After a four hour public hearing on Tuesday night, January 18, the Moore County Board of Commissioners tabled MHK Ventures' request for Planned Unit Development - Hamlet [PUD-H] rezoning for the proposed Pine Forest Golf Club subdivision, pending further review by both the Planning Department and the Board.
The Planning Department is expected to bring recommendations to the Board's February 1 or February 15 regular meeting.
After hearing testimony during the quasi-judicial public hearing that development might threaten the headwaters of Nick’s Creek, Commissioner Larry Caddell asked to withdraw from voting on the rezoning request, because he felt he could not rule impartially.
“It’s hard for me not to be partial after spending thirteen years of knowing Nick's Creek,” the former Carthage Mayor said. "I've never run from a vote," he told The Times during a break in the meeting. But his intimate knowledge of the creek and its importance to the Carthage water system, he added, made it difficult for him to render the impartial decision required.
After Caddell made his request to withdraw, his fellow Commissioners voted unanimously to excuse him from further consideration of the matter.
Pine Forest Water & Sewer Contracts
The evening's discussion of Pine Forest began not with the rezoning request, but with a review of contracts that have been worked out between the Moore County Public Works Department and the developer, MHK Ventures, Inc.
Public Works Director Dennis Brobst presented the Commissioners with two contracts already signed by MHK: one relating to an on-site private wastewater treatment plant and the other relating to how the development will be supplied with water from the county system.
The wastewater contract requires the developer to construct a one million gallon per day wastewater treatment plant and to use treated water from that plant for irrigation throughout the Pine Forest community. The county pledges unspecified cooperation in that project.
Brobst explained that Moore County Public Utilities has adopted a policy prohibiting the use of potable water from the county system for irrigation purposes in new developments. Later in the meeting, MHK's engineer Fred Hobbs said Pine Forest would initially take several hundred thousand gallons of untreated wastewater per day from the county system for treatment in the private plant. That will provide the developer with irrigation water as it establishes the resort's golf courses.
The water supply contract obligates the developer to pay the county $3 million dollars within six months from the date of PUD approval and requires the county to construct a water line extension to serve the community and guarantee a maximum of 500,000 gallons of potable water per day.
Noting that some material relating to the contracts had been omitted from the agenda packet for the meeting, Commissioner Lea moved and the Board agreed to table the contracts for further review.
Public Hearing
The public hearing on Pine Forest's rezoning request began with an overview of the development, presented by a presentation by Hobbs, Upchurch & Associates. Pine Forest would encompass 1,652 acres in size and include up to 700 residential units, up to 300 hotel units, three golf courses, and up to 120,000 square feet of commercial and retail space.
Those who opposed the development — many of whom identified themselves as members of, or speaking on behalf of, Save our Sandhills — raised concerns about sources of water for the development, how it will affect the environment, increased traffic congestion, and its impact on the real estate market.
Using Nick's Creek for Irrigation?
Though the issue of potable water for Pine Forest will be likely be settled through an agreement with and payment to the county, opponents expressed concern that the developer would inevitably turn to Nick's Creek to supply irrigation water for its golf courses. The headwaters of Nick's Creek are found on the Pine Forest acreage.
Bill Huber of Pinehurst, citing public documents filed with the state, said that a single golf course in the Dormie Club, another MHK Ventures Development, uses 600,000 to one million gallons of water per day, even during a drought. Since Pine Forest will have one 9-hole and two 18-hole golf courses it could easily need twice that amount of water.
Huber feared that if the proposed development needed water it could, under North Carolina law, legally use that in Nick’s Creek. “There goes Nick’s Creek, there goes Carthage’s water supply” Huber said. Huber's concern was echoed by other speakers, including Allison Weakley, a Chatham County biologist speaking on behalf of Save Our Sandhills.
Engineer Fred Hobbes argued that Pine Forest's wastewater treatment plant would include on-site storage that could hold as much as 60 million gallons of treated wastewater for irrigation. He said the developer had no intention of withdrawing irrigation water from Nick's Creeks and would agree to a prohibition on that as a condition of the rezoning.
But Huber argued that, under North Carolina law, no such stipulation would be ultimately binding on the developer.
Ruth Stolting charged that the potable water agreement with Pine Forest was “secretive” and a “shrewd attempt to force an agreement down citizen’s throats.”
“Is this transparency and open government?” she asked the board during the public comment period, noting that copies of the agreements had only been made available to the public the Friday prior to the meeting.
On-site Wastewater Treatment Facility
The privately owned and operated wastewater treatment plant proposed for Pine Forest would be the first such facility in Moore County. Hobbs assured the Board that the Pine Forest plant "will be cast in place similar to what a government would build — similar to what you are building at Addor [the location of the county's wastewater treatment plant].The reason for that is because we don't want the opportunity to exist 30 years from now that it would rust out and there would be no one to take responsibility.”
But Hobbs assurances were not enough to satisfy Attorney David Rooks, who represents Save Our Sandhills [SOS]. Rooks asked what would happen to the treatment facility, if the developer "goes belly to the sun” or if a “homeowners association of a minimally or partially developed community” is left responsible for the decisions associated with the facility.
“What happens if the system doesn’t work?" Rooks asked. "Who takes care of it? The County?”
Bob Stolting, Vice President of SOS, agreed with Rooks, noting that “There has never been a private wastewater treatment plant in Moore County.” Drawing on news reports about another developer's desire to install a private wastewater plant, Stolting quoted Public Work Director Brobst as saying "What concerns me is who is going to take care of it. The homeowners association? That scares me to death."
Watershed & other pollution
Biologist Weakley and other speakers raised concerns about the negative impact on Nick's Creek and the Carthage water supply of run off from the Pine Forest streets and golf courses, which could include oils, greases, pesticides, and fertilizers.
Because Pine Forest is located in a WS-III watershed protection zone, impervious surfaces may cover no more than twenty-four percent of the development's acreage under state law. The Pine Forest plan includes only twelve percent impervious surface.
Harry Huberth, representing the Sandhills Area Land Trust, spoke during public comment and was most concerned with damage to the watershed. “It is imperative that this type of development is given a critical eye,” he said. Huberth stressed that the wetlands are like the “kidneys of the ecosystem” and there is no such thing as a “wetland transplant.”
Dr. Jay Carter, a biologist retained by MHK, told the Commissioners that the developer has included in its plans a twenty-five foot natural vegetative buffer along all wetlands to allow any surface water runoff to be filtered through natural vegetation. Carter predicted that there should be little or no surface water entering into the wetlands.
However, Ruth Stolting, who resides near the proposed development, disagreed with this assessment and reminded the board that with sandy soil there is “no fool proof way that all pollutants are detected and removed.”
As a beekeeper, Stolting fears that the use of pesticides on the Pine Forest golf courses will cause a decrease in the number of bees that pollinate crops and supply honey. Since the development of the nearby Dormie Club golf course, Stolting said, she has lost forty percent of her hives each year, a problem she blamed on the increased use of pesticides within the bees foraging area.
NC State apiarist Donald Hopkins agreed with Stolting, stating that “Bees and golf courses don’t mix too well.”
Value of the Ecosystem
Pine Forest, if approved, will destroy what botanist Bruce Sorrie, of the NC Natural Heritage Program, identified as one of the last Longleaf Pine-Wiregrass ecosystems of its size in the Sandhills region — and perhaps in the Southeast as a whole. Lawrence Earley, author of “Looking for Longleaf: The Fall and Rise of an American Forest,” argued that "given the monumental decline of this great ecosystem, protecting what we have left is an opportunity to honor the heritage of the longleaf pine."
Jeff Marcus, of the NC Wildlife Resource Commission, told the Board that there are five types of wildlife in particular that rely on a longleaf habitat, including the Star Nose Mole, Sandhills Lily, Fox Squirrel, Northern Pine Snake, and the Red-Cockaded Woodpecker.
Marcus commended MHK Ventures for trying to develop Pine Forest in an environmentally friendly way, but reminded the Board, “[Development] can retain some elements of the habitat, but it's almost never as good as it was before development.”
Many of those opposed to the development reminded the Board of the goals set out in the Moore County Land Use Plan.
Marsh Smith, an environmental lawyer and member of SOS, said the first goal in the Land Use Plan was to preserve Moore County’s rural and agricultural heritage for future generations.
Jesse Wimberley of West End reminded the Board during the public comment period that the most important thing to residents in Moore County is to keep the rural nature of the homeland.
“Look at the report [Area A Land Use Plan], then look at the project in front of you," Wimberley said. "Will we be better after it’s done, or will we lose some of our quality of life?”
Increased traffic
Opponents of the development argue that Pine Forest will increase the amount of traffic in the immediate vicinity, and also at the Pinehurst Traffic Circle and the intersection of NC Hwy 211 and NC Hwy 5.
Bob Koontz a land planner for Hobbs Upchurch Associates, reiterated that the expansion of NC Hwy 211, is projected to begin in 2012. He noted that MHK had donated land for the highway expansion.
Attorney Rooks quoted NCDOT estimates that Pine Forest, at build-out, will generate an additional 16,700 trips per day. Citing the well-known delays in getting NCDOT projects into the construction phase, he asked, "Who knows when 211 will be expanded?”
Former Moore County Board of Commissioner, Colin McKenzie asked the board during the public comment period to think of the impact on traffic that the Pine Forest development would have on an already congested area. "We will have significant additional traffic between Pinehurst and West End,” McKenzie said.
Real-estate oversupply
Along with too much traffic, Joe McDonald, a real estate broker of 21 years, warned that too much real estate may also be an affect of the Pine Forest development. In the greater Sandhills area alone there are over 1500 total residential listings, MacDonald said. The new development may bring a surplus of existing homes in the Sandhills area unless there is some “miracle in the economy,” he added.
The plans for Pine Forest project a maximum of 710 residential dwellings at build-out.
Other Business
In other business during its Tuesday, January 18 meeting, the Moore County Board of Commissioners:
• Approved an amendment to the current Moore County Solid Waste Management Program that will now include a recycling program for electronics. As of July 1, electronics will be banned from disposal at landfills in North Carolina. Anyone disposing of electronics will need to take such “e-waste” to designated electronic recycling sites. Currently electronics are being collected at two different sites: 5361 US 15-510, Carthage and 363 Eagle Springs Rd, Eagle Springs. Each site is open Monday thru Friday from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. If and when the demand for e-waste grows then additional sites will be added eventually making every drop off site e-waste compatible.
• Tabled a request to support a resolution to leave intact the current system of alcohol sales through local ABC Boards, after Commissioner Lea noted that the Sheriff’s Department and the Sheriff’s Association had not taken a position on the resolution.
• Approved a contract with the Hydrostructures, PA contract for engineering and inspection services for Old Town Pinehurst sewer replacement and Lake Pinehurst sewer line for a total of $373,430.
• Approved a $25,000 increase in a contract with The Charles Underwood Company, which provides emergency repairs services for the county's water and wastewater infrastructure.
