The town and a group of property owners have finally settled a controversy that has dragged on for more than a decade over the fate of beachfront construction in Singleton Beach.
Under a compromise agreed to last month, the town will allow the handful of owners who bought beachfront lots to build closer to the ocean than previously allowed. The move will allow the owners to finally build houses on the empty lots, though not as large as they had originally hoped. Some of the lots, for instance, gained an extra 5 feet over the state setback line, the line that acts like a stop sign for beachfront development.
The town agreed to the compromise because it felt the property owners were caught in the middle of a fight. When the lots were originally sold 10 years ago, the developer told the buyers they would be able to build massive beachfront homes in an area already filled with million-dollar homes. But while state environmental officials agreed to shift the setback line toward the ocean, the town vetoed the move, saying the beach there was still unstable. It said encouraging development to encroach on the beach went against its policies of protecting the beachfront. Even if it was stable, the town argued it wasn’t spending $20 million to pump 2.7 million cubic yards of sand onto the shoreline as part of its renourishment projects just to benefit property owners who want to move closer to the water. The original developer of the site argued that state environmental officials had deemed the area stable and that the town was unfairly singling them out.
“We had some somewhat innocent parties,” town manager Steve Riley said. “People bought lots based on representation that was false.” The buildable area on the lots is still small, Riley said, but increases the allowed overall building size enough so that the owners can move forward with construction.
