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riental’s Town Board voted 4-0 Friday afternoon to accept, in principle, a land swap proposal with Chris Fulcher. The fishing business owner this week offered the Town a lot with 55 feet of harborfront. That is 8-1/2 feet more than he’d offered two weeks ago.

Those 8-1/2 feet of harborfront were what three of the commissioners – Barb Venturi, Larry Summers and Warren Johnson — said they wanted to hear because it would give visting boats enough room to maneuver around the dock that would extend from the lot. They and Sherrill Styron voted for the swap. Commissioner Michelle Bessette was not present at the 4p meeting, which started with a half hour long closed door session.

Attorneys for both sides now have to hammer out details. A public hearing will have to be held on one aspect of the deal: the Town’s abandonment of its rights-of-way.

Diagram of part of the deal. The area in red is what Fulcher gives the town. The yellow is the lot he keeps next to what is now South Avenue right of way. The green lines are the South Avenue right of way the Town gives up and which will then become Fulcher’s property. The green striped and red area is some 520 square feet of what had been right of way, abandoned to Fulcher, which he would then add to the lot to make it just over 5,000 square feet – the minimum lot size for building in Oriental. The diagram shows less than half of what the Town would give up in the deal. (Black and white diagram provided by Town Hall; color added for clarity.)

In the swap, Fulcher gives the town 4,482 square feet of property he owns next to Oriental Marina’s restaurant. The lot has a partially built dock extending almost 80 feet in to the harbor. That was a selling point; Town officials had been planning to build a new town dock from scratch about 100 feet away at the end of South Avenue.

While the Board’s official language of the vote said that Fulcher would “donate” the property, it is in effect an exchange. The Town will be giving up its rights-of way for all of Avenue A and the end of South Avenue.

Neither Fulcher’s written proposal nor the diagram the board voted for on Friday spell out how much square footage he would gain when the Town gives up the rights-of-way. Independent calculations indicate the Town would be giving up about three times the square footage it is getting from Fulcher.

Giving up Avenue A in particular would consolidate Fulcher’s land holdings on the Neuse River between Wall Street, around the point with his roofless block building at the harbor entrance, and down the harbor past South Avenue.

An overview of the land swap. While not drawn to exact scale, it shows (in yellow) the lot Fulcher would give the Town, and (in darker green) the rights-of-way at South Avenue and Avenue A that the Town would give up and which would be absorbed by Fulcher who already owns all of the land (light green) around it. (This diagram provided two weeks ago by Town Hall doesn’t reflect the recent change – the additional 8-1/2 feet the Town would get on the (yellow) lot which would have the dock extending from the center of the lot and not be offset as shown here.)

Some in town — including some members of the Parks and Rec Committee — have said that since Fulcher gains more land from the Town. and Since the consolidation makes his land more valuable, they say, the town should negotiate from a position of strength and seek not just one but both of the harborfront lots Fulcher owns on the east side of South Avenue.

That apparently didn’t happen.

In a Q&A session after the board meeting Friday, Town Commissioner Larry Summers said the Board did not ask for that second lot in its counteroffer to Fulcher this week.

The Town’s Manager a week earlier had said that he did not want to “look a gifthorse in the mouth too closely.”

What Value The Rights-of-Way?

More light was shed on the Town’s negotiating position from comments by Town officials Friday. With the Town giving up about three times as much land from its rights-of-way as it was getting from Chris Fulcher, how much were the Town’s rights-of-way worth?

The answer from Town officials: nothing.

“The right-of-way has no value to the town, because we do not own it.” said Town Manager Bob Maxbauer, who did the negotiating on the Town’s behalf. “They were not truly a dollar asset to the town.”

Technically, the Town doesn’t own the land under the right-of-way and so can’t directly sell it. But once abandoned by the Town and then absorbed by the adjacent property owners as their private property — as would happen in this land swap — there would be a monetary figure attached to it. In the market, it has value, and by extension at the negotiating table. The Town Manager and Commissioner Larry Summers however, insisted that to the Town, the rights-of-way had no value.

The Town’s South Avenue right-of-way where it meets Oriental’s harbor. A Town Commissioner and the Town Manager say the right-of-way has no dollar value. In the deal the Town would abandon this and another right-of-way which would then become Chris Fulcher’s private property.

When a resident asked before the meeting and the Board’s vote if the Town had had the land in the deal appraised, Summers responded that “the right of way is worth nothing to us.” During the meeting, he suggested losing the rights-of-way was okay because “there’s no dollar value to the town” and becoming private property would make it taxable.

Given that the rights-of-way were the Town’s only bargaining chips, the Board was asked how that mindset — that its rights-of-way were worth nothing — affected the Town’s negotiations with Fulcher. Summers repeated that the rights-of-way had “absolutely zero cash value to us.” Maxbauer concurred.

The rights-of-way that were defined as having no value include some 80+ feet of harbor waterfront, with a total square footage of approximately 12-14,000 sq ft. The land the town would trade has a view of either the harbor or the Neuse River.

Commissioner Summers did assign a value to the lot that Chris Fulcher would be giving the town in the swap. He said that after talking with “a lot of people,” he arrived at a figure of $300,000.

Benefits To The Town Cited

Summers touted the benefits of the lot the Town would get in the land swap. In addition to a second town dock that could be up and running soon for transient boaters, he said, owning a lot “fee simple” means the “possibility of public restrooms” as well as a free public pumpout and a visitors center. As he and other town officials have said, such buildings would not have been possible at the end of South Avenue, because structures can’t be built on rights-of-way.

The lot the town gets from Chris Fulcher. The addition of 8.5 feet in the offer the Town Board accepted Friday puts the dock roughly in the middle of the lot. The lot line at left would bisect the larger white building at left. Fulcher has said the town can have that building, as well as the one fully within the lot line and another on an adjacent lot.

With the swap of land, Summers said all of the recreational boats on that side of the harbor would be clustered at one end. “Quite frankly, I don’t like the idea of putting my boat between some commercial fishing boats.”

Fulcher would keep a dock approximately 50 feet away at which his trawlers or barges already tie up. They would continue to do so.

Further, Summers said, making this deal with Fulcher would “let us keep some of our working waterfront.”

Working Waterfront and Real Estate

In recent days, the Mayor and other town officials have cited a desire to preserve Oriental’s “working waterfront” and said the swap would help Fulcher’s fishing operation. It would also, as noted, consolidate Fulcher’s land holdings. In the Q&A Friday afternoon the Board was asked how they would react if Fulcher someday sold his soon-to-be-made-more-valuable expanse of land, and it stopped being a fishing operation.

Town Manager Bob Maxbauer said that he understood that Fulcher planned to install docks for his trawlers at the end of South Avenue and that “there is no indication that Mr. Fulcher has any intention of doing anything but the fishing business.”

But if he did, Maxbauer suggested a scenario. If Chris Fulcher sold out or developed the land, and got a “1 to 2 million dollar benefit to him,” Maxbauer said, “this town would benefit by 20 cents on every 100 dollars of valuation for that improvement forever.

“Hopefully,” Maxbauer continued, “it is very beneficial to him because we as a town will tax that property.”

Chris Fulcher’s block building at the entrance to Oriental’s Harbor has stood roofless for 10 years. The dock at left would remain his in the land swap. Just to the right of that dock would be the South Avneue right-of-way, one of two the town would give up and which would become Fulcher’s property. Once the deal is final, Fulcher would control from the lot at the end of that dock, around the point at right and down the Neuse waterfront to Wall Street.

In other remarks from commissioners, Sherrill Styron said he liked the deal because the Town would get a lot that was already bulkheaded, had a partially built dock and waters that were dredged a few years ago. He said those three things would have cost the town $100,000 to build from scratch at South Avenue, as had previously been planned.

(That figure differs from the Parks and Recreation Committee’s calculations that bulkheading, dredging and dockbuilding would cost $70,000. The Parks and Rec Committee was not consulted in the process leading up to Fulcher’s proposal to the Town.)

Commissioner: “Grateful” About Fulcher Talking With Town

Commissioner Barbara Venturi said that there were “people, I guarantee you, up and down the East Coast that are waiting to be told that, ‘Yes, there will be free dock space in Oriental.’ In fact,” she continued, “I was in Sail magazine this month, saying ‘yes, we were working on getting dock space.’”

Venturi, who has said the land swap was her idea, spoke about Chris Fulcher, who’s had a frosty relationship with the Town for at least a decade, stemming largely, but not entirely, from the building he’s left roofless at the harbor’s entrance.

“I’ve known Chris quite a while,” Venturi told the audience of a half dozen residents Friday, “and when I saw that he, in conjunction with the Town Manager, had opened the door to at least a discussion, my first reaction was to have tears in my eyes.”

“I was so grateful that he was at least willing to encounter us.”

Of the deal the board had just approved, Venturi said, “It would be hard to find anything negative to say about it.”

Resident: Deal “Shortchanged The Town”

From the audience, Oriental resident Grace Evans rose to the challenge. Chris Fulcher, she said, “has been cited for many infractions having to do with his business. He has not been a good neighbor. He has fouled up the harbor on many occasions….and thumbed his nose at us.” Evans questioned whether his fishing boats were registered in Oriental where they’d be subject to property tax.

“I’m not saying we shouldn’t do it (the land swap) because of Chris, but he doesn’t have a good track record.” Evans said the land swap that got the Board’s preliminary okay on Friday “shortchanged the town” and seemed rushed. “I don’t know why we are in such a big hurry.” She noted that there still had to be a public hearing on giving up the rights-of-way.

As seen from the now-public beach in the South Avenue right of away, the lot to the right is the one that Fulcher will keep. A commissioner says the Town did not try to negotiate to acquire that lot along with the one on the other side of it. Fulcher has proposed giving the Town the white building. Oriental’s Town Manager who negotiated the deal says once it goes through, he understands Fulcher plans to put in docks for his fishing fleet at South Avenue.

In his brief comments, Commissioner Warren Johnson said he “personally had not felt rushed through this thing.”

Regarding the negotiations, Johnson said, “Sure, Chris is going to win his piece and we’re going to win our piece. I want to believe that we came out a bigger winner. It remains to be seen.”

Public Hearing Required For Giving Up Right-of-Ways.

The Board’s Friday vote came four weeks after it held its first closed door session on a possible deal. Two weeks ago a press release from Town Hall announced a proposal from Fulcher offering the 46.47 feet of harborfront. This past Tuesday night, February 7, the Board met in closed session for over 2 hours. After that, the Town Manager made a counter-offer to Fulcher. On Wednesday afternoon, Mayor Sage called Friday’s special meeting.

From here, the deal goes to attorneys for both sides. In order to abandon the rights-of-ways, the Town will first have to hold at least one public hearing. The Mayor says that would happen after a contract is approved.

Previous Stories On The Land Swap Proposal

Chris Fulcher Proposal To Town – January 31

Questions Arise On Fulcher Land Swap Proposal – February 7

Mayor Says Relationship With Fulcher A Benefit Of Land Swap – February 9

Letters On The Land Swap

Posted Sunday February 12, 2012 by Melinda Penkava