Dare County's Land Use Plan includes management of ocean shoreline development, including ocean setback standards for building, minimum elevations for first floor construction, and regulations to prevent loss of ocean front dunes.  This aerial photo was taken in Hatteras village looking East toward Frisco and one of the most vulnerable areas on Hatteras Island.

Dare County has begun the mandated update of its Land Use Plan.
This may be a topic that makes your eyes glaze over, but you need to get them wide open.

This is an issue that will affect all of us who live here and own property here. After it is completed, the updated plan will guide the use of land in unincorporated Dare County, which includes all of Hatteras Island, for about five years.

The land use plan will guide county officials on issues of growth and development, use of the natural resources, and regulatory issues.

Here is just a sampling of the policies in the current Land Use Plan (LUP):

--Natural resources, such as policies on wetlands, management of ocean and estuary shorelines, public trust areas, public water supply, shoreline access, beach nourishment, fisheries and maritime resources, channel maintenance, archaeological and historic resources, and wildlife management.
 --Regulatory issues, such as stormwater management, marinas, floating structures, tree removal and land disturbance, manmade hazards, off-road vehicles and beach driving.
--Growth and development issues, such as wastewater, transportation, solid waste, community growth, residential development, commercial development, re-development, industrial development, energy, tourism, and bikeways.
--Storm hazard mitigation, reconstruction, and recovery, such as evacuation plans and post-disaster reconstruction and recovery.

In other words, the plan will touch just about every issue that affects our lives and the way we live here.

The land use plans are mandated for coastal counties under the provisions of the North Carolina Coastal Area Management Act. All coastal counties must prepare and update guidelines and policies for land use within their jurisdictions.   These documents provide local elected officials with a set of guidelines for development patterns and other land use issues that are important to the community.  
 
Once adopted, LUPs must be updated every five years under the CAMA regulations.  The latest version of the Dare County Land Use Plan Use was certified by the state Coastal Resources Commission in July, 2003.

This LUP applies to the unincorporated portions of Dare County.  Each of the municipalities in Dare County adopts its own LUP for its jurisdiction.

The update is expected to take about 12 to 18 months to complete, according to Donna Creef, senior planner for the Dare County Planning Department, which oversees development of the plan.
There will be several opportunities for input from citizens as the plan is developed.
  
The first opportunity will be information workshops this week. People can attend these workshops to provide input to the Planning Board on important land use issues. During the workshops, citizens will have an opportunity, in an informal setting, to discuss land use policies and how the update procedure works.




Also part of the Land Use Update will be a countywide survey of attitudes about planning policies.  This survey can be completed by those who live in the county – both property owners and renters – by non-resident property owners and by other interested parties.

Donna Creef said the Citizen Involvement Poll will be mailed to all residents and non-resident property owners.  It is also available online, and she said the county hopes most folks will opt to fill it out there to save money and time for the county.

The survey asks about 40 questions that cover the waterfront, so to speak.

They probe your attitudes on regulation of bulkheads, setbacks on ditches and canals that connect to estuaries, oceanfront setbacks, land clearing and tree removal, placement of fill on lots, densities for single- and multi-family dwellings, lot coverage, offshore drilling for oil and gas, preserving working waterfronts, driving on the beach, and much more.

You will be asked to agree or disagree in varying degrees to such statements as:

 --Single family homes that are rented on a short-term basis should be considered as commercial activity with different standards for parking, trash pick-up, and water rates.
--The proliferation of tourist-oriented retail stores should be studied for regulatory standards.
-- Dare County should zone its surrounding water bodies to protect traditional waterfront activities and uses.
--An annual limit on the number of residential and commercial building permits should be considered in unincorporated Dare County.
--Dare County should seek consensus from the state that the strict regulations of the SED-1 zoning district for the Buxton Woods maritime forest should be re-evaluated. 

The last issue, the regulation of development in the maritime forest has been an issue before the Board of Commissioners in the past several years and is likely to be an issue in the update of the Land Use Plan.

All of Hatteras Island is zoned. The villages of Avon, Buxton, and Hatteras have detailed zoning maps that have been adopted over the years. The villages of Rodanthe, Waves, Salvo, and Frisco are zoned S-1, which is a minimal zoning district that allows all uses but does establish some building setbacks and height limitations and lot coverage.


In addition, the county adopted a Special Environmental District (SED-1) for the Buxton Woods maritime forest, which includes property in Frisco and Buxton. This zoning district establishes special standards for land clearing and vegetation removal that are intended to protect the vegetative canopy of the Buxton Woods forest.  It also has the effect of limiting the kinds of development allowed in property in the SED.

Islanders who own property in the SED have asked the commissioners to loosen the restrictions on development in the maritime forest.  The last time this issue came before the board in early 2006, the commissioners voted to allow mobile homes in the SED but decided to address the other issues of development in the area in the updated Land Use Plan.

I just went online and completed the survey.  It took about 15 minutes. In my opinion that was time well spent.

If you want to have a voice what Hatteras Island will like in the next decade, go to the Dare County Web site, www.darenc.com.  Click on the 2008 Land Use Plan Update on the front page.  You will be taken to the survey, which is very easy to fill out online.

Also, you can check out the 2003 Land Use Plan by clicking on “departments” on the county Web site.  Go to Planning Department and click on “Procedures/Land Use.”  Scroll down to 2003 Land Use Plan.

The document is very long but very interesting with detailed maps and demographic and community information, as well as the results of the last survey that was used to develop the plan.  Spend some time checking out the document that guides our elected officials on land use policies today.