THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, July 6, 1996 TAG: 9607060371
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY LANE DEGREGORY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 242 lines
Stretches of sand that hosted nothing but sea grass and shells 10 years ago now are home to huge housing developments. Hotels and motels line miles of the once wide-open oceanside. Restaurants, retail shops and grass-covered golf courses have been built on almost every barren patch of these barrier islands.
A decade after the Outer Banks building boom peaked, the skinny strip of beach stretching from Corolla to Ocracoke Island has been altered enormously.
What was a remote resort escape for retirees, fishermen and summer vacationers seeking solitude by the sea has become an East Coast mecca for relocating residents of all ages, business owners looking for new franchise sites, and travelers from across the globe.
Workers have filled acres of wetlands and built condominium complexes atop former swamps. Developers have written their own zoning laws to bypass low-density demands. And highway engineers have replaced draw bridges with high-arching, multi-lane spans; added lanes to bustling blacktops; and installed dozens of stoplights and metal signs to keep the constant flow of traffic moving.
In 1986, only two lanes carried cars across the Currituck Sound from the mainland to the Outer Banks. Today, four lanes across two spans are filled from May through October. And the average annual Saturday automobile count across the Wright Memorial Bridge has more than doubled: from 10,770 vehicles to more than 22,000 a day.
Housing figures, too, have nearly doubled during the past decade. The 1980 Census showed that 11,006 housing units lined Dare County's Outer Banks. Ten years later, that number had grown to 21,567 - a 96 percent jump.
In Southern Shores, still one of the least-developed areas along the islands, housing numbers increased 66 percent between 1985 and 1995. During that 10-year period, almost 700 homes were built in the 120-mile-long area between the Atlantic Ocean and the shallow sound.
``In the last decade, this area has grown tremendously, both in terms of population and the number of businesses,'' said Lurana Cowan, an 82-year-old former Kill Devil Hills commissioner who moved to the Outer Banks 20 years ago. ``When I first came here from Fairfax, Va., you could drive down the bypass after dark and you wouldn't see a single light on. Now, it's lit up all night with businesses, restaurants and new rental homes.
``There's a lot more traffic down here, in the summer especially. We don't quite have the privacy we had before because of all the additional visitors. In my opinion, the bypass is getting over-built now,'' Cowan said last week from her Ocean Acres home. ``You can get filled to capacity. And we're getting there.
``The Outer Banks are not quite the place they used to be. We're full right now. But, of course, it's helped all the businesses a lot at the same time.''
Houses and residential rental properties comprised the bulk of the building boom in the mid-1980s. The '90s have seen much more commercial growth as dozens of new eateries, shopping centers and amusement-type attractions have sprung from the sand dunes. Go-kart tracks, batting cages and surf slides have made the area appear more like other Atlantic Coast resort strips. This month, a Holiday Inn is scheduled to open in Hatteras Village. That pristine place was inhabited primarily by fishermen and native fishing families until recently.
Between 1985 and 1995, the number of Dare County commercial building permits increased more than five-fold: from 47 to 250.
The value of that construction jumped 276 percent.
Ten years ago, the Outer Banks didn't have any national chain department stores, and Kill Devil Hills didn't even boast a full-size supermarket. Today, Belk department store occupies a section of the 6-year-old Dare Centre on U.S. 158. Merchandisers are putting finishing touches on Nags Head's newest strip mall, Croatan Centre, a few miles north of the always-crowded outlet mall. Even local shop owners have opened outposts on Hatteras Island, in Duck and along Currituck's increasingly up-scale beaches. And Food Lion has set up huge grocery stores in Avon, Nags Head, Kill Devil Hills and Corolla.
Many mom-and-pop enterprises have had to shut down - or resort to selling sundries and souvenirs instead of food and supplies. Other owners have gone into offering unique gifts or have seen their shops subsumed by regional franchises. But most places are staying open from Easter through Thanksgiving now instead of shutting down after the three-month summer season is over.
``It's all changed. It's hard to find an area on the Outer Banks that hasn't changed in the past 10 years. There are just more people at every stop I make,'' said North Carolina Senate President Pro Tem Marc Basnight, D-Dare, who was raised in Manteo and returned to his Roanoke Island home last week between sessions of the General Assembly.
``The tranquillity and peace. The vistas and views of the environment where we live. All that has changed - and certainly not for the better,'' Basnight said.
``But you can't have it both ways. If you don't have the businesses or the jobs to keep the people around, the young people will have to leave,'' said the senator. ``Now, people are coming in from other places to find work.
``People with diverse backgrounds, opinions and experiences have enriched the minds of the young and old around the Outer Banks. It's a more worldly place. And that's great and wonderful.''
Dare County's year-round population grew 48 percent over the past 10 years - with more than 8,000 new residents residing full-time on these islands.
``The population has probably become more diverse,'' said Wynne Dough, the curator of the Outer Banks History Center. Dough has lived in Manteo most of his life. ``The population of blacks has probably gone down. But on the other hand,'' he said, there are more Asians and Hispanics.
Between 1985 and 1995, seasonal visitation jumped almost 54 percent - from a summer average of 102,190 people per day to 156,989.
Both figures are increasing almost monthly as marketing campaigns draw vacationers from Canada through California, and word-of-mouth brings groups wanting to windsurf, whale-watch, retire, relocate and just soak in the sun.
Every town on the Outer Banks beaches has experienced unprecedented increases in seasonal and permanent populations since 1985. Kitty Hawk and Southern Shores, among the most isolated and least built-up areas just 10 years ago, saw the greatest growth in people.
Kitty Hawk's seasonal and permanent populations jumped 133 percent. Southern Shores' summer visitation grew 41 percent. Permanent residents in that town increased by 81 percent.
``You've got more joggers and more Roller Bladers and more Jet Skiers,'' said Southern Shores Mayor Kern Pitts. ``You've just got a little more of everything. But what can you do? We now have 63 in the town cemetery. We started out with zero.''
The northern and southern ends of the Outer Banks, which aren't part of Dare County, have experienced even more growth and dramatic changes over the past decade.
Corolla - and the rest of Currituck County's northern beaches - weren't even accessible except to residents of the old fishing village and pass-holding property owners in private subdivisions until 1984, when a guard gate put up by a developer finally was knocked down.
Since then, the isolated area - almost an hour's drive north of Kill Devil Hills - has undergone a 264 percent jump in the number of houses with year-round residents and an almost equal increase in the number of seasonal rental homes.
In 1985, 70 houses with year-round residents lined that slender strip between Sanderling and the Virginia state line.
Today, more than 255 permanent homes occupy the same space. Seasonal rental homes in the Corolla area have multiplied more than three-fold during the same period: from 563 to 2,039.
Population also has peaked on Currituck's northern beaches. Permanent residents have gone from 171 a decade ago to 620 - a 262 percent increase. Weekly seasonal populations have quadrupled, from 4,271 to 19,370.
Visitation figures aren't available for Ocracoke Island, Hyde County officials said. But the traffic count on the free state-run ferry between Hatteras Village and Ocracoke tells part of the tale. The total number of vehicles making that round-trip across Hatteras Inlet each year has gone up 43 percent in the past decade: from 229,280 to 327,619.
``Ten years ago, they only ran six ferries from Hatteras. Now there are eight,'' said Ocracoke fisherman James Barrie Gaskill, who runs Styron's General Store in the center of the island.
``Used to have one boat to Swan Quarter and two to Cedar Island. Now Swan Quarter's got two and Cedar Island has four.
``There's been a lot of building going on here,'' Gaskill said.
``So much now that you can't hardly get around the harbor - it's all filled up. Places that used to have one building per property now have five or six shops. Down in the village, especially, traffic's real bad. Year-round residents don't even want to go down there until late evenings or after the tourist season's over.
``It's just out of control,'' said Gaskill, whose grandfather built the general store and who's seen generations of his family grow up on Ocracoke. ``The whole island's lost its character.
``A lot of shops and rental cottages have gone up since 1985. In the last 10 years, this place has really started booming. The county is encouraging growth on Ocracoke so they can get our tax money. The people who should be dealing with these problems aren't enforcing anything.
``Developers are building without setbacks, proper parking or any enforcement of codes.
``Instead of talking about fishing as they used to do in the wintertime, conversation's now more about what folk can't do - where they can't go on the beaches or because of building,'' Gaskill said. ``Talk's almost all against the island now instead of for it. Five or six native families moved to the mainland just last year because of taxes and the high prices this place now charges because of tourism.''
Gaskill's wife, Ellen, agreed. ``There's a split community here, now - those who want to develop vs. people trying to preserve the island and its history,'' she said. ``But somebody is making money off all the changes, too.''
All along the Outer Banks, from Corolla through Dare County's central beaches to Ocracoke, tax bases have risen with the additional buildings and people - and, in most cases, property tax rates have declined.
Basnight said those additional local and state dollars need to be funneled back into the barrier islands' economy to build public accesses for the beach and sound, recreational outlets such as biking and jogging trails, and facilities for handicapped and elderly people to enjoy the environment that is increasingly becoming subsumed by subdivisions and shopping centers.
People also need to take a greater part in controlling growth on the islands they inhabit, said the senator. They need to better manage density, development and the area's natural resources. And they need to decide for themselves what the future should be like - instead of letting growth overrun them and the Outer Banks.
``There should be round-table discussions throughout these communities,'' Basnight said. ``While building places to attract people, we also need to think about building places for them to walk, get exercise. Small pieces of land need to be purchased and preserved.
``We need to do this for ourselves,'' Basnight said. ``In summer months, we certainly don't need more people. But in the off-season, that's fine. We have no room to build another bypass. But we'll have to widen the one we've got.
``We need to look at what we want to see - and what we want to be here - 10, 20, even 50 years from now,'' Basnight said.
``We're really fortunate that we're bound by the ocean and the marshes and the sound - and we can't build out any further than those shores.'' MEMO: In Sunday's Virginian-Pilot, read about how Outer Banks towns have
tried to cope with growth by expanding offerings and services, and see
how growth has affected things like schools, elected officials and
salaries. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
DREW C. WILSON/The Virginian-Pilot
On this spit of sand at Oregon Inlet on Friday, four-wheel drive
vehicles crowd under the Herbert C. Bonner Bridge. The spit, which
was formed over many years, was taken over by fishermen and
sunbathers as soon as they could drive on it. Traffic has increased
in the past decade, but road improvements have kept pace with much
of the growth.
Graphics
JOHN EARLE/The Virginian-Pilot
GROWTH ON THE OUTER BANKS
THE TOWNS
SEASONAL POPULATION
YEAR-ROUND POPULATION
SOURCE: The towns
COROLLA & OCRACOKE
SOURCE: Currituck County, Hyde County
DARE COUNTY
SOURCE: Dare County
[For complete graphics, please see microfilm]
Photos
DREW C. WILSON/The Virginian-Pilot
At the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, visitors crowd the railing on
Friday. The area's growth hasn't changed just tourism - more people
are moving to the Outer Banks. From 1985 to 1995, Corolla saw a 264
percent jump in the number of homes with year-round residents.
Traffic moves along N.C. Route 12 near Buxton, near the Cape
Hatteras Lighthouse. Road improvements have been one major change to
the barrier islands in the past decade. More cars may bring more
headaches to permanent residents, but they also bring tourism
dollars.
KEYWORDS: OUTER BANKS NORTH CAROLINA
DEVELOPMENT GROWTH by CNB