05/23/2024
Hi Neighbors!
Your help is needed to email the members of the Currituck County Board of Commissioners asking them to adopt rules that the County Planning Commission just unanimously agreed to recommend to the Board of Commissioners for approval regarding large Corolla developments like the proposed 172-room hotel at Herring and Rt 12. The new recommended rules would require a public hearing to review large developments in Corolla that include review of impacts on Corolla traffic, stormwater retention, and potential injury to adjoining property owners among other impacts. The new hearing requirement would also enable the Community to present experts on the impacts of very large developments such as the proposed hotel. This review would be required for any commercial or multi-use development in Corolla exceeding 30,000 square feet, and any hotel of >=50 rooms.
A major concern about the proposed hotel (which would be the largest in Corolla’s history) and other very large developments in Corolla is traffic safety. A fear is that the huge, proposed hotel and a proposed 127-unit multi-family complex on that same location, will create traffic congestion causing visitors to use Corolla Drive, the residential side street that parallels route 12 for about 3 miles, as a through street, and would endanger pedestrians that walk across and along it daily in the summer to reach the beach. The County adopted a land use plan that directed its rules to be changed to require a traffic impact analysis for developments that would result in a significant increase in vehicle activity, but it was never implemented. With the proposed rule change, a developer of large Corolla projects like the proposed hotel would have to submit a traffic impact analysis prepared by a professional engineer for review by the County’s elected Board of Commissioners at a public hearing. At that hearing the Community would also have an opportunity to present its own traffic impact analysis by an expert.
If you share concerns that high density projects like the hotel will damage Corolla as a family friendly, safe vacation destination, please email the Board of Commissioners. The link below provides an example of a letter you can use…feel free to copy and modify to make it your own. Also below is a photo of this example letter. The link to the emails of the Board of Commissioners members: Board of Commissioners – Currituck County (currituckcountync.gov)
TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE. The Board of Commissioners will hear and likely decide whether to adopt these new rules recommended by its own appointed Planning Board at its June 3, 2024, meeting. They need to hear from the community and visitors before that time. THANK YOU for your participation in this important matter for our Corolla community.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jgaG8OLUZ19UQcTxMarrj9AOktAcpI9y/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=118016465385657730857&rtpof=true&sd=true
