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For those of you, like myself, who may be considering Wilmington as a relocation spot, this article in the newspaper today is not encouraging.
Residents will pay for officials' sins
Federal and state officials have finally had enough of repeated sewage spills in Wilmington and New Hanover County. But the people who will pay to fix the fiasco aren't the elected officials and public employees who delayed and dithered as pipes rotted.
The people who will pay are those whose jobs are tied to building. The people who will pay are those who hoped to move into new houses or commercial spaces that the state says can't hook up to the sieve-like sewer system. The people who will pay are the taxpayers.
This "hard" moratorium - unlike the featherbed version tried earlier - could do significant damage to the local economy. Certainly, major companies won't move here if they can't hook up to the sewer.
Yet if it's the state's moratorium that's likely to have the worst immediate impact, the disgrace of being chastised by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency won't do much for our reputation as a good place to live and do business.
The EPA counts at least 103 sewage spills that "reached waters of the United States" since 2001. It has summoned city officials to Atlanta to explain why they - meaning Wilmington taxpayers - shouldn't be fined.
Mayor Bill Saffo, who wasn't in office during the years in which the city let the sewer go to pot, is saying the right things - that Wilmington is doing its best to fix what's wrong.
Understandably, the chairman of the Board of Realtors is finding it a little more difficult to remain calm. Jonathan Barfield calls the latest actions against the city "bad, bad, bad."
True, true, true. Not to mention deserved, deserved, deserved.
A word of caution. I live in Wilmington, and don't get me wrong, I'm head over heels for that town. It's perfect, but....be fore warned. Wilmington has the highest cost of living with the lowest paying jobs of any other city in all of North Carolina. I personally have met several elderly people who say that they have been forced to come out of retirement to pick up a job just to pay their increased property tax. I make $48,500 dollars a year, and my wife makes around $18,000 dollars a year. That's a total combined income of $66,500 dollars a year. On average, that's not bad at all, but in Wilmington we are practically living paycheck to paycheck. But just to give you an idea of how things can be in Wilmington, take the house I live in for example. My wife bought it three and a half years ago for 97,000 dollars. We recently had it re-appraised, and in that short amount of time the value of our house has gone up to about 160,000 dollars. Sounds good, but the property tax went up too. In the local beach area, Wrightsville Beach, in one year the price of parking for an hour went up from 50 cents to about 2 dollars. To go out and have a decent meal, you are looking at speding at least 60-70 dollars. Along with the cost of living on the rise, so has crime. My neighborhood used to be one that I felt safe in. In a very short amount of time, (one year) I have had things stolen out of my back yard, friends of ours with children have had people running from the police hop their fence and go through thier back yard. There has been a middle-age male individual come to their door at 9:30 at night in an old Volvo trying to solicit child-care services from his home. To top it off, just yesterday, my wife was home alone, and saw a young individual trying to break into our neighbor's house when they wern't home in broad day-light. The perpatrator ran off when he saw my wife looking at him through the window, but now I have to worry about someone trying to come back and harm my wife because she saw him try to commit a crime. All-in-all, things need to change in this region. With all the problems that have arisen in this reagion, they are not going to lower the cost of living, they can't, there's too much to pay for, but they need to do something to ease the preasures placed upon honest hard-working citizens, who on average have a decent salary, but are strggling.
Makes one wonder of moving to the coast is really a good investment..
all my NY friends have moved to the Cary/Raleigh area and I am the only one going to the coast..makes me really like the idea of being a renter until I see for myself... Leaving NY because of stress..lol.. Maybe I am going straight back into the frying pan....Now I hear the apt I want to rent has water that smells like sulfur...Up around Porter's Neck...Grrrr... what's next???
We're on the North side off Murrayville road(Brookside Gardens) in a so called gated area and one week when the gate wasn't working properly,several cars that were parked in driveways were broken into.We always keep ours in the garage,but this is a little frustrating also when you think you live in a safe gated area and pay huge bucks to the Homeowners association because it's gated,etc.
We've seen a huge rise in crime downtown(and it seems to be getting closer to home)in the three years we've been living here.
Victoria.1-I'd think long and hard before I moved here.Yes-renting would be the wisest thing to do until you're absolutely sure.We wish we had done that because with the economy and housing market the way it is now,it's almost impossible to sell our home now or anytime in the near future.Honest and struggling is right-the cost of living is way too high and the wages are way too low and the crime is way too high for a town this size.
For those of you, like myself, who may be considering Wilmington as a relocation spot, this article in the newspaper today is not encouraging.
Residents will pay for officials' sins
Federal and state officials have finally had enough of repeated sewage spills in Wilmington and New Hanover County. But the people who will pay to fix the fiasco aren't the elected officials and public employees who delayed and dithered as pipes rotted.
The people who will pay are those whose jobs are tied to building. The people who will pay are those who hoped to move into new houses or commercial spaces that the state says can't hook up to the sieve-like sewer system. The people who will pay are the taxpayers.
This "hard" moratorium - unlike the featherbed version tried earlier - could do significant damage to the local economy. Certainly, major companies won't move here if they can't hook up to the sewer.
Yet if it's the state's moratorium that's likely to have the worst immediate impact, the disgrace of being chastised by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency won't do much for our reputation as a good place to live and do business.
The EPA counts at least 103 sewage spills that "reached waters of the United States" since 2001. It has summoned city officials to Atlanta to explain why they - meaning Wilmington taxpayers - shouldn't be fined.
Mayor Bill Saffo, who wasn't in office during the years in which the city let the sewer go to pot, is saying the right things - that Wilmington is doing its best to fix what's wrong.
Understandably, the chairman of the Board of Realtors is finding it a little more difficult to remain calm. Jonathan Barfield calls the latest actions against the city "bad, bad, bad."
True, true, true. Not to mention deserved, deserved, deserved.
my property taxes went up 11% last year. bill saffo broke ground on a convention center before he fixed existing problems. this is just the tip of the iceberg around here. wilmington is so 10 years ago, and now it's overrun with refugees.
AMEN Jmarquise! You are absolutely right and you only scratched the surface. There's not enough time or room to cover everything on here,but if people who are thinking of moving here knew it all,they wouldn't give it a another thought. They would stay put or diligently try to find somewhere else to go.
Wilmington is a beautiful city, but it is only affordable to those moving here from up north. It is overpopulated and since it's 'cornered up' there's no room to grow. Traffic it pathetic! Road construction is everywhere, always trying to catch up, never succeeding.
I moved here 5 years ago when newlywed to start out a new life. I'm telling you, it's hard! The job market stinks and is way under paid in comparison to the cost of living.
Just look at the real estate market, a few years ago with 120K you could buy a decent starter home. Nowadays you can barely buy a doublewide with that. But salaries remain the same. Unless you make 6 figures or more you won't be living 'confortably'.
It's the price to pay for living at the beach. To me it's not worth it, I'm looking to relocate before my kids have to start school.
I would like to add another factor to consider when choosing a home in coastal nc: We are having a record breaking drought now, which is why so many home are being built quickly. areas that were swampy are now passing perk tests, and that is all that is required to build! I watched an entire subdivision go up by me here on hwy 211 in brunswick county where we used to ride our kayaks just a couple years ago. It was total swamp!
When the rains return, God help the people in those low lying areas where all those trees were cleared out.
Right on.......As much as I love the beach,it's definitely not worth it. We made a HUGE mistake moving here. We're going to try and correct it as soon as the economy and housing market improves.
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A word of Caution
