State Purchase Would Expand Bird Island Coastal Reserve

The State of North Carolina has set aside $2.5 million to buy 35 acres of land at Sunset Beach that would become part of the Bird Island Coastal Reserve, news reports say.

The purchase would also end a decade-long fight between developers and local residents who do not want to see high-end homes built on the barrier island’s marshlands and dunes.

Bird Island is a 1,300-acre preserve of beach, title creeks, marsh and other wetlands at the southwestern tip of Sunset Beach in Brunswick County. It is home to nesting loggerhead sea turtles and seabeach amaranth, both endangered species.

> See our look at the Bird Island Coastal Reserve near Sunset Beach.

The News & Observer and the Coastal Review Online report that legislators put $2.5 million into the state budget to buy land adjacent to Bird Island that was slated to become the Sunset Beach West resort. The reports detail the fight over the tract of land that involved developers, town and county leaders, state legislators, the N.C. Coastal Federation and the Southern Environmental Law Center.

In November 2017, the Sunset Beach Town Council approved a memorandum of agreement granting the developers the right to negotiate selling the land to the state. The agreement says the land will never be developed and will remain without hiking trails, walkways, wooden decks or bathrooms.

Developer Sammy Varnam told Coastal Review Online in a text, “Per the settlement agreement with the town of Sunset Beach, we offered to sell the 25 acres of oceanfront property to the state of North Carolina for the Bird Island expansion.”

Last week, Varnam told The N&O that, “Everything’s pending. That’s the only comment I’ve got.”

The state Department of Environmental Quality, which manages the Bird Island Coastal Reserve, said Varnam is in the process of getting the property appraised, which will determine the next steps, according to The N&O. Sometimes a second appraisal is required.

Bird Island is open to the public and reached by walking the beach or from the end of Main Street, where there’s parking and public beach access. The “island” is known to many for its “Kindred Spirit” mailbox, where visitors stop to write their thoughts or read what others have said.