• Adopted for public hearing the updated oceanfront erosion rates and accompanying changes to rule text.

• Adopted for public hearing a permanent rule that would create a general permit for the use of riprap groins along estuarine and public trust shorelines. The groin would qualify for the general permit as long as the structure extended no farther than 25 feet into the water. The rule would replace a temporary rule the CRC adopted last year.

• Adopted for public hearing a permanent rule that would amend the CRC’s variance criteria. The proposal would replace a temporary rule the CRC adopted last year.

• Certified an amendment to the North Topsail Beach CAMA Land-Use Plan.

• Denied a variance to Glen Sasser of Pender County, who sought relief from the CRC’s oceanfront setback rules so he could rebuild a house at Surf City. He also sought and was denied a variance from rules prohibiting the extension of frontal dunes in a seaward direction.

• Granted a variance to John Fulcher of Morehead City, who sought relief from the coastal shoreline buffer rules to build a house, septic field and gravel driveway on a lot along Glover’s Creek in Carteret County. The driveway would encroach into the 30-foot buffer.

• Granted a variance to Ernest and Connie Johnson of Fayetteville, who sought relief from the coastal shoreline buffer rules to build an uncovered deck adjacent to their house along a manmade canal at Holden Beach. The deck would encroach into the 30-foot buffer. The Johnsons will implement a stormwater management plan.

• Granted a variance to William Ellington Jr. of Raleigh, who sought relief from the coastal shoreline buffer rules to build a house on a lot he owns along the Intracoastal Waterway at Topsail Beach. The house would encroach into the 30-foot buffer. Ellington will implement a stormwater management plan.

• Granted a variance to George Rose of Fayetteville, who sought relief from the coastal shoreline buffer rules to build a house along a manmade canal on a lot at Holden Beach. The house would encroach into the 30-foot buffer. Rose will implement a stormwater management plan.

• Granted a variance to E. Steven Stroud of Carteret County, who sought relief from the CRC’s rules governing permit renewals to continue development of Broad Reach, a marina and residential subdivision along Bogue Sound and Sanders Bay in the community of Ocean. A condition of the variance requires that all non-water-dependent structures in the project comply with the CRC’s coastal shoreline buffer rules.

• Granted a variance to The Riggings Homeowners Association in Kure Beach to extend the condominium complex’s CAMA permit for sandbags for an additional two years. The permit was set to expire May 26. The association asked for the extra time so it could seek financial assistance for moving the erosion-threatened complex across U.S. Highway 421 from its current location.

• Issued a declaratory ruling that the replacement of existing over-water structures with a taller building in the Morehead City urban waterfront is consistent with the commission’s urban waterfront rules. Doug Brady of Morehead City requested the ruling.

During a telephone conference on April 30, the CRC granted a variance to the state Department of Transportation to temporarily use sheets of metal and an 8-foot-tall sandbag structure to protect a portion of N.C. Highway 12 in Kitty Hawk from erosion,

Other CRC actions from 2003: January

CRC Actions from 2002: January and February | April | July | October