THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, October 20, 1995 TAG: 9510200500
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY ANNE SAITA, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CURRITUCK LENGTH: Medium: 68 lines
A legal case that could change the way Currituck County officials deal with development was formally heard Thursday and now is being weighed by a Superior Court judge.
Judge William C. Griffin said he would not make an immediate decision on a petition by Tate Terrace Investors, Inc. to have a Currituck County Board of Commissioners' vote overturned.
Instead, Griffin said he will review volumes of legal documents and evidence revolving around the commissioners' rejection of a 601-lot Moyock housing development called The Plantations.
The five-member board in February denied sketch-plan approval and a special use permit for the project, citing a newly created regulation designed to help county services keep pace with residential growth.
``This case is about changing the rules in the middle of the game and then making a bad call,'' said Elizabeth City attorney Hood Ellis, who represents the Virginia Beach developers, at a 75-minute hearing in Currituck County Superior Court.
Raleigh Attorney H. Glenn Dunn, co-counsel for Currituck County, later countered: ``Yes, somebody changed in the middle of the game. The developers changed what they wanted to do.''
Tate Terrace bought a 520-acre tract off Survey Road in a 1988 foreclosure sale. At that time, the site had been approved for a 429-lot golf course community.
Tate Terrace later approached the county about expanding plans to build an 800-unit subdivision but later amended the design to 601 lots when it learned rezoning was required.
The company in September 1994 filed an application for sketch plan approval - the first of three stages required before lots may be sold.
The following month, numerous residents voiced their opposition to the plan at a public hearing. Many were upset by the impact new families would have on already an overcrowded Moyock Elementary School.
Tate Terrace's Alan Resh later offered the county $1 million and 40 acres of land for a new elementary school and recreation field for children generated by The Plantations.
At the same time The Plantations was introduced, the county was drafting an adequate facilities ordinance as a means to control residential growth.
The ordinance, which says the county must be able to provide services for county residents, later was used to reject The Plantations and other major subdivisions in thenorthern part of the county.
New school construction was authorized months later, mainly financed through $16 million in voter-approved bonds. More classroom space for all grades is expected by the fall of 1996.
``Throughout this process, the intent of the county has been to stop this project,'' Ellis told the judge.
The attorney said The Plantations should not have been subject to the new regulations since it was submitted before the new ordinance.
But Dunn and Currituck County Attorney William Romm disagreed.
``There's not one thing wrong legally . . . to consider ordinances when something's in the process. You probably won't find a time when something isn't in (progress),'' Dunn said.
The attorneys also said Tate Terrace could still develop a large subdivision on the property - the one already approved years ago.
``It's not a moratorium,'' Dunn said of the ordinance under scrutiny. ``They can build their 429 lots.'' by CNB