NEW HANOVER COUNTY, NC (WWAY) — New Hanover County will be updating the 2016 Comprehensive Plan and one of the changes will be determining policies for the land within unincorporated New Hanover County on the western side of the Cape Fear River.
Monday, planning staff will be presenting to New Hanover County commissioners the initial concepts for that amendment.
This planning study was initiated in spring 2023 after two work sessions in 2023 and a staff analysis of potential technical studies. According to New Hanover County, the current vision for the Western Bank was established over twenty years ago. While new commercial zoning designations were applied to Eagles Island and a Riverfront Mixed Use zoning district was established in the County zoning ordinance to support that vision and later incorporated in the 2016 Comprehensive Plan, efforts to bring it to fruition stalled.
In recent years, parcels in the study area have been the subject of two major development proposals, which were met by sizable community concern, highlighting discrepancies between the long-time vision for this area, the current conditions and use of the properties, the expectations of many members of the public, the desires of landowners, and the concerns of community members who have observed how this area has been changing over the past 5-10 years as sunny day flooding has increased.
Over the course of this study, planning staff have conducted three analyses. The first is a high-level feasibility analysis to summarize what is currently known about what is possible on the parcels of the Western Bank given current conditions, planned changes in the area, and the availability of necessary resources.
Based on that, an uncertainty analysis was conducted to identify what impacts could be expected or anticipated given uncertain levels of future development and uncertain changing environmental conditions related to flooding.
A risk analysis framework outlining the level of staff -recommended risk tolerance, which was developed as part of the County’s resiliency working group’s study over the past year to assist in making decisions related to uncertain future risk, was then used to identify the regulations, programs, and investments that could assist in mitigating those risks.
The full Western Bank Study will be posted here after that presentation.
The county says the study and presentation are just the initial steps in this process and there will be a series of public hearings and discussions with the Planning Board and Board of Commissioners this winter before anything is adopted.