Save Sledge Forest
ACTION ALERT!
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ACTION ALERT! *
Save Sledge Forest Statement
REGARDING THE PROPOSAL OF A SINGLE ACCESS FOR THE HILTON BLUFFS DEVELOPMENT
Information obtained through a public records request has revealed a troubling timeline of events over the last several months involving Copper Builders and the proposed Hilton Bluffs development.
All of us at Save Sledge Forest are deeply concerned by what these records reveal. We encourage everyone to read the timeline for themselves. It presents the documented events without hyperbole, rhetoric, or speculation. We believe the facts speak for themselves.
And we believe those facts raise serious questions about transparency, accountability, and, at the very least, whether Copper Builders has earned the trust of this community. We believe the public deserves answers to these deeply concerning revelations.
Some important context: the NC Fire Code generally requires developments of more than 100 one- or two-family dwellings to have two separate and approved fire apparatus access roads. The code provides an exception when a second access is determined to be “technically infeasible.” {Section D107.1]
Hilton Bluffs proposes 1,800 single-family homes - eighteen times the 100-home threshold at which two access roads are ordinarily required.
The timeline begins in May 2026, after two separate groups appealed the conditional approval of the Hilton Bluffs preliminary plan on March 10, 2026 – a plan that included two access roads and a third emergency access.
From the filing of those appeals through the morning of the July 20 hearing, Copper Builders was vigorously defending—publicly and legally—its right to build a bridge connecting Hilton Bluffs to the Marathon Colony neighborhood as its required second access, as well as an emergency access through the Wooden Shoe neighborhood.
But the public records reveal that, during this same period, Copper Builders was also communicating privately with the New Hanover County Fire Marshal - outside of the TRC process and without notifying any interested parties, including the County - and presenting a very different picture of the options.
According to a letter from the Fire Marshal written on July 23rd, when the developer contacted his office in June, before the July 20th BOA hearing, “it was stated that the surrounding property owners had denied any easement or access through their properties and the remaining land was impassable or wetlands, making no other access point available.”
Yet, at that same time, the developer was still representing two other access points as “viable possibilities” to other county departments, in active litigation, in its conditionally approved TRC plans, and to the public.
Based on the initial information provided by Copper Builders, the Fire Marshal issued a June 24 determination allowing them to use the Fire Code's “technically infeasible” exception, providing only a single access in and out of the proposed development.
With that determination in hand, Copper Builders subsequently offered a settlement that one of the two appellant groups accepted. As part of that settlement, Copper voluntarily agreed to remove both the Marathon Colony second access and the Wooden Shoe emergency access from its plan if they dropped their lawsuit and appeal. When it announced the settlement on July 20, Copper Builders did not disclose where another required second access might be located.
Then, less than a month after issuing his original determination, the Fire Marshal rescinded it.
The Fire Marshal’s July 23 letter states that information shared with his office in June “did not fully reflect the circumstances that existed at the time the determination was requested.” He further concluded that because the developer “had not yet exhausted the potential for two additional fire apparatus access roads,” his original determination had been “premature”.
Copper Builders cannot rationally claim that providing a second access is infeasible when it had two approved options and voluntarily traded them away.
Copper Builders has appealed the county Fire Marshal rescission to the State Fire Marshal, and we are awaiting a decision.
Where does that leave things now?
It is difficult to imagine an 1,800-home development—with almost 15,000 projected daily vehicle trips—depending upon a single point of access. Yet under the exception Copper Builders is pursuing, that remains a possibility.
When we take into account that portions of this property are in a FEMA floodplain; this is a hurricane prone coastal community; a designated hazardous waste site borders the property; and the property is surrounded on three sides by tidal waters, the question becomes: Should the builder be allowed to avoid safety regulations and endanger thousands of people in order to eke profit out of land that may simply not be suitable for the kind of development he wants to build?
Save Sledge Forest will continue to insist that the safety and rights of the people who live here—and those who may live here in the future—must take priority over making this development work.
If a project can only proceed by repeatedly seeking revisions, exceptions, and workarounds to overcome the limitations of its site, perhaps the question is no longer how to make Hilton Bluffs fit here—but whether it belongs here at all.
We encourage everyone to email the Technical Review Committee before its September 2nd meeting with your comments, questions, and concerns.
CLICK HERE FOR POINTS TO CONSIDER FOR YOUR COMMENTS
Robert Farrell: rfarrell@nhcgov.com Development Review Supervisor
Zachary Dickerson : zdickerson@nhcgov.com Senior Development Review Planner
Amy Doss: adoss@nhcgov.com Development Review Planner
Katherine May: kmay@nhcgov.com Development Review Planner
Ryan Beil: rbeil@nhcgov.com Development Review Planner
Rebekah Roth: rroth@nhcgov.com Planning Dept. Director
Send a copy to County Commissioners: nhccommissioners@nhcgov.com
Protecting our last, largest expanse of
Old Growth Forest in New Hanover County.
Sledge Forest is a local natural treasure Spread across over 4000 acres in Castle Hayne.
Recognized as harboring some of the last, best examples of this ecoregion’s globally significant habitats and biodiversity, Sledge Forest is now threatened to be destroyed forever with the plan to build 4000+ homes for developer profit at public risk.
Remaining mostly untouched through 6000 years of habitat evolution, it is a biodiverse community of plants & animals, including 350-year-old pine trees more than 60’ tall and cypress dated more than 500 years, with a vast array of rare and imperiled plants and wildlife that need Sledge Forest as their home.
It is considered by the NC Heritage Program to be of National Significance.
LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR CAUSE
Get information on Sledge Forest and the proposed development and how that will affect the local community.
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More About Sledge Forest and Why It Needs Protection
Sledge Forest is a 4,000-acre piece of the Northeast Cape Fear River Significant Natural Heritage Area, located in northern New Hanover County and recognized as harboring some of the last best examples of this ecoregion’s globally significant habitats and biodiversity, and now threatened to be destroyed for developer profit at public risk.
We want policymakers to ask themselves a question: “What could possibly go wrong with packing 4,000 houses into this flood-hazard area, potentially threatened with contamination from toxic chemicals at the nearby Hazardous Waste site, and adding an estimated 30,000+ daily car trips to an already congested two-lane emergency evacuation road?
Though originally zoned for Conservation, Wetland Protection, and Aquifer Recharge, Sledge Forest’s natural importance was put aside in 2016 when policymakers arbitrarily rezoned the property to allow high-density development in flooded swamp forest that supports 500-year-old baldcypress. Developing Sledge Forest could also potentially destroy one of the world’s last intact stands of old-growth, 300-year-old Longleaf Pine, the State Tree of North Carolina.
Our petition is in keeping with the First Amendment: “…the right of the people…to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
To date, no policymaker questions have been asked or answered about risk, public safety, and environmental protections. Legal loopholes in county planning excludes county taxpayers from the opportunity to have their concerns heard by policymakers.
Again, Save Sledge Forest is calling on policymakers to pause and think about consequences of adding thousands of houses in a flood prone area that’s only served by an already traffic-congested two-lane road. We also want questions answered about nearby toxic plumes of chemical compounds
Make your voice heard while you can. Sign our petition, donate to the cause, and help Save Sledge Forest—our future generation’s by-right natural heritage.
