home

When a misguided idea comes along you think, “For sure, this one will die a quick death.”

Sometimes, though, you watch in slack-jawed amazement as bad ideas are put on extended life-support.

This is one of those times. The ill-conceived idea in this case will have the town setting up a town parking lot, public restrooms and a visitors center on land now zoned residential on a side-street in Oriental’s Old Village.

It could come up for a vote this Thursday morning when the Town Board meets to discuss what Town Hall describes as “the purchase of property by the Town of Oriental.”

All indications are that the properties in question are three lots that Henry Frazer now owns on South Water Street. These include: the skinny lot, zoned MU1 (aka: commercial) at the corner of Hodges Street (where Tennessee Ronnie’s trailer used to be) and then the other two larger lots beyond it on the side-street, lots which are zoned R2 (residential).

Prior to Mr. Frazer approaching the town about buying his land last fall — for upwards of $450,000 — the Town Board had not discussed, in any substantive way, the need for a parking lot, public bathrooms or visitors’ center. Nor have they done so in the months since then. There has been in fact, little discussion on the merits of the concept during the Board’s public sessions, though they have spent hours in closed door sessions to discuss, we are told, how to negotiate in this process.

It’s been very much cart-before-the-horse. Enough has emerged however, to suggest a disturbing leap in to bad policy and financial carelessness.

A few points:

You May Think You Live In A Residential Neighborhood…

I did. South Water Street is my street. (And in the interests of full disclosure, the R2 lots in question sit catercornered to our driveway.) Come down our street. Once you leave the corner lots at Hodges Street that are zoned MU1 commercial, all the rest of the street is zoned R2.

If it goes forward with this scheme, the town would be putting a public parking lot/restrooms/visitors center on two lots that are zoned for residential use, when in fact the chief beneficiary of this infrastructure would be those nearby lots on Hodges and across Hodges, that are zoned MU1 (commercial).

If the town wants a parking lot and public restrooms and a visitors center — and the need for this complex has not even begun to be quantitatively established —- then the town should put them on lots that are already zoned MU1. It’s inherently a matter of fairness.

When some of us raised this issue early on in the process, noting that the Table of Uses in the Growth Management Ordinance says that R2 lots can’t be stand-alone parking lots, one commissioner said, “well, we can always re-zone it.”

That blithe approach doesn’t give much comfort. When people live in a neighborhood that is zoned residential there is a reasonable expectation that the uses to which the property would be put will be… residential.

As Liz Cox of nearby Academy Street told the Town Board last week, the message being sent is that the town can buy a vacant lot in a residential neighborhood and do what it wants with it. A sobering thought for residents far beyond South Water Street.

The town also says that the GMO would allow it to put an R2 lot to some institutional use. Even if so — and it’s open to interpretatinon — it defies the spirit of the town’s zoning to foist these restrooms and public parking and visitors center on to residential lots when there are clearly MU1 lots for sale within a block or two that would be more appropriate.

So, Why Not Put This On The MU1 Lots That Are For Sale?

For instance, there’s an MU1 lot for sale on Broad Street between The Steamer Restaurant and the veterinary hospital. The price on that lot has been reduced in recent months. You might think that a commercial lot on the main drag would be better situated for a visitors’ center than two residential lots on a side street. So, why is it not under consideration?

Well, for one, the Town Board said that it was too far from the waterfront.

This is a baffling objection since one of Oriental’s draws is that it’s a very walkable place. Pedestrian friendly, even. But now, in the Town Board’s view, a stroll of a few short village blocks from Broad Street to the Town Dock is considered an onerous trek.

You might note that a parking lot near the nexus of Broad and Hodges would come in handy for the businesses already in that area. But that positioning was the source of another objection to the Broad Street site. The Town Board view was that a parking lot next to the Steamer might be perceived as parking — for — the Steamer.

A similar issue came up with a lot for sale on New Street, near M&M’s. Commissioner Nancy Inger said that a parking lot there might be construed as parking for that restaurant.

That perception — of the town spending tax money to buy land that might benefit one particular business — is one that a wise Town Board should keep in mind.

What is curious is that while the Board raises that issue with the other sites, it continues to pursue the three lots on South Water Street which have the same perception problem, only bigger.

Propriety and Property Purchases

In addition to the three South Water Street lots he’s offered for sale, Mr. Frazer owns the large lot across the street at the south-eastern corner of South Water and Hodges. On it sits what is known as the “Joe Cox” house, where the former NCSU School of Design head lived, with his wife Betsy, for years. (Four decades ago, they were part of the first wave of Triangle and Triad people to come to Oriental to sail and just decamp. They held art classes and developed the town’s dragon motif.)

Five years ago, Mr. Frazer bought the Joe Cox housse and lot. He’s said he wants to develop it and get rid of that house. One plan, unveiled a year ago, would have retail shops topped by condos. Retail means one needs parking for customers.

Sure would be convenient — wouldn’t it? — if the town had a parking lot right across the street.

But if this makes you ask, “Why then, doesn’t the town then rule out Mr. Frazer’s three lots for the parking lot?” you’re not alone. And there’s even more logic vertigo ahead.

So You Thought The Sellers’ Market Days Had Passed?

A few months ago when the Town Board began meeting behind closed doors — which state law does allow in order to discuss negotiation strategy — the town manager said that one subject the board would be talking about was the possibility of the town “sweetening the pot”

This was a puzzling turn of phrase. Oriental real estate is no longer the ‘sellers’ market’ that it was a year and a half ago. So, one had to ask, what did ‘sweeten the pot’ mean in this case?

It was explained that the town might consider giving the seller “concessions” in the form of his not needing as many parking spaces on other development he might be doing in the area.

(Moments like that make hallucinatory drugs unnecessary.)

One commissioner told me that the pot-sweetening could be an option for bringing down the price of the property. Another commissioner, Warren Johnson, however, said it “didn’t sound kosher” to him.

Not having been in the closed door meetings, I do not know how much traction the ‘sweeten the pot’ idea got. But it does not inspire much confidence and public trust in the town’s negotiating abilities to hear that that the town could consider A) purchasing land from someone B) paving it over and maintaining it and then C) letting some of those spaces count toward the total needed by the seller for his nearby development.

It seems unwise and unfair policy in any market, but especially so in what is no longer a seller’s market.

About which…

Can We Talk About Price?

Initially, Mr. Frazer was seeking $450,000 to $550,000 for the three lots, a laughable figure in a real estate market that in the past year might, in a most generous light, be described as having “plateaued”.

Consider:

In the fall of 2005, Mr. Frazer paid a little over $200,000 in an auction for the two R2 lots on South Water Street.

In 2003, Mr. Frazer paid less than $70,000 for the lot at the corner of South Water and Hodges. It’s a sub-standard sized lot, which means any future constrution has to happen on the grandfathered “footprint” of the concrete slab where Tennessee Ronnie’s trailer used to be. Its real value was thought to be as the parking lot for the Joe Cox property across the street. Unless of course, you can find a town willing to enter a not-mutually beneficial arrangement.

So, altogether, Mr. Frazer has less than $300,000 in those three lots. Do the math and you see a most tidy profit in that $450,000 asking price.

This winter, an independent appraiser told the town that the three lots were worth far less than the asking price. He put the value at $329,000. Mr. Frazer said he wanted another appraisal which he says he’ll pay for.

Meanwhile, the Town has indicated, in a grant pre-application with CAMA — and in a gasp-inducing lapse in negotiating savvy — that “the final price will be around $400,000.”

A very nice profit — in a down real estate market —for the seller.

A Bad Bargain No Matter Who Pays

The Town is planning to apply to CAMA for a grant to buy the property. The grant application is due at the end of the month. It could be months before CAMA decides.

That makes the town’s apparent rush to vote on this this week all the more perplexing. What is the hurry? Why commit town tax money to this now? Remember, it was Mr. Frazer who approached the town about buying the land, not the other way around. It’s not as if there are gobs of land buyers rushing to town to snap up property as there were two and three years ago.

And on a related note: even if some CAMA money does come through to assist in the land purchase, Oriental property tax payers will still be paying, because town-owned land is land that is stripped from the tax base. Oriental property tax payers will be subsidizing the purchase of Mr. Frazer’s three lots by having to pay higher taxes ourselves to make up for the lost tax revenue.

If it were an ideal piece of property, the purchase would be understandable. But it’s not. So, given all this, why would the Town of Oriental spend such an excessive amount of money for lots that are, any way you look at it, inappropriate for the project?

To more than a few people, it smells of the town helping one particular land developer realize a profit on his land in an otherwise down real estate market. As one neighbor has asked, “When did it become the job of government to guarantee a profit to a real estate speculation?”

When Mr. Frazer bought the two R2 lots on South Water Street at the auction in 2005, he said he would build some coastal style residences. At that same auction Steve Williams purchased the two adjacent lots facing Academy Street. As Mr. Williams said he would do at the time, he has very extensively renovated the bungalow on one of the lots and says he will build another bungalow like it on his other lot..

Keep in mind that Mr. Williams could have destroyed the 60-year old bungalow and slapped a stultifyingly tall duplex on the site. Instead, he’s preserved the kind of human-scale development that gives Oriental its flavor.

And now, what is the town proposing as a reward for such enlightened development? A public parking lot and public bathrooms right in that backyard. It just doesn’t make sense.

Investing Wisely

In recent days, one commissioner, Barb Venturi, has said that if the town buys this residential property on South Water, it might not necessarily put the parking lot and restrooms on it.

She doesn’t rule out buying the property however, saying that she’d like to see the town “invest in itself” by buying land.

That provides little comfort. For one, once it owns the property, what’s to stop the town from letting it become a de facto park-on-the-grass parking lot? And to later pave it and put public bathrooms in the midst of a residential neighborhood?

As for this slogan of “the town investing in itself”, investing alone isn’t good enough. We want our town to invest wisely. And wise investment doesn’t mean buying any old scrap of land, someone’s castoffs.

To borrow a line from an Illinois senator, I don’t oppose the town making investments. I oppose dumb investments, and the three lots on South Water Street would be a dumb investment.

Instead of rushing in to this, the town should take a breath and sort out exactly what it is trying to accomplish.

For instance, the need for a parking lot. “Parking” is perhaps the most tossed-around-gerund in Oriental history, but what exactly is the “problem”? Using South Water Street as a barometer, there are precisely three weekend days a year — Croakerfest, Spirit of Christmas, and a Tennessee Ronnnie BBQ — when the parking flows up these side streets. Could it be that the town is chasing a solution for a ‘problem’ that doesn’t really exist through most of the year?

And even if parking were a real issue, wouldn’t it be fairer to:

A) make sure new development in the business district provides adequate parking for whatever is being developed and
B) if there is to be a public lot, to put it in the MU1 district it will mainly serve?

As for those busy weekends — Croakerfest, Spirit of Christmas — we as a town already have land that could be used for parking. At the ends of the streets — Wall, King, Neuse and Hodges — that lead up to the water, the town could paint angled parking spaces on the grass there. (And once the crowds are gone, let the paint fade.)

Village Hardware sells spray-on marking paint for a few bucks a can. That’d be a much wiser investment than $400,000.

As for bathrooms, why not explore existing town property? Perhaps, at the parks. Or, at Town Hall. Designs are being drawn up for a big renovation of Town Hall. Why not work some bathrooms, accessible from the outside of the building after Town Hall office hours, in to the plan?

There are ways to get done what needs to be done, without squandering hundreds of thousands of dollars.. and public trust.

One Last Chance To Avert This Squandering

There’s been little formal opportunity for the public to comment in this process. Indeed, the town has not formally contacted any of the adjacent property owners to Mr. Frazer’s three lots about this proposal.

A few days ago, one commissioner, Al Herlands, emailed a few residents asking for their opinion. And the town manager has said that he thinks the public can comment at the meeting on Thursday when the commissioners may vote on purchasing Mr. Frazer’s land.

This poorly-thought-out-land-deal is of concern not just to those within a block or two, but to anyone who til now thought that the residential zoning of the lot next door meant that…it was zoned residential. It’s of concern to anyone who wants to see the town’s money invested wisely, and fairly and not give guarantees of real estate profits to any one individual.

In this proposed purchase on South Water Street there is — and are — lots to be wary of. And scant few days to ask your Town Board to not make this huge mistake.

Al Herlands: alherlands@pinelink.org 249-0856
Barb Venturi: venturi@coastalnet.com 249-1141
Candy Bohmert: candy@pinelink.org
Nancy Inger: nancying@earthlink.net 249-7291
Warren Johnson kwjohnson@pamlico.net 249-1667

Posted Tuesday April 10, 2007 by Melinda Penkava

email this story | back to top