Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you.

Good afternoon, and welcome to the Town of Surf City Council meeting. I'd like to call the meeting to order and ask Pastor Nathan Swartz to come up and lead us in prayer. If you would please stand.

Let's pray together. God, we're so very grateful for the opportunity that you give us this evening. As Christians, we know we have a responsibility and a bold courage duty to live out your will today. So whether it's gratitude or grievances or whatever lies before us, help us to do your will on this earth as it is in heaven. Give us a great opportunity to make much of Jesus and to be proud of what we do. We pray for the town council and the mayor that you give them good wisdom to help them to know what your will is and to follow the steps through it, as well as everyone else in this room and watching online. Lord, it's so awesome to be a part of what you're doing in your will. and even more so to be able to just gather here and use this for our town. So, Lord, we just pray for your wisdom, for your compassion, your understanding, for your will to be done. Thanks, Lord, for being able to do something that matters. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

Amen. Amen. At this time, Mr. Ellis says that he's going to come up and say a junior prayer. Yes? You can just pull that down. Yes?

Dear Lord, thank you for this wonderful day, Lord, for everybody being safe as we've gone through this day, Lord. Thank you for everyone traveling here safe, Lord, that you just bless us with this day. In your son's name we pray, amen.

Amen. Thank you. And remain standing as Maverick Louder comes up and leads us in the pledge. Yes, sir? Amen.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, for liberty and justice for all. Thank you.

All right, if Miss Sandy Monroe would come up. She is our beautification and enhancement director, and she's got some committee awards to hand out.

Promoted to director? That's pretty cool. It sounded really nice, Sandy.

Go with it.

OK, so every month, the beautification enhancement committee awards two awards to our community. One is for? beautification worked for the home of the month and one is for the business of the month so what we're looking for in case you want to nominate your neighbors and your favorite business in town is just looking out for the community doing the best with their landscaping and the exterior of their buildings or giving back to the community in some significant way we just want to recognize those that help make our community a beautiful place to live So first, we have our homeowner, and this is the Dr. JJ Lawrence family. I don't think that they're here, but their house is the cutest house you ever saw. It's 312 North Topsail Drive. I believe they have a big double lot. And they have this magnificent fig tree that when I walk my dogs by there, sometimes I might accidentally walk up there and have a little taste test and let you know when they're ripe. And all of these beautiful flowers. So I'm so thrilled that they won this month. And we'll be putting their sign in their yard tomorrow afternoon.

So let's give them a big hand.

And for our Business of the Month this month, we have the Topsail Island Trading Company, which is owned and operated by John and Claire Noto. And I thought maybe they were... Oh, they are here. Wonderful. Come on up. And you probably know they own many businesses in town, and maybe you would like to talk a little bit about the trading company and other...

Hey, everybody. My name is John Noto. Claire and I own the Tops Island Trading Company. We've been involved in that store since 2007. We are honored to be here. It's been a great year for us. The town has really looked at holding us up with the Business of the Year Award, and now this is just pretty awesome. We just want to say thank you to Surf City. Thank you to everybody that pops in, and make sure you get in and get some fudge.

you're welcome thank you and not only is their business beautiful on the outside but they're so generous with the many charitable organizations that come through town and need help they're always offering up little gift baskets and fudge and and all the wonderful things so we love having businesses like that here in town thank you thank you stay yes the surfing city So we have one surfboard to celebrate this month. And let's see. I think he's getting ready to put it on the screen.

There we go.

All right, so this month we have Jody Crumpler, and she is here in the audience. Where did she go? Oh, there she is. Come on up. And her business is Live Where You Love Realty, and she selected a location right in front of Max's Pizza for her board, and you can see it up here. And this is Jody, and she's going to tell you a little bit about herself, her business, and anything about your board. Okay.

So it turns out speaking in front of adults is very different than speaking in front of elementary and high school kids, so bear with me. This was way too much of an exciting project for me. I think you probably realize how excited I was. You know when you walk around all the time and you think they should do this and they should do that? We think of that all the time. I think that all the time. You're walking around town about government or parents or whatever, and I'm always saying, we should do this in this town, and we should do that in this town. And of course, busy, busy, busy, never get involved. This project came, and I said, I got to do it.

And the reason is because this city means... the world to me.

I also wear my heart on my sleeve, so I apologize. Cricket, the artist, couldn't be here tonight, and we called this Nostalgia. As soon as I heard about it, I thought, I want people to know what I feel about Surf City. And so the front here is my daughter and her best friend walking across the swing bridge. Back in 2017, we just happened to be going under the bridge that day, the same time. So I told Cricket my idea for that, and she just did it perfectly. And when I told her nostalgia on this side, we decided on postcards and Polaroids, because Polaroids were back in the day, y'all. Every postcard has a date on it, and that date means something special in my life. It might be my prom weekend, because it was spent right up there on the north side of Scotch Bonnet Pier. Every weekend of high school was spent there. My graduation weekend was there. There's a mixtape that if you played it from my mama's house in Buleville, It hit ACDC just as soon as you came across that swing bridge, and it was that same song every time. She had it planned perfectly. The red flowers, the blanket flowers, you see them all over the island. They were very special to me. My husband and I had talked about them the weekend that I met his mother and his brother, and he told me he loved me that day. So it's embedded in one of those flowers, the little date and stuff. So that's what I'm saying. I want everybody here that are new and the people that are coming here to understand what this place means to us. And so that's why I chose it. I chose Max's Pizza because it was one of our favorite places. Found out later when my husband and I got together, it was one of his favorite places. And my daughter and her husband got their first date there. So everything means something. take the time to enjoy where we live and live where you love and enjoy where it is because we have a lot going on here that we should be thankful for. And I appreciate the town for coming up and doing this project because it really has meant a lot. Business. Live where you love realty. I'm a boutique real estate agent. It's just me. So I kind of am very selective on what I do. And we have some other businesses, so we're busy. But I concentrate on one client at a time. And so if you're interested, I'm here. Awesome. Thank you.

Thank you. So we still have a couple of surfboards left. We're running low, so if you're a business out there that was interested in sponsorship, you can go right to the town website. There's a tab up at the top under special projects, and you can send in an email, and I will reach out to you, and we'll get you all set up. Thank you.

Thank you. OK, next on our list is a Coastal Resilience Partnership Day. And there's a proclamation that states that whereas the signing of the partnership agreement represent a historic milestone of cooperation and shared vision between the town of Surf City and the United States Army Corps of Engineers. And whereas this agreement formally advances the Surf City Coastal Storm Risk Management Project, which reflects years of dedication, advocacy, and shared vision, and building a resilient future. Whereas this vital project will protect six miles of our shoreline, widen our beaches, and rebuild our critical dune system, providing essential protection against future coastal storms. And whereas this partnership will safeguard critical local infrastructure, protect private property, preserve vital natural habitats, and ensure the Surf City remains a safe, beautiful, and wholesome family-oriented community, for generations and residents and visitors to enjoy. And whereas the town of Surf City is profoundly grateful for the dedication and hard work of the United States Army Corps of Engineers Wilmington District and all of our federal, state, and local partnerships. Now, therefore, I, Teresa B. Batts, the mayor of town of Surf City, I do by hereby proclaim August 17th 2026 as a coastal resilience partnership a day. On August 17th, at 10 AM at the Roland Beach Access. We will be having a historical PPA signing agreement with the Army Corps of Engineers. And I invite you all to come out and join us on that day. We are expecting Washington DC to show up. We are expecting Raleigh to show up, and our county and other local municipalities in our area to show up. engage in this historic signing of a partnership agreement with the army corps of engineers and i have heard i have requested a flyover for the town of surf city so hopefully it will happen hopefully the weather will be good and we can um have a a very good morning on august 17th at 10 a.m so please come out and join us so moving forward um we were sitting here a few minutes ago and we were doing the surfboard and miss Jody got a little emotional I'm gonna get probably get a little emotional when I do this if chief for he's will please come forward

I know you're going to call me up and put a tie on.

Well, I know you didn't want this, but we cannot let you leave without giving you something. So in recognition of 19 years for serving the town of Surf City, we want to thank you for leading our community with courage and integrity. And you would not imagine the amount of work that this man has done in our community. The speech that he did just a few weeks ago when he was doing his last swearing-in was amazing. I told him he had to do it again. I don't know if he will or not. But it was amazing. Hopefully he will. But we have this plaque for you. It's not a lot, but because you do mean a lot to the town of Surf City, and we appreciate you.

And when I first got here back in 2007, It was my goal, even from being a young police officer here, to make the Surf City Police Department and the town of Surf City a better place than I left it. So I think I've accomplished my mission. I'm leaving it in good hands. Our new chief is here. He's in the back of the room. If you get a chance, please introduce yourself to him. But I'm proud of the work that we've done here in the community, and I'm very thankful for the support of the community, because we couldn't have done it without you, and we couldn't have done it without these folks. with our council and our mayor to sit up here today, and our town manager, Kyle.

Thank you for all your support over the years, and I appreciate it.

A couple more days, and I'll be riding off into the sunset. 25 years as a police officer, I'm tired. So I need a rest. But thank you. Appreciate it.

OK, we are going to move forward here with our meeting. And do I have a motion to adopt our agenda?

Mayor, I'll make a motion to adopt the agenda.

Second. I have a motion and a second. All in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed, same sign. Motion carries to adopt the agenda. At this time, we have public comments. And Carla has a list. that people have signed up. You will have three minutes to come up to the podium and state your name and address and speak to the public. Ellen Davis.

Again, my name is John Davis, 208 Edgewater Way here in Surf City over there in Waterside. I know there's a lot of rezoning and special permits, so I'm going to make a general statement to kind of plow across the board here. I moved to Surf City in 2020 due to it being such a small beach community. It was an ideal beach community that it was, and now it has all changed, and it's still changing in the last four years for sure and not for the good. Growth seems to be the only thing only to be done for improving tourism and business owners at the expense of the year-round permanent residents, such as tax increases, traffic issue, and property value changes. The only winners for all the growth seems to be to be, excuse me, I'm not a speaker. The only winners for all the growth seem to be the business owners, real estate developers, and real estate businesses themselves around here. They seem to profit while the residents don't really get anywhere near the same benefit but still have to carry the tax burdens that was evident this past year and similarly years to come. The added services that are being told are happening, such as utilities, sewer, water, police, and fire, are only mostly needed by the increase in tourism, business, and tourists coming here now. Again, to benefit business owners and real estate businesses. The infrastructure such as the roads, traffic control, water, sewer, and other utilities are not ready or prepared for the continued expansion or growth. Issues are not being addressed and handled before the growth is happening. New hotels are coming, and they're not wanted by the residents. Another example of Surf City seemingly ignoring residents' wants and putting the potential profits of business and real estate ahead of the residents. We have many issues with traffic, walking and bike traffic on the bridge, these electric bikes, kids on these electric bikes everywhere, tourist traffic flying through neighborhoods and presenting serious, dangerous situations for many. I live in Waterside. and the number of issues with the restaurant businesses, cars parking on our streets, vacationers flying through the neighborhood to avoid the Highway 50 and 210 traffic, cars not obeying traffic sign, and other issues that have been brought forth on many occasions but seem to go unheard or just not cared enough to try to help. Our neighborhood has about 700 to 800 voters at this time, and it's time to be given proper attention. During the past council election, there was a total of 1,347 votes even cast. During the 2023 mayor election, it was one with just 607 out of 918 votes. It's time you realize that Waterside community can and will make an impact going forward. uh be advised we're going to be looking closely and we as a neighborhood and community as well as myself will be running for the offices you currently hold enough is enough it's time to get let surf city go back to being the small sweet family first beach community we all love and that's why we made it our homes thank you Doug Tarrin

Doug Taron and Desiree Taron. We live at 105B Anchor Drive in Surf City. Two things. First, the Surf City Firefighters Auxiliary has our biggest fundraiser every year is the Boaters Poker Run. It's coming up the end of September. So just wanted to make everybody aware of that. Great time, great day on the water. You basically go to multiple stops on the water. You get poker hands. You get a chance to win $2,500. A lot of good prizes. It's a good time and a great fundraiser.

We're also looking for sponsorships.

Yeah. Any businesses you want to sponsor? Yeah, we'll take them. And then second, I know that you're supposed to address the committee as a whole and not one specific person. So I'm going to address all of you. But I think you'll probably know if it pertains to you. So happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday. Happy birthday. Happy birthday to you. That's all I have, thank you.

All right, we will move forward to approving the consent agenda. Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda?

Yes, Mayor. I will gladly approve the consent agenda.

I have a motion to approve. Do I have a second? I'll second. All those in favor, say aye.

Point of order, though, I have a clarifying question for Mr. Brewer. Item 9, did we fix Section 410F2 in the packet? It still has the old language in it.

Okay, I can go back and take a look at it. If the council wants to delay the vote, then that would be appropriate. I don't have it pulled up. And if it's incorrect, then it needs to be corrected.

Okay, we had talked about it, I think, at the workshop.

I know exactly the two points. Maybe...

Madam Mayor, will you just remove that and put it? It's a simple fix.

Do I have a motion to remove item nine? I'll make a motion. From the consent agenda. I'll make a motion to remove item nine. Do I have a second?

I'll second it.

All in favor, say aye. Aye. All approve. Same way. So do I have a motion to approve the amended agenda?

I'll make a motion to approve the amended agenda, Mayor.

I'll second. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. All those opposed, the same. OK, motion approves. We will remove item 9 until the next meeting. Next up is a public hearing. At this time, it is the special use modification of 412 Rowland Avenue, 4235-80-4097-0000. At this time, I am going to ask this board for a motion to recuse myself from this vote due to a potential financial conflict.

Do you need one of us to make the motion?

I'll make the motion to allow Mayor Batts to recuse herself.

All those in favor? Aye. Okay, we're going to move forward with this special use permit. Tonight we'll be considering whether to issue an applicant a special use permit on the application before the board, which pertains to 412 Rowland Avenue. This hearing is a quasi-judicial, which is very similar to a court hearing. the board must base its decision upon competent, relevant, and substantial evidence in the record. As such, anyone who wishes to speak on this matter must be sworn in. Testimony of witnesses should be based on facts and not opinions. Testimony should also be focused on the criteria the board will have to consider when voting on this matter, which will be explained in detail shortly. Everyone who wishes to speak tonight will have the opportunity to do so, but only individuals with standing will be permitted to participate fully in the hearing. In other words, only those with standing will be allowed to call witnesses, cross-examine witnesses, and make legal arguments. Standing is a legal term. Those who have standing are the applicant, the town, and individuals who can show they will suffer special damages. Again, just because you don't have standing does not mean you will not be able to speak tonight and have the board consider your comments. Anyone who wishes to speak tonight will be afforded that opportunity. All right. What we're going to do now is we're going to allow the applicant to make a short presentation of what this proposal is going to be, just an overview of what we're looking at, and it may answer some of your questions ahead of time. Mr. Nichols is going to give the presentation. I didn't know his name. I apologize. Mr. Nichols, if you'll step forward.

Thank you.

We're going to do that in a minute as well. He's just going to give a quick overview to help answer some of the questions people in the town may have before we get to the evidentiary portion.

Are you good with that now? Because this isn't your presentation. This is just a.

Yes, sir. However the board pleases. We appreciate the opportunity to say a few words. And thank you, Mr. Mayor Pro Tem, Madam Mayor, members of council. Thank you. We do have a full presentation and very much appreciate the opportunity to be here this evening. I'm Matt Nichols. I'm an attorney in Wilmington. And I am representing the applicant on this special use permit request. uh... and we look forward to presenting to you this evening uh... a very high quality mixed-use project proposal in the island town center and central business district on what is a very important part of the town uh... as part of that project uh... as part of the overall project we're asking for a special use permit to allow for the dry stack storage component which would be the storage of 200 boats, which is very similar in size to the adjacent Topsail Island Yacht Club, that portion of the project. We would respectfully contend that the project will bring neighborhood scale commercial to the central business district. You know, one of the things, I know council has seen a proposal for this in 2024, December, and had a hearing in 2024, and that hearing was continued to April 1st of 2025, and that proposal was withdrawn. And then even after that application was withdrawn, there was a community meeting that was held at the community center over on the beach. I think that was on April 7th. And then we've had our community meeting. And the takeaway from that is that we heard was the town wants to see more commercial. wants to see a better design, something that would be a sense of place. Surf City is a very unique place, and something that would add to the Central Business District, things that residents would enjoy. I know there were some comments earlier about the town and the various restaurants and things like that. All these things are meaningful to the residents, and we wanted to accomplish that with the redesign. And I think I could sum it up in a couple words is what I heard was do better, have a better plan, do a better project. And we would like to think that we have done that. And if I could go through a few slides, Mr. Mayor Pro Tem, I could point out some of the differences

I feel like that would be more for your presentation. OK. Yes, sir. Just a more broader overview, if you don't mind. Yes, sir.

I would note that the project that we're proposing, and we'll show this in our presentation, is we think entirely in line with your strategic plans and your comprehensive plan. We've added some conditions, proposed conditions, to the approval, or to the proposed approval, which would be the dredging of one-time maintenance dredge of the channel. And we think this is very significant. And we have folks that are qualified to speak to this. But it would be dredging of that channel way. at the applicant, my client's expense. We think that would be a huge improvement. Secondly, we look forward to working with the town on a multi-use path along New River that would help pedestrian transition from business to business and also business to the beach. And we want to be part of that. There's so many things I could say I won't, Mr. Mayor Pro Tem, just because I want to respect the format of the hearing. But we would contend that there's a number of benefits to the town and to the public, and it's a different project than before. And we look forward to presenting what is a significantly reduced dry stack storage component than before. added commercial, the restaurant that's proposed, and the overall design is just much better. We respect everything that everyone's going to say here tonight. We want to be good neighbors. We want to be good neighbors with the town. We want to be good neighbors with our neighbors. And we, again, appreciate the opportunity to make the presentation when the time's appropriate. Thank you.

All right, moving forward, we will move forward with the determination of standing. If you are the applicant, you have standing. If you are not the applicant but believe you will suffer damages that are distinct from those damages to the public at large, please raise your hand. Okay. If you will, please stand. If you had your hand raised, please stand. I'm going to issue an oath.

Mr. Mayor Pro Tem, I'm an attorney representing Topsail and Yacht Club, so I don't believe the oath is for me. I just want to make you aware of that. I understand.

Mr. Mayor Pro Tem, just for the audience's understanding, what we're getting at right now is whether you want to be able to have the ability to cross-examine witnesses, whether you want to have the ability to call witnesses, the ability to appeal a decision. We're not talking about the ability to speak. Everybody's going to be given that opportunity. If you want to have a part in the hearing, which means coming up here and questioning each witness kind of like an attorney would in the courtroom, that's what you're standing for now. If you're more in line of you just want to say your piece when that time's appropriate, you can sit down now. You will be given that opportunity later. I just want to make sure we have the right people standing up for this.

I apologize for being ambiguous on that.

I'm sorry. Just to understand the procedure, those folks who will speak later will be evidence that this council can consider.

That's correct. As long as it's material, competent evidence, your comments will be considered by the council. So if you're still standing, that means you're going to want to participate like a lawyer would in the matter. Okay.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor Pro Tem.

I apologize. Thank you. We need to swear those people in. If you want to participate, you need to remain standing. Raise your right hand. Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the evidence you shall give to the board in this action shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God. Thank you. You may be seated.

Mr. Mayor, we also have an engineer expert here who is not appearing as a person with standing, but who will be providing that.

That's fine. Yep. Okay.

And I just want to make that aware that she's not been sworn in yet, so we won't be doing that.

Well, now would be the time, wouldn't it? We'll do that after we determine who has standing. Yes, sir. All right, so now we need a motion. So, Mr. Mayor Pro Tem, I would suggest that Mr. Dale be given the opportunity to call up those individuals in his camp that he believes establishes standing, and then we'll make a motion after that time. So we'll have to hear from those individuals, and they'll have to establish why they actually have standing. So if it's okay with you, Mr. Dale could come up and call whoever he would like to call.

Yes, sir. Good evening. Again, Alex Dale and Sarah Wallace.

I'll stop for just a moment. Do I need to open this public hearing, or does that come after this? We haven't actually started the evidentiary hearing yet. Do we need to have a motion or anything to open the hearing?

No, I think we're good to go.

Again, Alex Dale and Sarah Wallace Strickland here on behalf of Topsail Island Yacht Club. This is a condominium association. We obviously appear through its members, and so you'll be hearing from some of its members and employees. So at this time, I would like to call Hunter Taylor, to please come provide testimony. Mr. Taylor, could you just state your name and discuss your background and role at Topsail Island Yacht Club?

Hunter Talo, I'm the manager of Topsail Island Yacht Club. I've been there since the original developer redid the whole property, the whole marina property. Also shifted over to the association manager once the developer got out.

And how many slips were in the Topsail Island Yacht Club dry stacks? 195. And that's 192 in the stacks and three on the ground, is that correct? And in your role, are you observing traffic conditions in what I'll refer to as the channel, which is the body of water that runs by the yacht club up through past the mobile homes and into the intercoastal waterway? Yes. And have you seen any incidences occur in that channel? Yes. What have you seen in that channel in terms of congestion or danger in that area?

Usually the worst parts are during thunderstorms. We have a lot of boats come back in. Some will go right to JM's and try to raft up there. Other ones try to get back to our docks or back to the Freedom Boat Club docks. Most of the concerning things are people disregarding the no-wake zones. We've had several of those lately. One where a guy was going by the docks and I was standing on the docks. And where we are, it's not far to the other side. Two people yelled at him to slow down, and he sped up as he went around the corner and just disregarded anything we said. So I've seen a lot of that. A lot of people who, even one of our boaters, came in on plane, running fast in a thunderstorm, came all the way up to our dock, and I mentioned to him, that's not what you need to do because it's endangering other people. And he wasn't pleasant about it, so he was scared and didn't want to mess up his boat or whatever. Yeah. Yeah, I've seen a lot of the no wake zone disregarding.

Have you seen some near misses in the channel?

Yeah. Yeah, and people backing out of jams, people coming in, people coming off the fuel dock. And there's a big base in there by the fuel dock, and there's a lot of boats that kind of hover around there. And when the boats are trying to get out from other docks, they have to dodge each other. And sometimes somebody's backing up, and the other guy's going forward, and it gets close.

Is there shoaling in that channel?

Just at the end, towards the waterway.

And how does the tide affect the channel?

It makes it smaller, narrower, because the shallow water on the sides, where we are, the docks, across from the marsh, across from the docks, it gets real shallow on that side, so it limits movement in that part of it.

And is this channel the sole navigable channel for ingress and egress for vessels at Topsail and Yacht Club? Yes, it is. That's the only way to get to the intercoastal waterway from the Yacht Club? Yes. And just to sort of help the council understand sort of the different slips that are there and different areas of congestion, can you just walk through starting at the most northern point where there may be some slips and sort of walk all the way through the channel?

Yeah, where Marina Joe's restaurant is, it's very tight there, and they have to come past the docks in front of the townhouses. And then where we are, it's a lot shorter distance from our docks to the marsh. But it widens up where the fuel dock is, and then it narrows back down, and it gets probably the most choked where the mobile homes are, where they have their docks there. And there's a shallow spot on the other side, which we just talked about.

Back in 2016, were there fewer boat slips in that area, in that channel?

There were fewer docks for boats when they added the ones at JM. So I think it was after that. Also, yeah, I think that was about the only one.

And Marina Joes came after that as well. Yes. And what about the jet ski rentals? Did that come after? No. 2016, they were there. Did the town apply for a no-wake zone in that channel in 2016? Yes. And at that time, is the town manager quoted as discussing the congestion in that channel?

Yes, it was a newspaper article that he was quoted in, I was quoted in, and also the no-wake zone coordinator.

And in fact, the no-wake zone coordinator works for the North Carolina Wildlife Commission, is that correct?

Yes.

And as part of that role of considering the no-wake zone matrix, they received information from this town about whether that channel was a hazard back in 2016.

Correct.

And did the town represent to the North Carolina Wildlife Commission back in 2016 that the channel was a hazard?

Yes.

Um. What are typical launches that you see coming out of the Yacht Club?

For the time between January 1st this year and July 31st, we had 2,860 launches, which varied by the day. But if you do an average on that, that's 13 a day. Some were a lot more. Some were a lot less. This past Saturday, we had 43 launches. I had seven boats in the water, so there was 50 boats in the water that we had. And we were able to get them all out by about 7 p.m., which is an hour after our closing. We just had to wait for people to come back so we have enough space for the people that are still out.

Do you see boats going to the Marina Joes restaurant? Yes. And based on your experience, how many have you seen on average going by per day to Marina Joes?

Per day, 10 to 12 per day. One day we had about 25 go by. I don't know that all of them are going there. They're going to look, and then they turn around and come back. But it's a marked increase from what we had before. We have to make sure that we hold on to the boats of our so that when they go out, they're not going to go out in front of somebody coming out the other way.

What about the fuel dock? What do you usually see on average coming out of the fuel dock?

It's probably, it depends on the day. I mean, it's a variable number. It's probably, I'd say an average of 20 to 25 a day that come in and out of there. Last Saturday, there was quite a few more.

And you mentioned you began working at the Yacht Club. I believe you testified to this 25 years ago. Is that what you said? Yes. OK. So back in 2001, and I think you said you were working with the original developer. Is that correct? Correct. Did you and the developer do some training with an organization back when you first started?

Yes, we went to the International Marina Management Association's classes down in Fort Lauderdale and basically got the designation of intermediate marina managers and did not go to complete it to be a certified marina manager.

And after that, did you go train at some other marinas to get experience? Yeah. And then did you run the fuel dock from 2021 to 20, excuse me, 2001 to 2010?

It was probably not to 22. It was from the beginning to whenever the bank shut down the property over there. So it was probably about 2010 or 11, maybe 2012.

So you've been observing the traffic in the channel for the past 25 years, is that right? Yes. And have you seen it increase in the past 25 years? Yes, absolutely, yeah. And what would you say are the peak hours of traffic congestion in the channel?

It varies, but early in the morning is lighter. Say 10 o'clock to 12 o'clock, it's heavy. And then from, say, 2 to 4, it's heavy again.

And you're aware that the applicant wants to add 200 boat slips to put more boats into that channel?

Yes.

And based on your knowledge and experience, would this create a traffic hazard in the channel? Yes. And can the channel safely accommodate the combined vessel traffic from the existing 195 slip facility of the Yacht Club, all the other slips for the restaurants, and this proposed 200 slip facility? I don't think so. Did the prior developer who you work with consider adding more slips?

Yes, the original design was our two buildings and having a mirror image of that, which would add roughly the amount of boats we're talking about here. So we'd have roughly 400 boats in that one facility. And while the original developer did say that building those buildings would be more lucrative, And I quote, he said, we don't have the water for that. We don't have the dock space. We don't have the water for that because on peak days we'd be too many boats. So he went to a condo building instead.

When the town was working with you and others about the no-wake zone, did you communicate with Betsy Haygood at the North Carolina Wildlife Commission? Yes. And what is her role there? She's the no-wake zone coordinator for North Carolina Wildlife. And did you discuss the applicant's proposed project here with Ms. Haygood recently?

I had called her to see if I could get the matrix based on what they, or the matrix they used to get the no wake zone in the first place back in 2016. And during the conversation, she asked, she said, are you planning on expanding? And I said, no, we're talking about a 200 slip facility next to us. And she was like, what? That's not, the channel's not big enough for that. And I asked her to write that down, but she declined. But yeah, it was a eye-opening thing reading that matrix.

If the boat slips are added, would it be detrimental to public safety due to congestion in the channel?

I believe so, yes.

Would it impact the owners and members of Topsail and Yacht Club? Yes. And would they be damaged by the fact that there would be this increased traffic in the channel?

I believe so, yeah.

Mr. Taylor. You also own a boat slip at Top Swan Yacht Club, is that correct? Yes. And is that through an LLC? Yes. What's the name of that LLC?

Taylor King LLC.

And as a boat slip owner, that also means you own a unit in the condominium, is that right? Correct. And as an owner of a unit in the condominium, does this also mean you own an undivided interest in the common area? Yes. And the common area of the condominium includes the property next to the applicant's land, is that correct? Yes. And that common area also includes the pool and the clubhouse. Is that right? Yes. Now, the land over which this proposed project is intended to be built is mostly grassed at this point, right? Yes. And as you maintain the pool at Topsail and Yacht Club, do you have to deal with grass clippings flowing into the pool? Frequently, yes. So if there is now going to be a dry stack, and a forklift running right next to that pool, do you anticipate and have a concern that there will be dust and debris going into the pool at the Top Salon Yacht Club?

Yes.

And are you also concerned about the noise that that forklift would make for people trying to enjoy the pool?

Yes, yes.

And are you also concerned about the odor of gasoline and other smells that come off of a forklift as it's being used? Sure, yes. And that would be a concern for every owner and member at Topswell and Yacht Club, wouldn't it? Right, yeah. Anybody that would be there, yeah. And that noise would also impact anybody using the clubhouse at Topswell and Yacht Club, wouldn't it? It's possible. And that's a concern for you? Sure.

Mr. Mayor Pro Tem, if I may, I'm trying to be respectful of the process. I do have objections to this. He's completely leaving the witness. The witness isn't even testifying with his own words. We do have an objection. based on his qualifications to make some of these opinions. But I want to be respectful of the process and not interrupt it. But I just want the board to know that we don't agree with the line of questioning or the answers being provided that he's qualified to speak to voting safety. But we'll be heard on that at the appropriate time. Thank you.

And I'm ready to be heard on that, because if there's anyone who's qualified to do that, it's Hunter Taylor, who's been there for 25 years as a dog master at Topsoil.

I have a question for Mr. DeSample. And just so the public can know, if you can tell, those of you that come to meetings, this is not a normal meeting. We don't do a lot of special use permits, so there's going to be a little bit of – waiting through. It feels like we're testifying. It feels like we're making a presentation. Are we determining standing?

At this point, it's standing only. And I know Mr. Dale believes that some of these questions go to standing. And then Mr. Nichols does not believe that they address standing.

If I may, we're the applicant. We would love the opportunity to present our case. And then if they have comments on the case. But we haven't even been able to have an opportunity to present the case yet. I would contend that he's getting into the testimony of his opposition to the presentation, and respectfully, I think we'll be here all night, and we probably won't finish tonight if we go at this rate.

Let me ask a question again of our attorney. Basically, what's happening is we're going to determine if Mr. Taylor has a stand, if he's a qualified witness by questions, and then he'll get to cross-examine, and then the board is going to vote on whether we We vote on that.

Yes, sir. Okay. Yes, sir.

So I'm assuming when he's done and we'll call. Yes, sir. But I do want to say if we spend an hour on everybody, man, I don't know that we'll finish.

And we are doing cross-examination of the standing. I'm just trying to follow the procedure that's been put in front of me.

That's why I was trying to let everybody know, hey, we don't do these a lot. I don't know that I've ever done one.

We want everybody to be heard on the issues of special damages. My suggestion would be to focus the testimony on the special damages involved and not the overall concept of the... the project, unless that impacts the special damages.

Well, it is, because congestion and danger in that channel is part of the special damage. So I mean, every bit of this is part of the special damage. But so is the odor, the noise, the debris, the dirt. I mean, everything we've covered I feel like is proper in the question of standing. All right, Mr. Taylor. Are you also a licensed real estate agent in North Carolina?

Yes.

And what is the name of the brokerage company you work with? Island Real Estate. And is that company located here in Surf City?

Yes.

And your role as a realtor, have you worked with sellers to sell boat slips?

Yes.

And have you done that at Topsail Island Yacht Club? Yes. Ballpark, how many slips have you sold as a seller's agent at the yacht club?

The records I have back to 2022 is maybe 50.

And have you ever represented any buyer in a transaction? Yes. Approximately ballpark, how many would you say that is? 15. So as someone with extensive experience selling boat slips at the Yacht Club, are you familiar with what the market prices may be, generally speaking, at any given time?

Sure.

And are you also familiar with how boat slips rent and the rental rates at the Yacht Club?

Yes.

And are you also familiar with how long boat slips stay on the market? Yes. And have you analyzed and do you understand the current market for boat slip sales at the Yacht Club? Yes. And at this time, how would you describe the current market for boat slip sales at the Yacht Club?

Sporadic. Not good. It's the two issues that I hear, and I hear it from renters and prospective buyers, that they are concerned about what's going to happen next door, number one, and then number two, the traffic. And not necessarily traffic generated by the project next door, but traffic in general that seems to be getting a lot worse on the weekends. And they say, well, I've got to think about me driving over that bridge on Saturday or Sunday if I want to use my boat. So there's numerous factors.

Would it be true that demand has slowed by virtue of the applicant's proposal here?

Objection.

He can testify to it. He's a licensed realtor. And this town has an ordinance that says any expert can testify. He's a licensed realtor and broker. He can testify to the market.

But I don't know that he can give an opinion on value.

Why not?

Is he a licensed appraiser?

He's a licensed broker. Mr. Taylor. Have you seen any buyer back away due to the proposed project here? Yes, one in particular. He was looking at multiple slips. Can you describe that situation for the council?

We have a slip owner who has two slips and he was looking to buy more for rental purposes. We were talking with the owner of those slips and before we could get to the pricing and everything, he sent me a text and said he was just going to hold off because he was concerned about values and what was going to happen if they put a 200 slip dry stack next to us. And so he's just holding on. And I have had a couple of other people that said that, but it wasn't their primary reason.

Are you listing a slip for Jennifer Sikora and her husband?

Yes.

And is that slip listed for less than what they paid for it? And has there been any activity on that slip? None to speak of. And your opinion, is that a result of the applicant's proposal here?

I wouldn't say solely, but a major part of it, yeah.

In your opinion, based on your experience, how would the applicant's proposed development impact the current market and prices for slips in the Yacht Club?

I don't – I've been asked that question a lot. I think that having anything next door to a facility like ours, you have 200 boats over there. If they're rentals, then we will have – We have fewer rentals than owner-occupied slips, so we would have an issue with some renters maybe not being able to fill a slip. And then the other issue would be, for me, the value is the experience you have when you come there. So you can come there, you've got a parking lot, you've got a pool and a clubhouse, and then you get in your boat, and if you've got to fight all that traffic in the channel going out on a Saturday or Sunday or whenever it is, that to me would diminish the value. And I have had a renter tell me that if that gets built, they're going to take their boat away because they came from Wrightsville Beach and it was getting too crowded there. So there's a couple of issues with that. I just think the experience would be the most damage on the value. If they're renting, it's not going to hurt our – I don't think it will hurt our actual – sales value, I think it'll hurt the experience. So we won't have any sales. So it'll be much less than it is now, which is not good.

What about occupancy of slips for rentals if there is a rental facility next door?

It would depend on the pricing. I mean, our prices for rentals are lower than most any facility near us, definitely from here south. So it would be something where the owners of the slips would have to reevaluate their rental prices based on what's going on next door.

Has vehicular traffic been backed up to the point that you've not been able to turn into Topsail Island Yacht Club at times? Many times, yeah. That's the most obvious question I'll probably ask tonight. Are you aware that the applicant's proposal, their traffic engineer suggests it would be 20 additional car lengths if their project was approved? I wasn't aware of 20.

Sorry to interrupt. We're getting into the merits of the case. He's talking about whether we're renting and owning slips. We plan to cover all this in our presentation.

I can't say that I disagree. I think, like I said, it feels like we're testifying and we've not made presentation. I feel like we're trying to determine, correct me if I'm wrong, please, that if Mr. Taylor is an expert witness, and I feel like we've gotten there, but I don't want to do anything that's out of bounds here.

I think what I hear you saying is you tested you got a lot of testimony on it. We're gonna have to speed this up as it relates to establishing standing.

I mean, if something comes up, if we determine that, unless I'm misunderstanding that Mr. Taylor is an expert witness, we would be able to come back to rebuke or offer new testimony, right?

That's correct. But as I understand it, this is my opportunity to prove standing. And I run the risk that you will say he doesn't have standing and that my client doesn't have standing. And if he can't get to his place of employment, that is special damage. And so you see, that's why I'm going where I'm going, because I'm concerned about that. All right. And so you drive to work, correct? Yes. Okay. And you have experienced traffic congestion on North New River Drive as it's heading to the roundabout, correct? Correct. And now that you're a slip owner, has that congestion also affected your ability to reach your slip?

It's longer than usual. The trips are longer. When the traffic's backed up in front of the yacht club, people have to let you in. And then to get home, I live right across the bridge. And sometimes it takes 30 minutes to get across the bridge due to the large amount of traffic going on off the island.

Does the subject property of the applicant's proposal for this development routinely flood? Yes. And does North New River Drive in front of the subject property and the Yacht Club frequently flood? Sure, yeah. And if the subject property is developed as proposed, does it risk water runoff onto the Yacht Club common property?

I would say it's possible, but it would be something that they could contain with their stormwater system. That would be the key to it.

And that's what's required. Have you seen a stormwater study presented by the applicant to show that water would not come onto the yacht club property? I have not. So is it a concern for you that the water could run off onto the yacht club common property?

I'm going to have to object again, Mr. Mayor Pro Tem. We have our civil engineer here who's going to speak to stormwater. We have our traffic engineer here who's going to speak to traffic impact. I know he's asking questions that assume things that we would contend are not accurate. We have our appraiser here. We have our team here to make our presentation. But again, I feel like the questions being asked are assuming facts that are clearly not in evidence. And we would contend are not accurate based on our project.

We do have a chance to cross-examine that with your witnesses. All right.

All right, that concludes my questions for Mr. Taylor at this time.

I want to make sure you didn't feel like I cut you off.

No, sir.

Thank you.

As to standing. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. I think Mr. Nichols may have some questions for you. Mr. Nichols.

I would say at the outset, Mr. Mayor Pro Tem, members of the board, special damages are damages that are distinct unique from the rest of the community so is that channel that we're speaking of it's open to the public correct okay you can't exclude people from that channel no it's owned by the state for the benefit of all everyone in this room yes all citizens yes okay so you don't have any special rights to the channel or excluding anyone from the channel correct okay same with the roadways We're not going over a private driveway of yours to use our property, correct? Correct. And these are public roadways. Yes. So if you're affected by the traffic, you're affected in this. Objection.

There's a case called Mangum right out of the Supreme Court that said if you're concerned about increased traffic, it's special damage. You're entitled to have standing. I've got the case with me. We can look at it.

If you're affected by the traffic getting to work, isn't everybody else affected by the traffic getting to work? No, we don't want them. Yes. Yes. If they work there, yeah. OK. So that's not what you've articulated is not something that's distinct to you? No.

OK.

When you testified here in December of 2024, I believe it was on December 3, you said that the number of slips should be reduced.

I don't recall that.

Okay. Well, before, do you remember how many slips were being proposed?

324.

Okay, and how many are being proposed now?

200.

Would you classify that as a significant reduction? Objection.

I would say small reduction.

You're saying that's a small reduction? Yeah. Okay. The fuel dock, understand that the fuel dock being open to the public, is that a benefit? Or would you prefer the fuel dock be closed? A benefit. OK. Do you understand that our proposal will ensure that the fuel dock will be open to the public?

Yes.

OK. And so that's a benefit to you?

Well, yeah. Not to me directly, but yes.

And do you think that would add to the value of your slips, having a publicly available fuel dock in very close proximity to your facility?

I'd say minimal.

It's minimal?

Yeah. We did without it for two years, and everybody got gas elsewhere. It was not a big issue.

So if you're concerned with the boating traffic, if we close the fuel dock in order to reduce a significant amount of traffic, boat traffic, would that be acceptable to you?

Would not be acceptable, no.

So you want the fuel dock open. Right. But the traffic generated from the fuel dock is something that you're OK with?

Yes, right now, sure.

OK. And you understand we're proposing to rent the 200 slips?

Yes, that's what I've heard.

And the 200 slips is roughly the same size as what you have on the Topsail and Yacht Club? Correct. And the project that we're about here tonight has significantly more land, correct?

I wouldn't say significant.

Well, over an acre more land?

Possibly an acre.

So we're proposing to put essentially the same number of slips on, I would say, significantly more land.

Well, we have 2 and 1 half acres. The actual land on that property is 3.1 or 3.2 acres. So it's not a real big difference.

And in order to get to the subject property by boat, this doesn't put any boats in front of your marina.

If they go straight into the docks, no. If they have to wait or float, they're going to come down where we are. We had that happen with the fuel dock.

How many wet slips do you have?

If you count just slips, we have 15.

Do you understand we're going to have more than double that? We're going to have the same number of dry slips and more than double the wet slips?

So you're going to have more than 30?

I believe we're going to have 37 or 38, and we'll show that in our presentation.

Yes.

OK. So that would make for a more efficient marina operation.

Correct. If you can get 37 boats in there at one time and be able to get them out of the water.

Well, what I'm saying is some of your testimonies, you're working on the assumption of how your marina operates. Correct. OK. And this marina will operate differently. OK. More wet slips? Yes.

Objection. This is speculation.

He's been offering speculation on a number of questions. And you objected. Well, I would just close by saying I don't think there's been any articulated special damages here. What he's testified to is the impacts upon a public navigable water body and public streets. And that's not special damages. That could be the impact of any project. But that's not unique to him. And we would contend that he doesn't have standing.

And I'd like to be heard on that, since he's got to present an argument. First of all, him getting to his place of employment is different than everybody else on the island, because the roundabout backs up from where he works. And it backs up and stops him.

So 20 additional cars would cause an impact.

Additionally, he's testified to concerns about odor, concerns about noise, concerns about dust and debris, which has also been found to be adequate for special damage. He's testified to the safety hazards, which he's competent to testify to because of his experience. He's also testified to diminished value, all of which are special damage. And I submit to you that there is adequate evidence that Mr. Taylor and the other members of the Yacht Club would have standing because of the special damage shown to them.

This time, Mr. Mayor Pro Tem, it would be appropriate for someone to make a motion as to whether he has standing or not.

Do I have a motion? I'll make a motion. What's the motion? That he has standing. Do I have a second?

I'll second.

All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed?

Aye.

Witness has standing.

Mr. Mayor Pro Tem, I represent an association which only speaks through its people. So I would ask the board to entertain a motion to the Topswell and Yacht Club has standing in addition to just Mr. Taylor.

Mr. Mayor Pro Tem, I think that'd be appropriate. If one of the members of the association has standing, then the association would have standing as well.

I'll make that motion then. I'll make the motion that the Yacht Club has standing. I'll second it. All those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? Motion carries.

All right. So Mr. Mayor Pro Tem, sir, you can be seated. Thanks. At this time, if there's someone that's not going to be represented by the Yacht Club and that believes they have damages as well that are special to them that would like to have standing, Mr. Dale, do you have anybody else?

I just want to be clear that where we sit right now, Mr. Taylor and other members of the association are deemed to have standing? Or do we need a separate motion for other members? Because I do have other members who plan to testify.

I thought that's what we did, but I'll make a third motion that the other members that own slips have standing. I'll second it. All in favor? Aye. Those opposed? The members, the Yacht Club, and Mr. Taylor have standing. All right.

Is there anybody else who stood earlier that wishes to come up here and get questioned for the next hour?

Nope.

All right. All right.

Now I ask about those that don't have standing.

Is anybody who wants to testify at this point, if they'll stand?

If you don't, I think you have standing, but still want to speak, this is your opportunity.

Anybody who's going to give testimony, whether it's by witness, engineers, appraisers, friends, community members, if you're going to speak and testify today, then we're asking that you stand up so that you can all be sworn in.

Is that for people who want to make public comments?

Yes, sir. Anybody who wants to speak on this matter. Anybody who wants to speak on this matter.

Are you already sworn?

Yeah, just Well, we swear double swear.

Well, sir, we swore into people with that thought they had standing. Now we're swearing into people that just want to comment. So we'll just it's easier if you just swear in again.

Yeah.

Everybody stand and raise your right hand please. Do you saw me swear affirm that the evidence you shall give to the board in this action shall be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. So help you God.

Thank you.

How do we allow them to come up now? How do we determine what that is?

We're going to disclose our ex parte communications next.

Yes, sir. Disclose ex parte communications. Is this where we talk about all the emails we've been getting? Yes. Okay. And I assume those will be introduced into record? That's correct. OK. Who introduces those?

So Jeremy has all the emails that have been sent. So just for the public's knowledge, a lot of you or your friends sent emails to the board. Those have been provided to the applicant as well as provided to Mr. Dale with the Yacht Club. They're going to be introduced into evidence during his presentation. You're welcome to view those emails. But since the board has received those, Everybody, if you would like, you can review those as well.

Before we move forward with that, I've been requested that we take a short recess. How do we do that?

We're in recess. Motion or just call it a recess?

We're in recess. Bathroom break.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. How long have you been waiting to do that? All my whole life.

Don't break the hammer. Get more comfy. Get some more snacks.

We're back in session. Before we begin, Jeremy, give me just a second, if you would. Look, this is going to be a long night. Like I said, it's not something we're familiar with as far as something we do all the time. But I would ask to help prolong refrain from clapping, refrain from laughing, refrain from under the breath. It is what it is. Basically, this is a judicial hearing. Treat it like you would if you were in a courtroom in a court of law. Though I'm not a judge, let's try to keep the demeanor where it needs to be, okay? And with that, thank you very much for your attention. Mr. Jeremy, emails?

I think we left off where if any individual commissioners had ex parte communications, or they have any other fact that would otherwise make them impartial, this would be the time to disclose those just so that the public's aware of it.

Any council person have ex parte communications?

I got an email from a resident that was just sent to me. It isn't in the packet. And I responded to that email saying that they should come to the meeting and if they have any information to bring that with them. And then as part of our traffic valuation study, I've been working with A.J. Hemphill and Kyle Brewer, so we have some traffic data for the roundabout that, so I don't know if that's ex parte or not. Understood. Anyone else?

I'll just add to that that any conversation that Councilman Plyell and I or Uh, Mr. Hemphill I've had has been absolutely irrelevant to any specific application or, or land use just general traffic numbers. And that started several months ago.

Any commission or any, anyone on board offered opportunity to reveal any other facts that that would make them impartial. I don't think this makes me impartial, but I do want to disclose that I lease slip at the Yacht Club and I have for years I do not own I have no financial interest in anything with the Yacht Club I don't pay dues no ownership no deeds but I do lease a slip there anyone else criteria to be considered The applicant is to present sufficient evidence that all the following standards are met. If the applicant presents sufficient evidence, then the burden shifts to any opponents to produce contrary evidence sufficient to show that the standards have not been met. If opponents present substantial evidence that the standards have not been met, the board must decide which of the conflicting evidence is correct. The elements that will be presented our determination is a the proposed special use conforms to the character of the neighborhood considering the location type and height of buildings or structures and the type and extent of the landscaping on site b the proposed use will not cause undue traffic congestion or create a traffic hazard c Adequate utilities, water, sewer, drainage, electricity, et cetera, are available for the proposed use. D. The proposed use shall not be noxious or offensive by reason of vibration, noise, odor, dust, smoke, or gas. E. The establishment of the proposed use shall not impede the orderly development and improvement of the surrounding property. F. The establishment, maintenance, or operation of the proposed use shall not be detrimental to or endanger the public health, safety, or general welfare. G. The proposed use will not substantially injure the value of adjoining or abutting property or, in the alternative, the use of is a public necessity. H the proposed use is consistent with the officially adopted plans and policies of the town, including any specific use standards, specifications and other requirements of this code or the town code of ordinance. All right, those are the criteria that have to be met. Would that be set? With that being said, I'd like to move forward to the staff introduction and Mr Jeremy Smith.

Mr. Smith, you were sworn in earlier. Yeah, OK, perfect. I'll wait for Mr. Wright to get the presentation up.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, pro tem, and members of the council. The item before you, specifically item P-26-8, is a special use permit modification request for the Surf City Marina at 412 Rowland Avenue. The property is currently operating as the Topsail Island Marina. This applicant requesting the modification is Zach LLC, represented by Mr. Tucker. His name suddenly jumps out my mouth. Mr. Nichols. He is also represented by his attorney, Mr. Matt Nichols. This request is to add two dry stack boat storages, each a maximum of 48 feet tall, housing 100 boat slips, for a total of 200 storage units along with marina enhancements. The site is located at 412 Rowland Avenue. Before you on the screen is the vicinity map. It is 4.74 acres and is currently zoned C1 Central Business District. Project history, the marina holds an existing SUP that has been modified over the years from eight motorized watercraft rentals in 2017 to 15 in 2022 and following a camera approval and council authorized 25 rental units in December of 2023. As discussed earlier tonight, Council may recall a similar dry stack request was submitted in October of 2024. That proposal was for 324 units in three buildings and was withdrawn in April 2025. Again, tonight's request is smaller in scale, 200 units in two buildings. The commercial and office buildings shown on the concept plan as part of your packet are by right uses in the C1 zoning district. They are not part of the special use permit request wholeheartedly, but they are part via condition that I will go over later in this presentation. As mentioned before, the property is currently zoned C1, as are all adjacent properties except the Yow track to the north Northeast, it is zoned R5, primarily coastal wetlands. The ordinance, the zoning ordinance, Appendix A sets three additional standards for marine activities that are limited to storage, service, fueling, accessory sales, parking, and launches. Dry stack storage may not exceed 48 feet in height, which the proposal meets as its maximum, and the setbacks follow the district requirements. The adjacent property already provides both wet and dry storage. Traffic and access. On recommendation of staff, the applicant has prepared a preliminary traffic impact analysis. I would like to go on record that this analysis was not reviewed by NCDOT or in-depth by staff. It is not required for a special use permit, but is submitted as exhibit and evidence for this project. This preliminary traffic impact analysis prepared by DRMP recommends three unsignalized stop-controlled site drives, including a gated driveway on North New River Drive, restricted exclusively to dry-stack access. Additionally, with traffic and pedestrian access, with this project, the applicant is proposing to construct 10-foot multi-use path along the street frontage. Utilities, stormwater, and park is identified as Island Town Center. With that said, staff has proposed or shown within your staff report all the relevant policies from the comprehensive land use plan that we believe are relevant to this proposal for your consideration as you go through the findings of fact. Proposed conditions as part of this project. are two applicant identified and two working with staff in applicant concurrence. One is maintenance dredge. The applicant shall, upon final and vested approval of the special use permit, apply for necessary permits and approvals to perform a one-time maintenance dredge based on the original dredge permit previously issued. The applicant shall use best efforts to work with the town during the site plan approval process to provide an easement which will encompass a 10-foot multi-use path along the frontage of the property adjacent to North New River Drive that is required as part of the site plan review. Development of the dry stack facility is conditioned on construction of by-right commercial buildings prior or concurrently with the dry stack. Prior to issuance of a certificate of occupancy, the applicant shall either construct a multi-use path along the frontage of the adjacent three parcels identified as the Pender County PINs in your staff report and those on the screen before you in accordance with Town of Surf City construction standards or pay a fee in lieu of construction in an amount equal to or not to exceed $65,000. And just briefly before you is the special use process pulled from the zoning ordinance. I would like to carry on that if approved, the applicant will have to will proceed into site planning and permitting. including CAMA, NCDOQ, and NCDOT approvals, with review by the town staff, planning board, and council. Due to the requirement of a traffic impact analysis and size, it would qualify as a major site plan and would be back in front of the planning board and council. As with any quasi-judicial decision, staff is not offering a recommendation. We are presenting facts and information about the cemental. Mr. Matt Nichols and his client are in attendance and will be making a separate presentation. I am happy to take any questions that the council may have.

I have two quick questions. I just wanted to confirm. Utilities are available. Yes, sir. Certificate of occupancy runs together. We've had in the past where a dry stack got built and the other side didn't get finished. So what we're saying is if this were to pass, the dry stack, the retail and the buildings and everything has to be built at one time.

Right, at the same time, or the retail would have to be built first and then dry stacks, but not dry stacks and then.

Thank you.

And built also means they we they would get a CEO for those that.

That's what we do is we will we would hold them the CEOs for the restaurants and what but retail office would have to come first or at the exact same time that they would have to pass together.

Questions for Mister Smith.

Yeah, I do have a question for you. There is, in the documentation, we're going to lose some town parking spaces along Roland Avenue. Do you know the number?

I do not. I would have to look at the concept plan before the applicant may be able to speak towards that. Okay, well, you don't have to answer that. There is a number of it. Yes, there is an impact to public parking.

Thank you. Any other questions? Thank you, Jeremy.

I would also add, and that is potential. That is DOT's right of way. They have the ultimate say so. So depending on if this project were to be approved and it went further down the road, it could not be embedded. That is not a definite per se.

Now we will move forward with the applicant's case. Mr. Nichols.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor Pro Tem and Madam Mayor and members of council. Thank you for taking the recess that allowed me to hit the reset button. If I came across argumentative in the first part, that was not my intent. And I apologize to council if I came across that way. So we're looking forward to making a very positive presentation that we hope the town council views as a a very beneficial and positive project for the town. So with that said, we do appreciate the opportunity to make a presentation. But before I move on, I think I'd like to ask Adam Tucker with Zimmer Development to come up and say a few words. Zimmer Development Company, my client, will be the ones doing the project. And I don't think you could ask for a better company to be involved in a project like this. So thank you.

Good evening. Mayor and council members, thank you again for having us. My name's Adam Tucker, and I'm here with Lowell Zimmer from Zimmer Development Company. We're a family-owned developer out of Wilmington, North Carolina, most notably known for Mayfair, where our office is currently located. We've done a number of waterfront properties, redevelopments, both in Wrightsville Beach and Norfolk, Virginia. So this isn't our first rodeo. We've been around the block and understand how to make things successful. um one thing i wanted to address that came from the neighborhood meeting and actually was approached before the meeting tonight is about us being out of town and you know i grew up in clinton but i've been coming here for 40 years and i've had a lot of first year i've had my first wave my first kids catching fish unfortunately my first ticket on 40 coming back from here But while I don't live here, I've been coming here for years. And I've watched this lot and watched it and watched it. And no one's been able to make it work because no one wanted to put in the time and effort and the cost to make certain that what we present tonight is what you're going to get. And we don't leave any questions unanswered. We've got a slew of experts here that you know their faces. The town's hired them. You trust them. You know them. You know they're not going to tell you or mislead you. You know, we're doing something that is going to be respectful of the community. It's not going to change the community, and it's going to keep people coming back here for 40 years like I have. So I just wanted to reiterate, we're here for the long haul, and we hope that we can gain your support tonight. Thank you.

We do have a presentation. I don't know if it's possible to pull that up.

You've not met our IT guy.

While that's being pulled up, I'll introduce the team that's here. You met Adam Tucker. Lowell Zimmer, who's managing partner with the Zimmer Development Company, is here. Spencer Peterson, development manager with Zimmer Development. Marina operator, Jason Ruge. Our civil engineer is Jimmy Fentress with Stroud Engineering. Jimmy is here. Our architect, Blair Goodrich, with Goodrich Oaks Architecture, is here. We hope that you'll hear from each of these folks, and we'll try to keep this as concise as we can. For environmental and coastal permitting, we have Jason Dale, who has, I think, more experience than anyone I know as far as CAMA permitting. Our appraiser, Cal Morgan, is here to speak to some of the ordinance criteria. I may have left somebody out, but in any event, we have the folks here to answer council's questions. I'll go through the first few things here, Mr. Mayor Pro Tem, quickly. I wanted to pick back up with one of the comments I made in the opening statement. Here's the team. And I know council's very, very familiar with the project and the surrounding area, but the tract is about 4.74 acres. And I know it's very important to the town and the residents of the town, and particularly the central business district. from a planning standpoint, visibility, availability of goods and services to residents. I mentioned about enhancing a sense of place there, and I know that's what the Zimmers want to do with this. Increasing and diversifying the tax base is also an important consideration, but essentially very much underutilized. It's essentially vacant. I think there's some structure on there now, but for the most part, we're hoping that this will help the Central Business District enhance it and help it reach its full potential the site is we all know it's centrally located it's surrounded almost entirely by existing commercial uses and commercial zoning we're not proposing any residential this evening and i don't think that would be supported by your strategic plans and your comprehensive plan It has significant road frontage on two main roads in the town. So it has excellent access. And what we're asking for the special use permit tonight is really for the dry stack storage only. The rest of the uses, they're allowed by right. But we've added as a condition, a proposed condition, that this is all going to get done. So the dry stack is tied to the rest of the development because it's all one project. And we think that's beneficial to assure the town that sort of what you see tonight is what will get built. The dry stack that we're proposing we also think will be a great transition from the existing dry stack at the Topsail Island Yacht Club to the commercial uses because my client would be developing the entire site and it would be a good transition from the existing dry stack We'd have additional dry stack, but my client would own that and be able to sort of design that into the project, as you'll see, to provide for our cohesive design. But as far as compatibility with surrounding uses, I don't think it can be any more compatible as far as what we're proposing is exactly what's next door as far as the main uses. And then we're proposing a restaurant, and you've got restaurants in the area, and you've got commercial and retail in the area. So this is not our site plan. This was the previous submittal or one of the previous submittals. And I think this was the concept plan that was in October 2024. And if I'm not mistaken, this is what was before the council in December of 2024. and um as i mentioned before in light of the comments that council made in in december and in april and then the community meeting held at the community center on i think in april 7th of 25 and then the community meeting we had the changes that we've made are pretty significant um the previous proposal was three buildings and 324 dry slips roughly 94 parking spaces. And the parking lot, it was basically like a parking lot. It was less sort of integrated into the project. Sorry, there's a slight delay here. Here we go. OK. The previous proposal was no public fuel dock. And what we heard from the community meetings is people want that public fuel dock to be there. I don't know what the next closest public fuel dock is, but I don't know that there's another one in Surf City. And we understand that's a benefit to the existing Yacht Club next door, and it will certainly be a benefit to the area and to the commercial development and as far as residents and also visiting boaters to the area. So our proposal is to keep the fuel dock, but we certainly would Love to hear the council's comments on that, because it's been a point of back and forth of whether to keep it or not. But what we heard from the residents was they would like to have the fuel dock kept. The previous plan had all the, I would say, sort of non-commercial, the dry stack loading and that sort of thing. The commercial traffic was just one access there on Roland Avenue. And please don't misunderstand. I'm not being critical of the previous plan or the previous. I think the process is done what it's supposed to do, is make a better plan. And as I said, and refine this and make a better plan based on council comments and neighbor comments. And let's see. I can't apologize for the delay in this. We've got a few more comments here. The previous plan was 500, roughly 5,500 square feet of restaurant with no retail or office space. And the plan that's before you is approximately 19,000 square feet, including the restaurant, of office and retail. And that to me was one of the main takeaways from the community meeting is folks wanted a place where they would have some place to go for goods and services, have a restaurant. This is things that the public would enjoy and would help enhance the central business district there. So we've, say, more than tripled the commercial office retail space. And I think it's a lot more meaningful the way it's designed now with the buildings and the layout. While this is pulling up, you'll, too, note in the bottom right-hand corner, at one point when it was coming back in April, I think there was this idea of putting a mural there. And I don't know. It seemed like that had some sort of mixed reactions as what it would look like and that sort of thing. But I hope you'll see what the plan we're proposing is. Instead of having a picture of that, I mean, we want to put actually something real there that people are going to enjoy and not just a mural as you look at it. And the landscaping is better. I think it's much better. And we'll show that through some of the later slides. So I apologize for the delay on these slides. But we can go to the current plan. And like I said, current plan is 200 slips and two buildings enclosed on all sort of visible sides, or at least the three visible sides. And that equates to about a 38% reduction in slips. And that was another of the main thing that we heard from everyone was, listen, I think you just have too much going on there. There's too many slips. So rather than come back with $300 or $275 or $250, I mean, they took it all the way down to $200. And I do think that that's a significant reduction, and limiting it to two buildings. So try to advance these. As I mentioned, a big increase in the office, retail, and restaurant space. And it's broken up. And it just looks a lot better. It's going to function a lot better with the way the parking goes through the project, rather than having just a centralized parking lot. There's more parking than before. We're retaining the public fuel dock. And we'll mention in a minute here some of the reconfigurations to the water-dependent structures where the fuel dock is. And I think having the two entrances is a big help. And then just enhanced open space and landscaping. As a result of the community meeting, I know there was comments made earlier about the pool. And we did move that over. And we're going to put landscaping in there. If there's something that the folks at the Yacht Club want us to do there, fencing, additional landscaping, we're completely open to that. We have offered to meet with them. And we're glad to continue to talk with them. And we want to be good neighbors with them. And then the multimodal path along New River is something that we've worked with the town on as a condition. And we think that'll be a big benefit. It'll be a benefit to the Yacht Club. It'll be a benefit to the residents in the area that are walking through the Central Business District. And then this will help you get if you're trying to get to the beach by foot. And I think the town may have made that suggestion. I think it's a great suggestion. OK, so as far as the technical review, just to keep things efficient, Mr. Mayor Pro Tem, I'll have Jimmy Fentress, our civil engineer, come up for just a second just to talk briefly on this. But essentially, we contend it meets all of the requirements. It has gone through a preliminary type TRC review. Of course, it has to go back through with the full engineer plans and things. But we're not here seeking any variances and setbacks. And we meet the height. The height's consistent with the neighboring facility. And parking and all the technical requirements, my understanding, have been met. And Jimmy's here to answer questions. But Jimmy, if you don't mind coming up for one minute and just speaking to your qualifications you prepared to plan. And does it meet the criteria in the ordinance?

Good evening, Council. I'm Jimmy Fentress with Stroud Engineering. I've been engineering in this area for roughly 30 years. I wanted to speak primarily to the stormwater aspect of the plan. It's certainly preliminary. However, all of the stormwater that is captured on this site will have to stay on this site. So it will stay and be treated, detained and treated on this site prior to discharge to the adjacent waters. The Rowland Avenue parking that's existing, we're not affecting that with the driveway. The driveway has been shifted to not affect any of the parking spaces on Rowland Avenue. Those are two things that have come up that were noted and needed some clarity. I've been a part of this plan since its inception. familiar with every aspect of it and eager to answer any questions that you may have in the process of its review. And with that, I would defer back to Matt.

What do you anticipate the elevation of the site to be before you construct, as far as elevation?

Probably seven. Seven?

Bring seven feet of dirt in there.

No, no, no, no. Probably about two in the worst spots or in the deepest spots. And it's not necessarily dirt. There's going to be some structure involved, subsurface structure.

You're asking the question wrong. I apologize. I'm thinking in my head. I kind of know what it looks like because we drive by it all the time. Compared to the road, as the road sits now, how much higher do you think you had to build that lot to do what you want to do?

At least one foot, and in some places, two foot. Lower spots, two foot.

Excuse my ignorance. I know certain things exist, but I don't necessarily know how they operate, and I don't want to get into too much detail, but how would you contain that water on that piece?

In subsurface containment under the parking lot.

Thank you.

Yep.

Anybody else have a question?

I'm assuming you're going to follow the CFOD rules with pervious, non-pervious? Yes, absolutely. So you'll have a pervious parking lot?

That is a point of consideration that we'll determine in the process of permitting it.

Do I need to speak to that? Would you like me to? I'd like an answer to that, yes. CPOT does not apply to commercial development in C1. It allows impervious construction 100%.

Non-pervious construction.

Non-pervious, I'm sorry. Impervious construction is allowed in C1 commercial. The pervious construction is regulated to residential.

And could council make that a condition?

if the developer agrees to that in writing. Thank you.

Oh, and in terms of the parking, it's shared space between the dry stacks and the retail, or is it separated? They're shared.

You say you have how many boat slips?

200.

I mean, not stacks.

I think it's 38.

And how does that differ from the current plan? Is there additions and such that's being changed? What's being changed?

The CAMA representative in that regard.

I believe we have some slides that show that, but we'll definitely have an answer for that when we get to the slides, and I'll have Jason Dale come up and explain the water-dependent component.

Mr. Dale, if there's no other questions from the council, Mr. Dale may have some cross-examination for this witness. Yes, sir. I'm sorry. I didn't see you there.

I apologize. I was focused on this side of the road.

Good evening, Mr. Fentress. You indicated the stormwater is going to be captured underneath the property, but there's not been any form of study done on that yet. Is that correct?

Not for the purposes of infiltration. We're not at this point proposing infiltration, but that's certainly a possibility.

So at this point, there's just a plan, but there's not been a study or anything developed on how it would be done? Is that a fair assessment?

There's an existing permit on the property. We would like to examine the possibility of modifying that permit, but the likelihood is we'll have to permit it anew. And that will likely be a high-density permit where the water is captured and detained under the parking lot and treated and discharged overboard.

Is there a reason why that wasn't done before coming here for the special use permit modification?

This is a discretionary hearing. And that is a detailed study. And we would reserve to do that in the processes that would follow an approval here this evening.

So it's a cost calculation is what you're saying?

And a time constraint, yeah.

OK. Underneath the dry stacks, is that going to be gravel or pervious concrete? What would that be underneath the dry stacks?

That would probably be pervious.

It would be a pervious concrete?

A pervious surface of some sort.

OK. So either it could be gravel, could be pervious concrete, could be something else. You're not sure what it would be at this point?

I'm not, no. There may be somebody else on our team here that has an opinion of that, but I'm not aware of it.

Where is the parking? Go ahead. I didn't mean to interrupt you.

I just have a question. We live on an island. Do you know or does anybody know how deep you have to go before you hit groundwater? I live on a street where if you dig down six, eight inches, you're hitting water. I just don't know what effect the water would have if you're racing into the ground, how much ground is it going to, you know, how much water is it going to take? Is there some way to, is there somebody that knows what that is in that particular area? I mean, that's been like that for 20 years. I know when we get a torrential rain, that field floods out pretty fast.

New Hand sand is a typical beach sand with a high infiltration rate and a high flexibility of the groundwater. Certainly comes up a lot, but can also recede a lot. It's going to recede so much with so much tide around you. So the suspicion would be that there's two foot between the ground surface and the existing groundwater. And you're adding a foot of soil on top of that? Or structure. There's going to need to be some type of structure to contain the water.

I just would like to know how much water can you put down there where it's not going to go down there?

Well, we don't know that we're proposing infiltration yet. That would be a process in the lead up to permitting. We do have to contain it. But whether or not we propose to infiltrate it in the footprint of the project, that would be determined through some further research.

What would be another alternative? And I thought that's what we were doing. And the reason I've said is, please don't take offense. Stormwater is a very touchy subject. I understand. I understand.

But we have to detain it, and then we have to release it at a slow rate.

Yes, sir.

And in the release, we have to polish that water before it's discharged overboard.

What would be another alternative other than the infiltration?

Containment and then treatment in this area. Like I say, subsurface containment would be either tankage or there is numerous products that are basically milk cartons, for lack of a better way of putting it, that offer a large void space that the stormwater can reside in.

Essentially, there is a potential of having, and please, I'm trying to dumb this down for myself, a retention pond that's underground.

As far as just shallow and oddly shaped, but yes. Yes.

Thank you.

I'd like to ask, could David, would you step up and have an opinion on this?

If I may, I think we need to let these folks go. And then if we have questions for staff afterwards, we can answer those questions.

All right.

Thank you. Sorry.

I have another couple questions. Where is the parking for the fuel dock going to be?

Parking for the fuel dock would be closest to the fuel dock in the parking that's there. I mean, there's no designated parking for any one use on the site.

But is it correct when you did the site plan that you were envisioning the parking being up channel of that extended pier that's, I'm going to do a terrible job describing this, moving from the left to right of the page. Do you see what I'm talking about?

I don't fully understand why there would be parking for the fuel dock. I mean, maybe a little for an attendee, but would not the vast majority of the fueling be done for the boat parking? Please. Where it's at now.

The docking would be where it's at now?

I'm not the expert on the waterward stuff. We need to defer to our... Marine consultant for that.

That's your drawing, isn't it?

It is.

OK, so you drew an area which appears to be near the fuel dock, which has an extended area sticking out into the channel. Is that not intended to be for the docking or parking of boats to obtain fuel?

I would say yes, it is for that purpose. OK.

Have you heard that the restaurant next door, Coconut Cove, is applied for slips to be outside of their property in that area? I'm not aware of that. Or adjacent to that area? You're not aware of that? Okay. Mr. French, I see there's parking in the area that the forklift is going to run between the dry stacks. Do you see what I'm talking about there, the parking spaces that are there?

It's out of the dry vial. I'm sorry, what? The parking is out of the drive aisle. They don't conflict. And that parking is for the folks that would be using the equipment. associated with putting the boats in.

Is that in the calculation of parking spaces for this property? Yes, it is. So there's at least, what, 10 parking spaces that would be just for employees in that area? I think it's less than that, but it's in that area, yes. Including a handicapped spot? And so as I see it, the forklift's going to have to go and drop boats into the water and then swing back either in the direction of the yacht club's pool or over those parking spaces. Is that not correct?

The parking spaces would not be planned for the forklift traffic. They would back up to the wider drive aisle back towards the dry stacks.

But you do have parking spaces right there near where the forklift drops, don't you?

Yes.

And so it's your testimony that nobody would park there when the forklift is operational? Is that what you're telling me?

No, I would say that the forklift would not use that area to turn around in. So how would it turn around in that space? I don't know that it necessarily needs to turn around immediately. It can certainly back out of its position over the course of 40 or 50 foot. I mean, no different than a tractor.

Do you know what the length of boats that are intended to be in this dry stack is?

I would guess less than 35 foot, probably less than 32 foot, something of that nature.

Likely something in the range of 18 to 35 feet. Is that what you understand? Yeah. I heard earlier from Mr. Smith that the traffic study has not been submitted to NCDOT. Do you know why that was?

It's not necessary at this point.

Any other reason that you're aware of why it wasn't submitted to NCDOT?

No, but I would defer to the traffic consultant in that regard.

That's all I have, Mr. Mayor Pro Tem.

Any other questions from the board? Yes, sir, Mr. Assistant.

And I'll just open it up. If anyone else that has standing, if they want to have any questions for this individual, now would be your time. Come to the microphone over here. So, Mr. Patrizia, you're owner in the Yacht Club? I am. Okay.

Quick question. My understanding is that part of that parcel of land is contaminated with, I'm not sure, fuel or something. How do you plan to address that contamination?

I believe there's been a recent report that clears it of that, that that has been mitigated. But I would want to defer that to the attorney. I think it's more familiar with it.

I think that was a little bit further in the presentation, but I think we have the letter.

Yeah, we have the letter. You can hand it up.

Mr. Patrizzi, they'll get to that later on.

Okay, that's fine. I just assumed the town engineer would know that that was already cleared.

Okay. Sure, thank you. Yeah, we'll make sure we get to that point as we get through.

I'm Drew Mugford. I'm an owner at the boat club. Can you explain how there are 37 slips, wet slips on that plan, just how the boats are going to fit there?

did i get jason yeah um we definitely want to answer the questions i know the presentation sort of is in sequence and we're going to get to the water dependent structures if we could come to that um and then certainly we're going to have the the coastal um the permitting specialists up here to answer the questions about that thank you do you mind holding that question until that comes up thank you thank you I think we're good. OK. May I proceed? Yes, sir. Thank you. So I know everyone's familiar with the view from the bridge. And I'm going to have the architect come up here in just one minute to talk about the vision for the architectural style and theme of the project, but we hope that you view the proposed project as an enhancement to this area. And this is, again, conceptual rendering, but that's what is designed and intended to be built. I know Blair Goodrich, I'll maybe have Blair come on up now for purposes of time, but Blair, if you could state your qualifications and just your vision for how we got here and your experience and that sort of thing.

Yeah, I'm not good at this, so please bear with me. Good to see council members. Mayor Bertin.

You can advance those with that button.

Good luck with this. I've been here for 34 years in this area. Beach vernacular is one of my specialties. I have designed in beach towns up and down the coast of North Carolina, Virginia, South Carolina. One of my favorite things to do because as a kid I grew up on the beach. It doesn't look like it, but I grew up on the beach. Talk to my dermatologist, he'll tell you. But my biggest thing is scale and proportion. I always look at scale and proportion, how it fits in, what I'm designing for. When you come over the bridge, I wanted to make a statement, but I also want to make a statement that it fits into the community. It's designed with shingles, and to me, growing up on the beach, I remember as a kid, everything, all the old buildings that had the shingles, and then they turned gray, and got the feel of being at the old buildings, that the beach was always a good thing to me. It was always special to me. So that was kind of the reproach I took on this, and I wanted to make sure that, you know, when you came over the bridge and you saw this, it was inviting, and you see this, and it brings you into the central business district, and it has, you know, things that you can relate to. The scale is not overbearing. It's... something that you want to gravitate toward. And so I kind of put a lot of thought into, you know, what you would see as you came over that bridge. And that was the whole reason for going with the three sided boat condominiums, making sure that it kind of blended in with the the vernacular of the building itself or the buildings themselves. So that's how I approached it. And and I just wanted to make it feel like it was something you can leisurely walk to go to the restaurant there on the corner, and still not feel like you're looming over everybody, but you're part of what's going on around you. So that was my approach to this. It's gonna go anywhere. We also thought about lighting, how it was going to present itself at night. We're still doing some investigation on that, but this is sort of the kind of low-muted lighting, but at the same time, you're safe and you feel comfortable, but it's not blaring out at you, lack of a better word, that it was actually still inviting at night. Well, you can do it. And again, this is where we, you know, as you're going from the other side, not from the bridge, but if you're looking back toward the traffic circle. Oops. Go back. Uh, this is kind of the view you would have. I mean, again, you're up high, you're looking down, you'll never have that view, but when you're walking along the, the, the, the water, we wanted to make sure you felt like it was, you know, old old beach. And as it ages and turns gray, it'll give that even more old beach feel. And this is looking across And this is what you would see from the water. Uh, landscaping is a big thing. We have, we've been talking about that. We want to make sure that the landscaping, you know, it looks mature and feels mature and also adds to the, um, feel of a park or, uh, something that you want to gather around. This is looking toward the, current boat stacks. This is what you would see. It would kind of limit the sight line to the open boat stacks, but also makes you feel like you have cohesive design with the buildings that are around it in the development. And this is looking down where the entrance would be.

Come on, you can do it.

And we have two buildings. One's a larger building, one's a smaller building. Again, we wanted to bring it down in scale. I think.

Question?

Yes, sir. Can you go back to that last slide? OK, so the building I'm looking at, the building on the right, what are these buildings designated for? Do you have any designate? Retail office. And so the one on the right is retail, and the one on the left?

No, they're, they're, they're, they enter mix. It's, it's retail office. It can be offices in any one of them. It can be retail restaurant, whatever restaurant we have designated because of, of parking and, and things like that. You have one restaurant. We don't know whatever overpower anything, but due to, you know, the zoning laws and zoning ordinances, it's, it's 115 parking spaces. Yeah, I think so, yeah.

On the marina part where the boats are, you have pretty extensive seawalls in there. How does that affect the neighboring existing? Or is that just synesthetic?

That's just synesthetic. But right now, I don't think they'll be that high. This is just for presentation purposes. Before we knew what actually the elevation of the lot's going to be, we don't know that at that point when we did these. But as we go along and we continue, then we'll know exactly where that will fall.

It's like the boats are aesthetics.

Yeah.

I was wondering how you could get that sailboat in there.

That was a concern of mine, too, when we were doing the 3D. And I was like, how do you get that out of there? And my girl goes, you can't.

So when you've got retail in office, about how many participants are you looking at those spaces? How many businesses?

I think it is set out right now and not including the restaurant. I believe there's one, two, three, four, five, six. I think there's six in the larger building and four in the smaller building.

And what's the capacity for the restaurant? What's the thoughts on that?

At the moment, it's 3,000 square feet, give or take. The capacity was probably about, I would think, 80 people.

Are they all three stories?

No, the bottom story is in the floodplains. I know you can't have anything in the floodplains. It's just on the middle level, and the restaurant goes up another level.

What is the bottom level? Just open?

It's either open or we're using it possibly as storage for people that are transient can come in there. Instead of having to try to lock up on their boat, they can just lock it into the storage. But it can't be anything permanent because it's in the floodplain.

Sure.

Looking at that, I'm going to go back on this. All the way to the right, that would be the restaurant? That would be the restaurant, correct. The rest of it's just retail offices? Correct.

Do you have any kind of idea of the distance or the amount of sidewalk surface?

I would have to defer to the plan.

Any other questions from the board?

Do you know if the applicant has an intention of trying to put a concrete seawall up? I do not. No one has studied the implications of a seawall for erosion with adjoining properties. On the far right bottom corner, it says sloop point. What is that?

Operator, the proposed operator of the marina, who's here this evening, and we've got a representative there, is the proposed operator of this marina. So very experienced in running a dry stack marine operation, and could speak to if you have questions about how it works. It's, to me, really pretty interesting how you sort of order ahead on your app, like you're making a reservation. And it's very efficient as far as the process of getting the boats in and out efficiently. So that's what that means. That's the marina operator. And we've got representatives here this evening if there's questions about the operations of the marina.

I actually have a question. I wish I asked a while ago because I think you want to defer the path that the forklift is going to take what what is it traveling on? Is that gravel? Is that? Was that concrete? Concrete? Thank you. I thought it would be but I've something come up and it probably made dust I think is what I was thinking. Anyone in the audience withstanding wish to ask an architectural question?

All right.

Thank you. Thank you, sir.

May I proceed? May I pretend? Sir, please thank you. I apologize. No, thank you. We'll try to speed this up, too, because I think we've covered quite a bit, but we want to make sure we're answering questions and things. Again, this is a little bit of an older photo. I think it's from Google Maps, but you can see the existing conditions there. And again, our proposed dry stack would be sort of next to that and but it would be sort of blending in architecturally with the project and we hope it would enhance the aesthetics of the of the area um here's uh another architectural rendering of the stacks and again we'll be enclosed on the three sides two buildings But it will be consistent, cohesive with the rest of the project. I think some of the big improvements will be along Roland Avenue with the streetscape there. Here's sort of the resulting view of that. I think Blair covered a lot of this with his comments on the architectural style and that sort of thing. So I won't elaborate anymore. And then as far as the specific criteria, We can go through those quickly, Mr. Mayor Pro Tem and members of council. But we would respectfully contend that we do meet all of the criteria. And that's really what this is about, is the facts that are presented, the substantial material competent evidence that's presented. And then do we meet the criteria and the ordinance? And we're glad to go through each of those criteria. But again, we would respectfully contend with that we do meet all the criteria in the ordinance. And we can talk about that a little bit later. But as far as walking through those, does it conform to the character of the neighborhood, considering the location type, height of building structures, and type and extent of the landscaping on site? We would say absolutely. We've shown that with the renderings. Again, here's side by side comparison The Yacht Club that's there, that's a more recent photo, and what's being proposed there. And again, I don't know how that can be any more compatible. This is basically the same type of facility, same central height, pretty close to the exact same number of slips. It's next to the public waterway. It's exactly where you would see a marina. And on top of that, the town has determined that dry stack storage is appropriate in the C1 district by special use permit. Not sort of getting ahead of myself to more the end of the presentation, but that's the distinction between this and a rezoning or a text amendment or another legislative type hearing where you put on your sort of quasi-judicial role. And you look at the requirements are that when a land use is permitted as a special use, the governing board has already made a legislative decision to allow the special use, provided the applicant shows that the standards for that approval set by the ordinance will be met. And I'm essentially reading that from a school government printout, because I can't say it any better. So again, yes, we think the definition of compatibility

I think Blair – Mr. Mayor Pro Tem, as I understood the procedure, I thought this was the time they called their witnesses and then we were going to have closing arguments at the conclusion of everyone's evidence. Is that not how we're handling this?

Well, I thought that's still what we were doing.

I think that's still what we're doing. I think this is still his presentation. He's calling up witnesses as they come.

Okay. I won't make any more – I'll try not to make any more arguments if that's how that was perceived. I was just making a comment, and sorry if I got ahead of myself here, but – But it does tie into the criteria in the ordinance. And that's ultimately what this is about. But we talked about the proposed special use conforms with the character of the neighborhood. I won't read it again. But again, I think we respectfully contend that we meet that criteria. We've talked about the, well, I won't read it again. I think we've covered this. We'll go to the next criteria here shortly. I think there's just some more renderings here. I want to talk about landscaping because that was, I think, touched on. And the landscaping will meet or exceed the requirements. I know that was a big thing that my clients wanted to stress was the landscaping. And our landscape architect, Josh Mahaley, is not here. But I'll summarize some of the comments would be the project would include approximately 40 new trees. including southern live oaks and eastern red cedars, along with a variety of shrubs and ornamental grasses. The plan will incorporate mostly native plant species that are indigenous to the southeastern North Carolina. And we're going to screen the parking areas from the road frontage. But the ordinance certainly has landscape criteria that we have to meet. And we will meet those. But we plan to exceed those, because I think it just helps with the project. And one thing I'll point out is this came up with stormwater and some other things. So I'd be remiss if I didn't say that if you approve this tonight, and we certainly hope you do based on the evidence, that doesn't give us permission to go out and build anything. It's not authorization to construct. It's the very first sort of important step of us then going to try to get all the permits that we need. And I'll defer to Mr. Smith here, but we probably need 10 or a dozen permits. With stormwater permits, erosion control permits, CAMA permit is a very big one. You've probably got landscaping, sign, lighting permits, or at least review. And then you ultimately get to a building permit. trc review there's all these technical reviews so if this is approved tonight we doesn't mean we can go out and construct this it's not an authorization to perceive a construction it's an authorization to go through another various strenuous application processes with i think we have to get a dot permit other permits so this will all be reviewed too and we have to meet the town ordinances as we go through that process So on the transportation engineering, I will ask the transportation engineer, Reinald Stevenson, to come up and talk about the study that he did. I know there'll be questions about traffic. Reinald, if you could introduce yourself and your experience, qualifications, and what you looked at. Thank you.

good evening Ronald Stevenson with DRMP and I did in our firm did prepare a traffic study I am a registered professional engineer in the state of North Carolina I've been practicing traffic engineering and traffic studies very similar to this one for over 25 years As mentioned, we did prepare a traffic study for this project. I think a question come up earlier about NCDOT. NCDOT did not require a traffic study at this point in the process. We are talking about a special use permit this evening. But our traffic study that we did prepare did consider development of the entire site, you know, as you've seen with the retail restaurant uses as well as the dry stack marina. So what we do in this traffic study is we look at the existing conditions of the intersections surrounding the site. So we take traffic counts and then we project those traffic counts up to the future when this site is fully developed. And then we add in the traffic that could be generated by this site when it's fully developed. We assign those future trips out to the driveways and the intersections surrounding the site. And then we do a capacity analysis of the intersections to compare what are the differences or what are the operations of the intersections in the future when the site's fully built out? And how does that compare to if the site is not built? So we're looking for really that true impact of the development on the surrounding intersections. We know there's traffic there, so I'm not telling you there's no traffic there. I'm not doing that. We know there's traffic. I think the key point that our traffic study identifies is that this development adds relatively little traffic to the road network and does not materially change the operations of the intersections in and around this site. Again, the reason NCDOT is not requiring a traffic study at this point is it's a – relatively speaking a relatively low traffic generator you know user development so what we found when we went through this analysis in the traffic study is that there's no no no improvements were recommended in terms of additional road widenings and that kind of thing as part of this as part of this project to accommodate the site traffic You have heard about the multiple driveways. So we do have a driveway on Rowland and a direct driveway on New River. And that allows for the traffic coming to and from the site to have multiple ways in and out. And that really helps to disperse the traffic and not load it all up at any one location. So the project is not expected to have a significant impact. One of the things we did look at in this, and I feel like it's really worth pointing out since we're talking about the dry stack boat storage tonight as part of special use permit, is that the traffic study, we used data for a marina boat slip from the Institute of Transportation Engineers website. which is a national organization that publishes, maintains and publishes data regarding how many trips, trip generation for all kinds of uses, potential uses. So we did use that data in the traffic study. And what I do want to point out is we took, we actually took traffic counts at a couple of times, a couple of different times of the year at the Yacht Club, Yacht Club driveway, just to see how do we compare. As you've heard, we're proposing essentially the same number of slips, or dry stack storage slips. And so we would expect a very similar operation in terms of vehicle traffic. and by the way i do want to point out the traffic study really really what i'm talking about is vehicle traffic you know to and from the site so it is it's not not talking about boat traffic i'm talking about vehicle traffic but so you can see in the table at the top of the page here that we went out and took traffic counts um at the yacht clubs as vehicle counts entering and exiting on a weekday thursday afternoon then a saturday during the during the day on April and April and then again in June. And those are the traffic numbers you see there. Again, this is vehicle traffic entering and exiting the Yacht Club driveway. So you'll see kind of boxed out in red there that in June was a great weather day, a great boating day. We had 12 vehicles in the afternoon peak hour. So seven came in, five exited during that time in one hour, 12 vehicles per hour. And then again on a Saturday, the heaviest time we observed on a Saturday was 14, in one hour, this is one hour, 14 coming in, 16 leaving, so 30 vehicles in one hour. And that was the heaviest hour of the day and of the count. i just want to point that out and compare it to what we used in the traffic study again just for comparison traffic studies a little bit conservative but it the traffic study used uh 42 um vehicle trips on a weekday and 44 vehicle trips on a saturday so the traffic study that we used was a little bit higher traffic we used a little higher traffic Again, we typically do that with the traffic studies to be a little bit conservative. We'd rather overestimate than underestimate that. So I did want to point that out. So we have fully accounted for this use as part of the traffic study. And so I'll... I'll back up to that, but if there's any specific questions related to this, I think you heard Mr. Smith mention earlier that following the special use permit, the NCDOT and the town are going to just look at this maybe a little further. But again, we're talking about the special use permit this evening. And one other thing I want to point out that that is that in the C one zoning, it does allow these commercial uses. And if we looked at The area that these dry stack boat slips are occupying on this property, looked at that same amount of property that's occupying, and we looked at what that would be trip-wise, vehicle trip-wise with retail, restaurant, hotel, some of the uses that are allowed, the trip generation would be higher. So if you compare what we're proposing here on this property with the dry stack boat slips, the vehicle traffic generated by this is far less than what would be generated if we built retail on that space. So from that standpoint, it is a lower traffic generator on this property than what's allowed by right. So I did just want to point that out as well.

Now, you are planning to build retail in there.

We are. What I'm saying is for the special use permit, if you take the area where the dry stack boat slips are proposed on, we said if we traded that out for something, it would generate far more traffic than what the dry stack would, vehicle traffic than that would. Yes, sir.

You ready for questions?

Yes, sir.

So looking at the 420, right, the land use code 420, 200 berths, 168 daily traffic. You say that comes from the ITE 11 over 10?

Yes, yes.

They use 2.96 per slip. I'm sorry? They use 2.96 per slip. That comes out to almost 600. Are dry stacks different than wet slip marinas?

Now, the ITE data, there's – and you'll see if you go to the 12th edition, there's relatively limited data for it. So the data that ITE had – did not carry over into the 12th edition. For the very newest edition, it didn't carry over. I think they have a very limited...

I understand why 11 was used. I'm just wondering why 2.96 wasn't used.

I think the – I don't recall exactly, but there may have been very limited. There may have been like one sample or something for that. Maybe why we used a – It is their published number. It is. So they publish – they will publish – the ITE will publish – some of the data that they have, even if it's one site, they'll publish it. What we do sometimes is look at what makes sense. That's kind of our job as the engineers to say, if something doesn't make sense, or should we apply a... There's statistical kind of methodology also with the data to figure out the best fit line or best fit curve to the data and which one's more appropriate. So that's the process that we have to go through in doing this for years, go through and figure out what's the most appropriate way to use the data. So that's what we did there.

The published numbers, 2.96 used about 0.8. That's a difference of a lot of daily trips.

Okay.

Just, I'm saying that it's inconsistent. And I apologize if you have an answer to that, that would be great. The other thing is the pass by trips and the internal capture trips.

Sure. What that is?

No, I know what they are. Okay. I'm just trying to have you explain the numbers because your daily traffic is reduced by 50%. Assuming that you have all these pass through and internal capture trips. That means people are going to be on the road anyway. Now, I'm not sure what your catchment area is for your dry slips, who are going to be renting them. I would imagine that those folks on the island that needed a dry slip or wanted a dry slip probably have already availed themselves of one. Many of us on the island don't need a dry slip because we have a backyard that's on the water. So I'm assuming catchment, Hampstead, Snead's Ferry, and places like that, meaning trips coming on. This pass-by trip and internal capture trip adjustment to me seems a little out of the ordinary.

Well, it's very common for a mix of uses on one property. Again, we looked at the site as a whole. So we've got restaurant space, retail space, as well as the dry stack all on one development. So, yeah, there is and will be some trips that will go kind of from one to the other, right? If you go, say, for example, you go shopping there. I'm talking about other than the dry stack, too, now, all the uses. But if you go shopping, you may go, you know, grab food at a restaurant, go shopping. You know, probably most people will do that when they go there. So that's what that's taken into account.

Slip, please.

Well, the trip generation that we looked at was not just the marina and the dry stack. We looked at the development as a whole there because that generates the other uses are going to generate more traffic than the dry stack will, you know, in terms of trip generation, vehicle trips.

With the whole plaza, we're only going to max at 30 trips in an hour?

that is that's all the retail and the dry stacks or just the dry stacks that's just the dry stacks that's just the dry stack and that is on a a that is on a saturday um afternoon that that occurred that's based on people going in the morning parking their car going out on their boat and then whenever they come back which could be four o'clock Sure. All of us. Yeah, we actually took – on the June days, particularly that Saturday, we took the counts from morning to – The afternoon and evening. Yeah, we took counts all day to see how. We wanted to make sure that we understood how the traffic patterns behave. And I think there was testimony earlier about some of the peak times for when you see boats coming in and out. That was actually pretty consistent with our data as well, the times that the boat traffic is highest pretty closely corresponds to when the vehicle traffic is also higher.

These numbers. These numbers 12 vehicles per hour 30 vehicles per hour at these different times designates the dry stacks not the retail as well now I just I don't know you said that this significantly and to the traffic. Well, let me tell you the traffic here is is significant. I mean and if you had how many space how many retail parking spaces in the lot.

There's 115, specifically.

So even half of those where people are stopping to get retail and they're going back is going to significantly have an impact on our traffic as every day, every Saturday does here.

Oh, sure, yeah. As I said, I'm not telling you there's no traffic. I'm not telling you this is going to make traffic go away. Oh, no. I think what I want to make sure, and again, I had to kind of back up and think about this, too, is that What's allowed and called for in this zoning is commercial retail uses. I mean, that's what's planned for, called for here.

I'm just saying that if you add 40 cars on a Saturday morning that's going to come out of this lot, it's going to significantly have an impact on the traffic that's already trying to get off this island.

The analysis and traffic study says that it would change very little when we add this traffic in.

I'm going to respectfully disagree with that assertion.

If you have a lot of something and you add a little bit to it, There's not much of a change. That's kind of the way you think about it. There is traffic. I'm not saying there's no traffic. I'm not saying it doesn't back up. What I'm saying and what the traffic study and the analysis says when we do these traffic studies is that that is going to change very incrementally when this is built.

sorry i don't agree with that i've been only here 15 years and it's it's considerably a lot more now than it was 15 years ago you know and i just you know their study might be fine for for on paper but if it was if the whole site was developed with retail or or commercial instead of the dry stack it's even more yes sir

Come on, people. Work with me on this now. Let the man. He's up here trying to do a job. We're trying to do the job. Let's keep the conversation and laughter down. Just please, please, please be respectful. Help me out here. Thank you. I apologize. Carry on.

Just so you're aware, the town has been collected. Your assertion that small increases don't change very much has a known and documented fallacy. At a certain point in time, we have a gridlock phenomenon that occurs. That is at about 1,000 vehicles per hour through the roundabout. you are proximal to the roundabout. Small changes make big differences in time to get on and off the island. So we understand those data. So we need to be extremely cognizant and careful on how much traffic is tolerable and what types of commercial development is more appropriate in that respect. And that's my point. So your traffic study may be applicable to other areas. We have a very unique situation here in Surf City. We have a roundabout that is not the standard size. It has three ways in and out. We have 30,000 people a day on the weekends coming to the island for an island that has a population of less than 2,000 people. This is, and we have a high bridge, which everybody thinks is the greatest invention after sliced bread. And we have found that it's only marginally beneficial over the old swing bridge. And John has been here forever, and I've been here for longer than John.

It shows. I would disagree about our bridge. We've got the greatest bridge in North Carolina. We do. But the volume is the volume. Bridge isn't the problem with the volume. That's the roundabouts and the causeway. I want to get my footprint in there on the bridge.

So I don't have a lot of confidence in your traffic study. And I realize that you aren't required to do it. And I accept that you're a qualified engineer when it comes to this. However, We've looked at these traffic data intensely since We discovered that we have a bigger problem than we ever imagined We're trying to fix our traffic problem adding more development onto the island at this point in time is something that we have to seriously look at and given that I see there's almost a threefold difference in the amount of traffic you think you'll generate than what the ITE suggests will generate out of the stacks. That gives me pause. And I'm done.

Do you want to reply?

I can. I will point out that when we run analysis on this, and we run it through all the numbers and the models, we're looking at the peak hours. So we're looking at the peak hours of traffic We're not analyzing that daily traffic number that I think you had a question about or a concern with, which was a traffic over a day for the marina. The numbers that we plug into the models and conduct all of our analysis on is not that number. It is the peak hour number, the peak hour traffic. So we're looking at the highest hour of traffic in a day, not the entire day. We're looking at the highest hour of traffic in a day.

If you look only at 420, you have 168 divided then, and then you have peak hour. Your weekday and your Saturday peak hour differences are small. or non-existent. You're suggesting that your weekday peak hour trip entering and exit is not substantively different than your Saturday. Our island on a Saturday is substantively different than on a Thursday.

Well, you're correct. But based on the data that's actually here next door, that's what's on the screen right there, this is the data, the actual data next door, which is exactly... Almost exactly the number of slips that we're talking about here tonight. It's 30 cars on a Saturday. The heaviest hour of the day is 30 cars, 14 in, 16 out. On a weekday, it was 12. So you're right. It's more than double the weekday. You are correct. It's more than double the weekday. We used ITE because it was higher. So the ITE numbers, you're right, they're about the same on weekday and Saturday. They were higher than the counts that we actually took. So we used the higher numbers in our models. Again, we're just trying to be a little extra safe there.

You have a series of what are called synchro reports, and that measures roundabout traffic. What are those synchro reports? Where does the data come from? Are these modeled data based upon other roundabouts or the observed data in our roundabout?

It is observed data in our roundabout. Yeah, we take the counts, kind of like you all were talking about earlier. You take the traffic counts here at the roundabout. We take traffic counts at Rowland, at the driveway. So we're taking all current data.

Were the dates of those, were the same dates, the April and the June dates?

Yes. Yep. Yes, sir.

I got a question regarding that.

They're inconsistent with what we observed, but...

I'm sorry, Andy, you caught up?

Well, yeah, the data don't match with the data that we have.

Unless I'm reading this wrong, the intersections that you were talking about that were observed, NC-210, NC-50 roundabout, Rowland Avenue, New River, New River at the site driveway and Rowland Avenue at the site driveway. If I had a page number, I'd give you, man. They don't have page numbers.

That's okay.

I'm not trying to. catch you under but it says here peak hours 64 11 8 but it says it was in april it doesn't say anything about yes and it talks about a seasonal adjustment yes sir man my eyeball test and personal knowledge says the seasonal adjustment is more than 10 percent than it is april it's probably more like 300 percent we what the traffic that's going to go through those intersections yeah i'm actually glad i'm glad you brought that up because when we first had as quick as i can

We first had discussions about the traffic study. The number of 10% adjustment was discussed. We actually went back and added a 30% factor to it and re-ran the numbers with a 30% just again. What we're looking for with this is we're trying to figure out what does the development do to the intersections? What does it do to delay? What does it do to how these intersections operate? Yep, the roundabout backs up. We know that. We see that in our models. When we add our traffic onto it, it gets incrementally worse. It's incrementally worse, not game-changing worse, not shutting down gridlock worse. It does get a little bit worse, but not enough that causes – calls us, they look, you know, this is having a huge impact, you know, out here. It incrementally changes the delay times or the queuing, you know, how many cars are backed up. It incrementally changes that. We're talking about, again, we did run it with 30% also, but the 30% number adjustment factor is applied to the counts we took. Again, if you're trying to determine the development's impact, the higher the existing traffic number is, then the traffic coming for our site is this. But if the traffic numbers are way up here, we're a smaller percentage of it. If the traffic numbers are here, we're a bigger percentage of that. So the higher we make those numbers, the higher we make the traffic numbers, our traffic is this. then the lower percentage we are of the traffic, the lower impact it has. But we did run it with 30%. Again, it's very similar outcomes. It very incrementally changes the traffic.

Mr. Stevenson, I'm going to respectfully disagree. The incremental is not linear, it's exponential at a certain point. And the data that we have is indicative of that. The inflection point is somewhere between 1,000 and 1,200 cars per hour through the roundabout. After that, each additional car makes a much bigger difference than the first 1,000 cars. So it's not a linear relationship. We ran the analysis, and what actually happens is the roundabout becomes more inefficient the more cars you queue. So I I agree you have a traffic study The traffic study data that I've seen I don't have confidence that it accurately reflects our situation Any other questions from the board

I have some questions.

Mr. Stevenson, thank you. If you can't tell, the only thing we're more sensitive about than stormwater is traffic.

But I appreciate you taking the hot seat. Yes, sir, Mr. Dale. Sir, the NCDOT publishes traffic impact analysis guidelines, doesn't it? Correct. And you didn't follow them, did you?

Yes, we did.

You didn't do a turn lane warrant analysis as required by the guidelines, did you?

There's a left turn lane already existing on New River Road.

You're taking access off of the NCDOT roads. Why did you not do a turn lane warrant analysis?

Yeah, there's a left turn lane there.

Your position is those other turns are only going to be able to go one direction. Is that your intention?

Well, when you start looking at things like if you add right turn lanes, you start having impacts to pedestrian activity, sidewalks, those kind of things. And so the right turning traffic, again, the traffic coming to and from here is relatively low. Again, when this moves into NCDOT, we have to get, as you heard earlier, we have to get a driveway permit so that if they feel differently about that, they can require a turn lane there.

Why didn't you submit this to NCDOT before you came here? I understand you don't have to, but why didn't you?

Well, we've talked to DOT about it. NCDOT... NCDOT was not requiring it at this point. I don't want to speak for them, but one of the things they want to do is make sure that, like, if this goes, they've got an accurate, legitimate, you know, kind of study to review at that point. If the site changes for some reason, so special use permit conditions change, that kind of thing, then the traffic stays to be updated. And so that's one reason. DOT is very busy, and they looked at it and said we'll – We're going to review this. We'll look at it, work with the town on it at the appropriate time. But they deemed that special use permit was not the time that they deemed that they wanted to review it. NCDOT would have trouble with your analysis, wouldn't it? I don't think so.

Let's go back to this ITE trip generation slide that you've presented. I believe you testified you used the 11th edition. Is that right?

The 11th edition was for the marina use. Okay. And that's what this is, right? I mean, isn't that what you're telling us? That's what's on the screen.

Yeah, you're using the 11th edition's marina use in the IT codes. And the codes, you pick one, as I understand it. You pick one, and you pick one based on what you think is the most appropriate.

Correct.

Okay. Isn't it true that there's a 12th edition of the IT? Yes, that's correct. And they took out marinas, didn't they? And they did that because marinas are very specific to the sites where they are, correct? Correct. So a marina in Miami is not going to be a marina in Surf City, isn't that right?

No. Maybe, maybe not.

So you can't rely on the ITE data from the 11th generation when ITE has said that that data is unreliable. They took it out, didn't they?