THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, October 5, 1994 TAG: 9410050508
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY ANNE SAITA, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: MOYOCK LENGTH: Medium: 66 lines
The developer of a proposed Moyock area subdivision received an earful Monday evening from residents and county officials who fear his large housing complex will devastate the county's already overburdened services and facilities.
Chief among the complaints at the public hearing was the impact that The Plantations, a 601-lot development to be located near the Ranchland subdivision, would have on schools.
``It's just such a burden on everything that it's just unreal to me that you could even imagine putting a subdivision such as this in Moyock at this time,'' Commissioner Gene Gregory told Virginia Beach developer Alan Resh.
Currituck County has been experiencing rapid residential growth during the past few years as Virginians begin to migrate south to areas like Moyock, where property taxes are about half those in nearby Chesapeake.
As a result, services such as schools, police, fire and rescue have become strained in populated areas. The county's public schools, for instance, now use 38 mobile units among the six campuses.
Moyock Elementary School in the northern end of the county, which would serve The Plantations children, is bursting at its seams, officials have said.
The elementary school currently exceeds capacity with 713 students. Its facilities are seven acres short of state requirements for its present enrollment, with no room for expansion.
There are no immediate plans to build a new school in the Moyock area, though some crowding may be relieved after a new high school is built and other school populations are reshuffled.
Resh offered on Monday to donate 15 acres of open space within his proposed development to build a new school.
But the developer said after the hearing that he would not, as asked by Commissioner Gregory, consider building the facility.
``We're not in that business, and really it is something that the county should be doing,'' said Resh of Alan Resh Group and Columbus Management.
Resh also offered an impact fee from each lot sold to offset extra service charges, such as fire and police protection.
The Virginia Beach developer, who has built residential subdivisions throughout Hampton Roads, Virginia and Maryland, bought the Moyock property at a public auction.
Resh later learned that a 429-lot golf course community called Country Side had been approved for the area. He instead wants to create a larger, open-space subdivision with homes of 1,800 square feet and larger selling for $100,000 to $130,000.
The developer told commissioners that a preliminary study indicated The Plantations would make money for the county through various taxes. He also expected to complete the project within 12 years.
But commissioners and other county staff members all agreed the lots would sell more quickly and include more than the 312 school-aged children given in the estimates. The figure, some said, was more like 900 schoolchildren by 2006.
The neighborhood, made up mainly of cul de sacs, would include its own on-site wastewater treatment plant in a wooded area to the rear of the subdivision.
The Currituck County Planning and Inspections Department has recommended the county table any action on The Plantations plan until the county engineer has submitted his report. by CNB