Wanchese cluster home plan not on March 6 Dare Board agenda, but it gets talked about anyway

By Mark Jurkowitz | Outer Banks Voice on March 9, 2023

Lorraine Tillett asked the commissioners to oppose the cluster home development.

While a discussion and vote on a special use permit for a 60-unit Wanchese cluster home project were not on the agenda for the March 6 Dare County Board of Commissioners meeting, those in attendance got a little taste of what is likely to occur when it does come to the board, perhaps next month.

As proposed, the project is planned for a 10.5-acre parcel of land off Old Wharf Road in Wanchese. The proposal, by developer Brad Alexander of Aria Construction & Development in Creswell, calls for 36 two-bedroom houses and 24 three-bedroom houses with one car allowed for each bedroom.

While Dare Commissioner Chairman Bob Woodard explained that the item was not on March 6 agenda because the board is “waiting for a transportation study from NCDOT,” a half dozen Wanchese residents took the podium during the public comment portion of the meeting to voice their opposition to the project.

This comes in the wake of the Feb. 7 Dare County Planning Board meeting at which the members voted that a special use permit “was reasonable and appropriate for the proposed use” and moved the project forward to the county commissioners.

Among the Wanchese project opponents who spoke at the March 6 meeting, Lorraine Tillett told the commissioners that “Our community trusted you to protect our zoning. Please do not betray our trust [and] protect our village and our way of life.”

Sandra Barile asserted that, “We are not against development, but this is not what Wanchese wants.” In his comments, Ralph Barile stated that some of his friends who had looked at the proposal told him that “this looks like Section 8 housing.” Section 8 is a federal program that provides housing subsidies for low-income, elderly and disabled individuals.

Toward the end of the meeting, Woodard appeared to directly address Barile’s remarks when he asserted that, “I would like to make it very, very, very, very clear that this is not, and I repeat not, Section 8 housing. It is a proposal for market rate housing…Not sure where the misconception comes from.”

Woodard did not say when he expected the NCDOT transportation study to be ready, so it’s unclear if the cluster home project will be on the agenda for the next commissioners’ meeting. In the meantime, a Wanchese source told the Voice that another community meeting on the issue will be held on March 14 at 6:30 p.m. at the Wanchese Community Building.

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