South Avenue Closing: Financial Folly?

It may be financial folly for the Town of Oriental to own waterfront property in fee simple instead of in trust for the public.

The Town should review North Carolina Administrative Code Title 15A, Chapter 7, Coastal Management. The Town should also review its own CAMA land use plan, adopted five years ago. Taken together, both the policy of the State of North Carolina and the plans and policy of the Town of Oriental support public access to public trust waters through dedicating access points to the public. State policy strongly and explicitly encourages use of street ends as water access points.

CAMA/SeaGrant funding to acquire water access points requires the points to be dedicated to the public in perpetuity.

CAMA grants for improvement of water access facilities that are not so dedicated must be repaid on a proportional basis if the property is ever sold. For property with a cost basis of zero, the repayment might be very high indeed.

The effect of the Town's stubborn insistence on fee simple ownership instead of public dedication may be that the Town won't be able to get CAMA/SeaGrant funds for improvements to or maintenance of Municipal-owned property that is not dedicated to public use, or that the Town may find conditions of such funds prohibit accepting them.

Has the Town Board looked into this possible consequence of actions they are about to take?