home

O

riental’s Town Board holds a public hearing on Tuesday, July 3rd on the proposed land swap with Chris Fulcher on and near the Oriental harbor. The Town Board in mid-May gave its final approval to the land swap contract and set this date — on the eve of the Fourth of July holiday — to officially get the public’s view.

Technically, the subject of the July 3 hearing is whether the town should abandon the rights-of-way for all of Avenue A and for the terminus of South Avenue – in other words, the last 140 feet of South Avenue leading to the harbor’s waters. Although the contract was approved at the Board’s May meeting, abandoning the rights-of-way is key to putting the contract in to place. Before that abandonment happen, the law dictates the Town Board has to hear from the public.

Town Manager Bob Maxbauer, Mayor Bill Sage and Commissioner Larry Summers have taken residents individually down to the harbor’s edge to make their case. Opponents of the land swap have circulated a petition and tried to present their concerns to Commissioners, though they say they’ve been brushed aside. At a May meeting of the Board, a dozen people spoke, none in favor, before the Board voted 4-1 for the contract.

The land swap is not easily described in 10 words of less. As one perplexed resident suggested, a listing of numbers might be of help to better lay out what is going on. This is, after all, a story about a real estate deal, and ultimately in real estate, the bottom line is not built on airy descriptions of property and what owning it will impart. Instead, real estate transactions are about the hard numbers that represent boundaries, land mass, comparables and, yes, money.

With that in mind, here is the Land Swap By The Numbers:

Land That Chris Fulcher Would Give and The Town Would Get

Square footage of current Chris Fulcher property next to the Oriental Marina, which he would give the Town: 4,500

Square footage of that lot with addition of 500 square feet of land Fulcher would add from the South Avenue right-of- way that the Town would abandon: 5,002

The 4,500 square feet of land Chris Fulcher now owns which he would give the town. It is bulkheaded and the land could permit restrooms at least on the back portion of the property, away from the water and the CAMA setback lines

Minimum amount of square feet needed for a lot to be ‘buildable’ under Oriental’s GMO: 5,000

Land That Town Would Give and Fulcher Would Get

Square footage of Avenue A and its 30-foot-wide 200-foot-long right-of-way that the Town proposes to abandon, and in effect give to Chris Fulcher: 6,000

Square footage of South Avenue Right of Way that Chris Fulcher will gain if the Town Board votes to abandon it (does not include the 500 feet that would revert to the Town): 7,000

Total of what Town would abandon at Avenue A and South Avenue, in square feet: 13,000

Difference over what the Town gets, in square feet: 8,000

Ratio of what the Town gives up in square footage to what it gets: 2.6 to 1

The South Avenue right-of-way runs to the water. In this photo, it is to the left of the shadow cast by a utility pole. The South Avenue right of way is 7,000 square feet while the nearby harborfront lot the Town would get from Chris Fulcher is 4,500. The Town would also give up 6,000 square feet of right of way at Avenue A for a total of 13,000 square feet being abandoned and 4,500 gained

What’s It Worth:

Monetary value, in dollars, that Town officials estimate for the South Avenue right-of-way the Town would give up and which would become Chris Fulcher’s in the land swap: 0

Monetary value that Town officials place on the Avenue A right-of-way the Town would abandon and which, along with abandoning the South Avenue right-of-way, would give Chris Fulcher a continuous stretch of property from Wall Street, down the Neuse River, and up the harbor: 0

Value that Town Commissioner Barbara Venturi has estimated for the harbor front lot — with bulkhead, sewer tap and partial dock — that Chris Fulcher would give to the Town in the swap: $250,000-$350,000.

Number, in square feet, of properties for which Chris Fulcher agreed on January 5 to pay Lacy Henry $1,050,000: 24,900

What that works out to, in dollars, per square foot: $42.17

Using that $42.17 per square foot figure, the calculated value of the 6,000 square feet of Avenue A which lies between those properties Lacy Henry sold to Chris Fulcher, and which the Town says is worth nothing: $253,012

Using that same basis of $42.17 per square foot figure, the calculated value of the 7,000 square feet of South Avenue right-of-way which is adjacent to one, and across the street from the other properties Lacy Henry sold to Chris Fulcher: $295,900

Combined total of those figures for the two rights-of-way at Avenue A and South Avenue which the Town Manager says has no monetary value to the Town of Oriental: $548,202

Difference between that value of what the Town gives up and Commissioner Barbara Venturi’s estimate of $250,000-$350,000 for the lot the Town would get in the land swap: $200,000-300,000

On The Water Front:

Harbor front, in number of feet, on the lot that Chris Fulcher would give the Town in the land swap: 55

Number of feet in a straight line, on South Avenue right-of-way’s harbor front, that the Town would give up, according to Town Manager: 74

Difference, in linear feet, in harbor frontage between what the Town gives and what it gets (using the Town Manager’s 74 feet of harbor front figure): 19

Difference in percentage of how much longer the South Avenue harbor front is than the harbor front of the lot the Town would get from Chris Fulcher: 34

(Update. 6 hours after this was published on July 2, Oriental’s Town Hall sent out a press release saying that an amended contract would add 4 feet of harbor front, bringing the frontage to 59 feet. That would make the difference between what the town gives and what it gets, 15 feet. Under this July 2 fomulation, South Avenue would be 25% longer.)

Number of square feet of the riparian rights – water – off of South Avenue that the Town would give up, according to the survey that is part of the land swap contract, a survey which Commissioner Larry Summers says was paid for by Chris Fulcher: Number not available from the survey as it shows no boundaries.

Amount, in dollars, Commissioner Larry Summers says the Town would have to pay if it wanted to amend the survey to include such information, which he indicated it shouldn’t: $2,000

Estimated number, in square feet, of riparian rights in the waters off of South Avenue right-of-way which the Town would abandon and which would become Chris Fulcher’s: 8,140

Number, in square feet, of riparian rights in the waters off of the lot Chris Fulcher would give the Town: 4,400

Difference, in square footage, between what the Town gives up and what it gets in riparian rights: 3740

Negotiating For Harbor Front Footage:

In Chris Fulcher’s proposal to the Town dated January 23, the number of linear feet on the harbor front of the lot he would give to the Town in the swap: 46.47

Number of feet of harbor front Chris Fulcher agreed to on February 8: 55

Number of hours the Town Board and Town Manager met behind closed doors on February 7 before voting that the Manager, who was the Town’s negotiator, should ask Fulcher for the additional 8.5 feet of harbor front: 2+

Dock Construction at South Avenue:

Cost of erecting an 80 foot dock off of South Avenue right-of-way, by Town’s estimate: $27,000

Cost of deep-water dredging off of South Avenue before installing dock, by Town’s estimate: $25,000

Cost of bulkheading (and backfilling) South Avenue right of way so that water depth could be consistent: $30,000

Total of those costs: $82,000

Amount of money available for such projects in the Occupancy Tax Fund: $166,000

Oriental’s standing, in the waiting list, for dredging funds when it applied for US Fish and Wildlife Boating Infrastructure Grant last year: 1

Possible length for a dock off of South Avenue, depending on where on land it started: 100-110 feet

Maximum allowed length for dock coming off of Chris Fulcher lot to be given to Town: 80 feet

Dock Construction at The Lot That Chris Fulcher Would Give The Town:

Cost, as per Town Board member Larry Summers in mid-June, to “put in a cheap, basic functional dock” across the creosote pilings in the waters off of the lot that Chris Fulcher would give the Town: $10,000

Age in years, according to Town officials, of the creosote pilings in the waters off of the lot that Chris Fulcher would give in the swap: Not available; Town officials say they do not know the age going in to the swap.

Cost of building a new Town Dock at the Fulcher lot to accommodate more boats, based on cited cost of building dock from scratch at South Avenue: $27,000

Cost of first removing and disposing of existing creosote pilings if the Town should decide to build a dock from scratch to accommodate more boats at the lot Chris Fulcher would give the town: N/A

Riparian Buffer That Is Waived In The Contract And Maneuvering Room For Boats:

In a typical waterfront land contract, the distance, in feet, from the boundary of a riparian rights area, in which neither neighbor may put a hard structure, such as a piling or dock: 15

Navigating room this guarantees near the boundary/, allowing boats more room to maneuver: 30 feet

Size of that riparian buffer between the waters off the lot Chris Fulcher would give the Town of Oriental and the adjacent lot that he would keep: 0

Number of times in 20 years that Town Attorney Scott Davis says he’s seen another contract where the parties waive that riparian buffer that guarantees the 15 feet of navigating room on either side of a riparian boundary: 0

Distance, in feet, between the creosote pilings (potential dock) Chris Fulcher would give the Town and that property line where he could erect pilings or another dock or hard structure because the buffer will be waived: 22

Number of 40 foot boats that Commissioner Larry Summers says will be able to tie up at the eventual dock off of the lot Chris Fulcher would give the Town in the swap: 4

Amount in feet of maneuvering room – or room for error – that would remain if one 40 boat with an 11 foot beam was tied up at the dock’s outermost berth, and another boat with an 11 foot beam attempted to pass to dock at the inner berth: 0

Rationale For Giving Up Avenue A

Cost, according to the Town Manager to restore the corner of Avenue A and South Avenue, where Lacy Henry’s lawyers claimed the Town has encroached on (what was) his property: $75,000

Number of years the public has to use a pathway over private property before a municipality may claim that pathway as its right-of-way, according to NC right-of-way: 20

Number of years, at minimum, that the Town of Oriental has had a road that cuts across the corner the South Avenue and Avenue A, according to a 1972 photo researched by Dave Cox: 40

Amount of money Dave Cox says the Town should spend to rectify the “encroachment” that Lacy Henry’s lawyers accuse the Town of: 0

Amount of compensation that Dave Cox says the Town should give Lacy Henry, because the Town now controls that corner thru the concept of ‘right of way by prescription.’ 0

Amount the Town of Oriental spent on legal fees to reclaim its right to the South Avenue Right-of-way after Lacy Henry tried to claim that as his in 1995 by erecting a fence across it: $25,000

Date Lacy Henry sold all of his property near South Avenue and Avenue A to Chris Fulcher: January 5, 2012

Amount of “owner financing that Lacy Henry provides Chris Fulcher in a deed signed January 5, 2012”:ChrisFulcherLacyHenry900K.pdf: $900,000

Bathrooms and Right of Way Law:

Cost savings of not having to install a sewer tap at the site that Chris Fulcher would give the Town, because there is one there already: $12,500

Cost of building the restrooms — and then the annual cost of maintaining them — on that lot if the land swap goes through: Not available.

Typically speaking, buildings that can be erected in rights-of-way, under NC law: 0

Number of communities in NC where hard structures such as buildings have been put on rights-of-way after the communities challenged the law: 4

Process and Public Notice:

Number of days before July 3 hearing at which the Town’s official website still contains no mention of the hearing on its homepage where other meetings are listed: 1

Number of days before July 3 hearing when no notice of it was posted on the sign outside Town Hall typically used to notify passersby of any upcoming meetings: 2

Number of words in the body of the Town Hall press release of January 26 regarding Chris Fulcher’s proposed deal with the Town: 324

In the press release, the sequence of the words “A proposal to donate property on Raccoon Creek to the Town of Oriental has been made by Chris Fulcher” : 1 through 19

Number of words in the body of the 324 word press release before the words, “The proposal would entail the closing of the end of South Avenue and all of Avenue A” appear: 207

Number of times in the press release that the word “abandon” or the phrase “give up” appear in reference to the rights-of-way the Town would abandon and give up in the land swap: 0

Number of days between the January 5 owner financing of property sold from Lacy Henry to Chris Fulcher and the Town Board’s first closed door meeting on January 13 “for the purpose of discussing property acquisition and negotiation” regarding the land swap: 8

Number of days between the first Town Board closed door session to discuss “property acquisition and negotiation” on January 13 and the Town Board giving preliminary approval of the land swap on February 10: 28

Number of voices in support of the land swap of the dozen people who spoke at the May 17 meeting: 0

Board’s vote at that meeting to approve the contract as it was written: 4-1

Rank of Chris Fulcher’s fishing operation, as touted by Town Hall, in terms of employing the most people on the harbor: 1

Number of Chris Fulcher’s trawlers registered with Pamlico County tax office and subject to property taxes payable to Pamlico County, Town of Oriental and the Southeastern Pamlico Volunteer Fire District: 0

Chris Fulcher’s building has stood roofless on the harbor for a decade. Town Manager Bob Maxbauer’s overview of the land swap states that it would, “foster resolve to harbor aesthetic issues.” Asked what that meant, Maxbauer did not mention the roof but said that if the deal goes through, Fulcher would “remove the vestiges of pilings” off of the end of South Avenue. The Town Manager also said he was working to get overhead power lines put underground. He has said that would help Fulcher’s trucks coming in and out of the fish plant.

Number of years that Chris Fulcher’s two-story building on the edge of Oriental’s harbor has stood without a roof: 10+

Number of years, estimated by Mayor Bill Sage in response to a constituent’s question, that it would take for the roof on that building to be completed if this land swap goes through: 2-3

Number of times the roof completion appears in the contract: 0

———————-

Stories About The Land Swap

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

Town Board Accepts Fulcher Land Swap In Principle – February 12

Parks & Rec Committee Lists Questions About Land Swap – May 8

Land Swap Update: Town Board Puts Off Vote – May 8

A Map Of Town’s Proposed Harbor Area Land Swap – May 17

Oriental Town Board Votes 4-1 To Approve Land Swap – May 17

Town Board Approves Land Swap – On The Cover Photo – May 18

Petition Calls On Board To Step Away From Land Swap – June 22

The Land Swap And Lacy Henry – June 28

Posted Monday July 2, 2012 by Melinda Penkava