Shell Island Newspaper Articles

Reprinted by permission of The News & Observer of Raleigh, North Carolina

July 21, 1999

The News & Observer

Court rules against resort on sea walls

By LAURIE WILLIS; STAFF WRITER

Page: A3

The N.C. Court of Appeals upheld the state's ban on sea walls Tuesday, a potentially fatal decision for owners of Shell Island Resort, a nine-story building on the tip of Wrightsville Beach that is in danger of falling into the ocean.

Shell Island Resort, which is protected from erosion now by a temporary line of sandbags, wants to build a sea wall and filed a lawsuit when the state said no.

Because the Court of Appeals' decision was unanimous, the resort has no automatic right of appeal to the state Supreme Court. But Kenneth A. Shanklin, one of two attorneys representing the Shell Island Homeowners Association Inc., said he expects to soon file a petition for discretionary review with the state's highest court.

Shanklin called Tuesday's decision disappointing but said the homeowners' focus now is on relocating Mason Inlet, which has migrated dangerously close to the resort.

The sandbags protecting Shell Island Resort are supposed to be removed in September, but Shanklin said homeowners will ask for an extension. He said the Coastal Resources Commission, meeting Friday in Elizabeth City, would be asked to extend the deadline by more than two years, to December 2001.

Environmentalists hailed the court's decision. They consider the sea wall ban, adopted in 1985 by the Coastal Resources Commission, as the centerpiece of the state's beach preservation effort.

"It upholds the sea wall ban across the board, and ... therefore we won't have sea walls up and down the coast, or people trying to build them," said Trip Van Noppen, attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center, which was allowed to intervene in the lawsuit in March 1998. "It protects other property owners and people's rights to use the beach. It's truly a big victory."

Todd Miller, executive director of the N.C. Coastal Federation, said that had Shell Island prevailed in its lawsuit, "thousands of others would follow, and it would be a very serious blow to protection efforts in North Carolina."

Shell Island Resort property owners first applied in 1995 for a permit to construct a steel and rock sea wall. The request was denied.

Then, in 1997, during their fourth hearing before the Coastal Re-sources Commission, they were granted a temporary, two-year permit to install sandbags that would give short-term protection to the hotel and condominium structure, built in1985 at a cost of $22 million. Simultaneously, homeowners wanted to dredge the property across the inlet and use the sand, but those plans fell through when the property owner would not allow the property to be used for a new inlet.

At that point, realizing sandbags alone wouldn't solve the problem, resort owners filed suit challenging the ban on sea walls, Shanklin said.

Despite the Court of Appeals ruling, Shanklin seemed hopeful that the millions of dollars spent by his clients on the resort won't eventually be washed away.

He said New Hanover County would take the lead in the proposed relocation of Mason Inlet and had hired an engineering firm to study the property that would be affected by the relocation, on Figure Eight Island and North Wrightsville Beach.

"The main focus of our client at this point is relocation of the inlet, and that has been for some time," Shanklin said. "That resolves everything, basically. It saves the building. It moves the inlet north. It's sort of a win-win situation for everyone."

But he still plans to ask the Supreme Court to review the Court of Appeals decision.

"We need to protect our client's rights in the interim until we've accomplished our goal of relocating the inlet, which could take a year or so," Shanklin said. "There are a number of state and federal agencies that must review our application to relocate the inlet. It's being prepared right now."

Section: News
Edition: Final
Estimated Printed Pages: 3

Index Terms:
Shell Island Resort
NC
coast
environment

Caption:
map; Proposed dredging area; Staff

Copyright 1999 by The News & Observer Pub. Co.

Record Number: 1999201130