THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, July 13, 1996 TAG: 9607130005
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: 53 lines
Regarding staff writer Catherine Kozak's excellent article on the tremendous growth and change along the Outer Banks during the past decade (MetroNews, July 7): Her staggering statistics, showing some local businesses and governments with double to triple growth over that 10-year period simply confirm what many observers thought was taking place. Fortunately, most of the local-government units have taken advantage of their increased tax base to reduce the tax rate.
As one who deals in history, however, I am compelled to point out that there is nothing new about all this. Beginning in the decade of the 1950s and into the 1990s, the rate of growth has remained quite consistent. We started out then, for example, with a single part-time deputy sheriff covering the entire beach area from Oregon Inlet to Duck. In each of the succeeding decades, the police presence has increased until we are now served by five different police forces under municipal and county jurisdiction, with something like 50 trained police officers on full-time duty.
The vital question, however, is not what has taken place in the past decade, or even in the past five decades, but what will happen in the next one. With the huge number of real-estate projects under way or anticipated; with the proliferation of large new business operations; and with expanding private and public promotional efforts designed to bring more people down here, can there be any question that the massive growth will continue apace for the next decade?
The initial warning of overgrowth this time will be increasing traffic congestion. During earlier periods of great expansion, the answer was simple: Build more roads! When the two-lane beach highway became too crowded, a 150-foot right-of-way was acquired for construction of a parallel two-lane thoroughfare. When this became too crowded, it was expanded to three lanes and finally to five.
Suggestions in the 1960s that a third right-of-way should be acquired for an eventual limited-access bypass while the land was still available were dismissed by the planners in Raleigh. Construction of a sixth lane is now being discussed by highway officials as the next - and final - improvement. What happens after that?
In a 1973 speech to the Dare County Board of Realtors (of which I was a founder), I challenged my fellow Realtors to take the lead in developing long-range plans for the Outer Banks, taking into special consideration protection and preservation of the numerous natural resources with which we had been blessed. ``In our quest for growth and so-called progress,'' I asked, ``is it possible that we are gradually destroying the very things which make us love the Outer Banks and attracted us here in the first place?''
Nearly a quarter of a century later, it seems appropriate to ask that same question again.
DAVID STICK
Kitty Hawk, N.C., July 7, 1996 by CNB