The controversial effort by the Wilmington City Council to annex the community of Monkey Junction, which sparked protest and debate, including a lively public hearing that resulted in two arrests, came to a head on May 5 when the council voted 6-1 to annex the rapidly growing community.
The city’s move to absorb the community on the south side of the city raised again the issue of North Carolina’s one-sided law which allows municipalities to annex nearby property without giving the owners a vote in the matter.
The area in question forms an irregular triangle between and along Carolina Beach Road and South College Road. The new boundary forms a salient into an unincorporated area, leaving out densely built residential neighborhoods on either side but including several big-box retailers which have located along the busy thoroughfares. The area’s unique name came from a cage of monkeys set up at a gas station near the then-rural intersection to draw customers from the passing beach traffic. Long-time residents have shunned attempts to rename the community Myrtle Grove, and even the official annexation documents still call the area Monkey Junction.
Some 3,300 residents are included in the annexation, and many have made their opposition very clear. A public hearing on April 6 — the only one — drew hundreds of protesters to the meeting and the street outside. Police and fire personnel provided a beefed-up security presence, including escorts for council members and police snipers on surrounding rooftops. The protesters who filled the council chamber reportedly banged on the walls and chanted slogans; two men were arrested for disrupting an official meeting, a misdemeanor.
The annexation is justified by the city as a means of spreading the cost of “the advantages of living close to a city among those who benefit from them,” according to a page on the city’s Web site. Among advantages listed are city utility service, police and fire protection, and trash pickup.
However, plans under consideration or already announced indicate that some may see few additional services.
While law enforcement responsibilities will shift from the New Hanover County sheriff to the Wilmington Police Department, fire protection may actually be contracted with the Myrtle Grove Volunteer Fire Department, which already covers the Monkey Junction area. Residents of developments with private streets will continue to contract with private waste services rather than receiving city trash pickup.
Utilities will be more problematic. While the city of Wilmington no longer provides water and sewer service, having worked out an agreement with the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority to supply those services, residents inside city limits are required to connect if the lines are available. Monkey Junction homeowners with wells and septic systems will have six months to tie into the CFPUA water and sewer — then five years to pay off connection fees, which could run more than $2,000 for the lines plus another $179 for the meter. The city estimates 88 homeowners fall into this category.
New construction would be liable for the same installation fees to the city but also charged $8,300 in system development and connection fees by CFPUA.
Property taxes would provide the ongoing financial hit. New Hanover County charges 0.4525 per $100 valuation; after annexation, residents will pay that plus the city tax of 0.3325. The owner of a $250,000 home typical of the area would see his property tax rise by 73 percent, or $831 per year.
City Council member Kristi Tomey said that was a major issue in the “rowdy” protest at the public hearing. State law allows municipalities to annex county residents without their consent, thereby imposing taxation without representation, she said, so forced annexation was not the way cities should grow.
Tomey was the only council member who opposed the measure. The short timetable and involuntary nature of the Monkey Junction annexation did not allow residents adequate time to understand the impact and decide whether to stay or go, she said.
“I’ve voted for voluntary annexation every time it’s come before us,” said Tomey. “That’s the way it ought to happen. We’ve annexed some large tracts that way, but the people who move into those areas have the full knowledge of what that means.”
“The problem I have with the annexation is a little different,” said Jess Yates, a real estate broker with property in the area. “This is a peninsula like Manhattan, but it’s just urban sprawl here with poorly built one-, two-, and three story buildings. Wilmington doesn’t have any codes on the books to go vertical; they have no allowance for a high rise.”
Yates believes Wilmington’s historic district should be preserved but the area southward should be developed for corporate campuses, biotechnology firms, and other entrepreneurial uses. “If they would just show some competence and demonstrate they know how to create jobs, not just tax, tax, tax,” it would be different, he said. “You can’t have a downtown Wilmington mind-set for the other urban areas.”
If legal challenges to do not delay or halt the annexation, Monkey Junction will become part of the City of Wilmington in June of 2010. Then one benefit cited on the city’s Web site will strike a chord with its new citizens — the right to participate in municipal elections, echoed in a sign at the public hearing: “Vote Us In So We Can Vote You Out.”
Hal Young is a contributor to Carolina Journal.