THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 14, 1996 TAG: 9601140060
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY ANNE SAITA, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: COROLLA LENGTH: Long : 126 lines
Thomas Moore and his wife, Jean, were sold on their sound-front lot in Corolla Light because of the view and serenity the residential area in this bustling northern Outer Banks beach community promised.
The 13,000-square-foot, semi-wooded area was the place the northern Virginia attorneys picked to live out their golden years.
``But our dreams for our retirement are starting to look more like a nightmare,'' Moore said as he pointed to a community pool staked out just yards away from his lot.
Moore and his neighbor, James D. McNail of Saudi Arabia, have challenged a developer's request to have that residential lot rezoned to accommodate a 30-by-50-foot pool and decking next to their homes.
Richard Brindley, president of Outer Banks Ventures Inc., said last week that he is merely doing what a majority of property owners want by building a new pool in that precise location.
The issue could affect all landowners in Currituck County, because it focuses on how much protection the county can, or should, provide its property owners.
The Currituck County Board of Commissioners was scheduled to act on the request at Tuesday night's regular meeting in Currituck. The item, however, is likely to be continued to February to allow commissioners time to visit the site before making a decision.
``They're taking this one very seriously,'' said Jack Simoneau, the county's planning and inspections director.
Commissioners must approve any changes made to the master plan of a planned development, such as the 10-year-old Corolla Light subdivision. But there is no limit to the amendments a developer can make.
In the past, Outer Banks Ventures has made other requests for changes and had them promptly approved - even after receiving opposition from landowners.
This time, the five-member county board tabled action on the issue for about a month.
Moore claims he was promised that the area on Hampton Street would remain residential, free of commercial or recreational activities. High-growth wetlands prevent extensive development along the shoreline, he said.
The Moores, who also own an oceanfront house in nearby Whalehead Beach, paid $165,000 for their Corolla Light land in August 1993. Their next-door neighbors, the McNails, paid the same price a year later for a similarly sized lot.
McNail is stationed in Saudi Arabia but said in a Dec. 10 letter to Moore that he, too, was told lots surrounding his property would remain residential.
The rezoning request ``came as a complete surprise to us and we are extremely upset at the prospect of not being able to enjoy the property we originally envisaged,'' McNail wrote.
McNail asked Moore to speak on his behalf against the proposal at a commissioners' meeting held Dec. 18.
At that meeting, Moore told the board that he and the McNails ``paid an extravagant price for sound-front lots in a residential neighborhood so that we could build our retirement - not rental - homes.
``Neither we, nor anyone else of sound mind, would ever have paid the developer's premium prices for this residential property if the developer had disclosed that a huge community pool with public restroom facilities could, or would, be built within a literal arm's length of our properties,'' Moore continued.
``There is absolutely no question that siting the pool on Lot 549 substantially and negatively impacts both the economic value of the adjacent properties and the use and enjoyment of them.''
Brindley disagreed that property values would automatically fall.
``It's just not true,'' he said.
``If you were in a small, quaint town where everybody didn't rent by the week, that might be true,'' Brindley said. ``But amenities here improve the property values.''
The developer was contractually required to build another pool after he sold the Bell Tower Station property and pool to a private firm, which turned it into the Inn at Corolla Light.
By the time of the sale, a task force already had begun a search for a pool and pier replacement. Surveyed property owners favored a soundside location over a third oceanfront pool, Corolla Light officials said.
Among the suggested locations were the southernmost end of Hampton Street and an area immediately behind the development's sports center.
The lot near the Moores was first introduced at a September 1995 Corolla Light Community Association board of directors meeting and given to the task force to consider, Moore said.
``And we did consider it. And it became the least favored'' option, said Moore, who served on the task force with this wife.
The community association directors unanimously approved that same lot about a month later.
Brindley sits on the board, but he said he did not vote on the issue.
Moore said the general membership never voted on the proposed location at its annual meeting in October.
Instead, it was presented as a done deal, he said. Others say Lot 549 was indeed preferred by most property owners.
``We, naturally, would like to have it there because it was a unanimous vote on the part of the directors, and it was done after the consensus of the homeowners,'' said Bill Futch, the current president of the community association.
``We have so much traffic on the ocean during the summer, we'd like to have some of that traffic on the oceanside come over to the soundside, too,'' he said.
That's precisely why Moore opposes the measure.
``I'm going to be living next to Coney Island,'' he said repeatedly.
Moore believes that particular parcel was selected, with Brindley's encouragement, because land next to it already had been sold and Outer Banks Ventures would only lose 50 percent of its investment if no one wanted to buy the lots on the other side of the pool.
All of the lots around that area are still for sale. But Brindley said Lot 549 is closest to Currituck Sound and, like the Moores' property, offers a great view of the Whalehead Club and Corolla Lighthouse.
Futch said the pool will include a shrubbery buffer and restricted operating hours. With parking very limited, a trolley would probably transport guests, he said.
``If they rule in favor of Tom Moore, then I guess we'll go back to the drawing board and start looking for another location,'' said Futch, who lives in Richmond and owns two Corolla properties.
``But right now, that's the place where we want it.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
DREW C. WILSON /The Virginian-Pilot
Thomas Moore, with his dog, Winston, looks at stakes and string
marking the proposed location for a swimming pool in the Corolla
Light subdivision. Moore opposes the site, which adjoins his lot.
by CNB