“New urban waterfront” planned in North Carolina

n Albemarle Sound in North Carolina, a 1,600-acre development called Sandy Point, part of which will feature a “new urban waterfront,” is expected to break ground in the next few months. Eagerly awaited by county and state officials, the 930-acre development will be supervised by Sam Young, who intends to demonstrate how communities can once again build right up to a waterfront without degrading the environment.
Young and the Fund for New Urbanism were invited to the area by a not-for-profit economic development organization, the Foundation of Renewal for Eastern North Carolina, which wanted to strengthen the economy of Clowan County. A conventional developer “typically would split the land into 75-foot lots, put in a pier, and screw up the estuary,” Young says. The aim at Sandy Point, eight miles from Edenton, an old town admired by urbanists, is to produce a more townlike pattern, with some houses built alongside or even on top of the water, yet without harming the area’s aesthetics or ecology.
As president of the Fund for Sandy Point LLC, a subsidiary of the Fund for New Urbanism, Young will be in charge of a construction project that could go on for 15 years. “This was the one project the Fund for New Urbanism was able to get going,” says Demetri Baches, who worked from 2002 to 2004 on organizing the Fund, owned by Young, Andres Duany, and businessman Wayne Huizenga.
The property includes 8,400 linear feet of shoreline bisected by a bridge that carries Rt. 32 across Albemarle Sound. West of the bridge, the plan calls for the densest part of the development, including a main street, a central square, a 41-acre “upland harbor,” live-work units, retirement apartment buildings, small shops, restaurants, and other housing and services.
The central square will have a broad flight of steps leading into the water of a harbor that is yet to be created. The idea is to build the plaza and steps on dry ground, and then excavate to form the harbor — a sequence that cuts costs. Houses will be built with porches extending out over the harbor. Underneath the porches will be boat slips. Building the houses first, and then excavating the harbor, will make construction of water’s-edge dwellings relatively economical.
The sheltered harbor will have little or no tide. Since Sandy Point sits an average of 10 feet above sea level — “relatively high land for this part of North Carolina” — Young is not concerned about the rising ocean levels that have been predicted to accompany global warming. As of early February, Young was looking for a project manager for the development.