path leading to a wet sunny area. When I get to it I could feel that the ground was soft. I was on a bed of pure peat. With my size 13 boots the ground had no problem holding me up. My snake hook is 5 ft long and it sunk right into the peat.. Take a look at these two pics.

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I stuck the hook all the way down into the ground without any trouble at all. All but about a foot of it was in the ground. I could have stuck it farther but I wanted to be able to pull it back up. Just imagian how much rain this areas holds. With the ground at least 4ft of peat, this area soaks up milions and millions of gallons. If they pave over this area, we lose that buffer and there will be major flooding the next time we have multi hurricanes.
 
  • #14
On farther down the path, the woods open up.


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By looking at the land features I realize that I must be on the rim of a carolina bay. CP's are known to grow in and around these bays. I start looking around and I find sundew after sundew.

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Notice the white sand. This area seems to be very dry. The only cp I can think of that would even attempt to grow here is D.brevfolia. This white sand is a classic marker of a carolina bay. So what ever created this white sand also created the bays.
 
  • #15
All around this area I found more of the North Carolina conservation easement posts. One in this area had this disk in the ground.

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The cut path goes farther but I had to make it back to my van and I was getting really tired. So I headed back theway I came. When I got to the pine savanna, I decided to take a different path, hoping to find something. I was walking near the road and I saw this sign from the back

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I start walking back towards the cut path and just behind this sign here's what I saw.

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  • #16
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I knew there was some nice cp's here. I was within 20 ft of these vfts when I walked through this area the first time. And when I found them they seemed to be everywhere.

Unfortunatly I didn't find any pitcher plants, but they are probably here somewhere. Every marker plant was there. It was the right conditions for them but I guess I'll have to do some more searching.

This land is for sale. I guess it's time to see if we can at least save some of theses.

Any ideas?
 
  • #17
I found out what exactly a conservation easement is.

Conservation Agreements

Conservation Agreements (sometimes referred to as conservation easements) are one of the more commonly used conservation tools used by land trusts in North Carolina. They are voluntary, legal agreements between a landowner and nonprofit conservation organization or government agency. Under the agreement, the landowner gives up certain rights, such as subdivision and development of the land, while retaining ownership of the property.

The benefit of conservation easements for landowners wanting to protect their land for the future is the flexibility of the agreement. Landowners work with the partner conservation organization or government agency to achieve their management objectives while providing for permanent protection of the land. The agreement is drafted to achieve each partner’s goals so every agreement is unique to the property and landowner.

Permanent land protection agreements also provide financial benefits to the landowner. Donating a conservation agreement to a qualified grantee (the nonprofit conservation organization or a public agency) makes the landowner eligible for a federal tax deduction and a NC Conservation Tax Credit. The conservation agreement may significantly reduce annual federal and state property taxes as well as estate taxes. Conservation easements do not prevent a landowner from selling or gifting the property. Restrictions on development are conveyed to subsequent owners.

Sample Easements

The following section contains sample versions of conservation easements that CTNC has used in working with landowners. While every easement is unique to the property and landowner, these documents represent the typical framework. These samples are for reference only and are based on North Carolina law. You are advised to check with a real estate attorney familiar with conservation easements.

Every easement that CTNC employs is carefully drafted with the goals of the landowner in mind and specifically tailored to protect the unique conservation values of each property. Conservation easements are only one of a variety of conservation options available to landowners and land trusts. Please check other parts of this section of the website for more information on other options such as land sales and donations. CTNC does not condone, nor allow use of its conservation easement wording by other organizations or individuals without expressed consent of CTNC.

Two types of land protection agreements are presented here. The first is CTNC's sample easement for use on properties intended to be nature preserves with minimal human management. The second is a ‘working landscape’ easement intended to allow traditional uses of the land, such as farming or timber management, protecting conservation values while sustaining rural economic viability of the property and community. For more information on these sample easements or information on conservation options for your property, please contact CTNC or your local land trust.
 
  • #18
I think we should try raising some money to help maybe buy off some of that land. I'm not the one to say something like that, I'm not even 20 yet. But still, I think something seriously needs to be done about that land for sale. We should at least try to contact the seller, or maybe the buyer if there is one and tell them about the impotance of this.

-Ben
 
  • #19
Plants vs. money. Money always wins.

That land is probably at least $100,000
 
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