Plans to expand an Oak Island hotel were reworked after the town’s council expressed opposition to the aesthetic changes proposed, but the special use permit the project requires has still not been granted.
Kuntal Gandhi purchased the Ocean Crest Motel on Oak Island some three years ago after a building on the property burned down in 2019. The property, at 1425 E. Beach Drive, consists of three buildings and a pool. Gandhi submitted an application to the town for a special use permit to build a 20,000-square-foot addition to the hotel, totaling 51 rooms and three stories, and adding to the 43 rooms already on the beachfront site.
The application for the special-use permit was initially submitted in September, having been postponed on a few occasions by the applicant for various reasons and twice due to inclement weather.
A quasi-judicial hearing regarding the project was held at the board’s February meeting. There, council members raised concerns about the aesthetics of the proposed project. Members of the council argued the plans presented clashed aesthetically with other nearby buildings, one going as far as likening the proposed project to “something that landed from Mars.”
At that meeting, Oak Island Mayor Elizabeth White expressed concern that the expansion was not “harmonious with the surrounding area” and said the expansion looked like a “Hotel 6.”
The hearing was eventually paused and recessed to the board’s March meeting, with White urging the developer to present something more consistent with the area’s other beachfront properties.
“Show us something that we’d be glad to put into our community. Imagine yourself waking up across the street to this,” White said.
By March, Gandhi had retained Grady Richardson, a Wilmington-based attorney. Richardson initially requested to continue the hearing to April, but, unsure if it would be granted, withdrew that request at the council’s March meeting.
The last-minute move seemed to frustrate and confuse some council members and resulted in a more than 40-minute discussion at the start of the March meeting, with members of council saying they didn’t have time to prepare questions that may arise from the newly submitted designs and that members of the public who may have wanted to participate in the hearing were under the impression the hearing was moved to April.
Richardson pointed out that no members of the public signed up to speak in opposition to the project in February, nor did any sign up to speak about the project at the March meeting.
“’That ship has sailed’ would be my position on that,” Richardson said. “We had a duly noticed hearing Feb. 13 and no one signed up in opposition to it.”
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Richardson made it clear he was ready to hold the hearing in March, but the council ultimately voted to postpone the hearing to the April 9 meeting.
Jamey Cross covers Brunswick County for the StarNews. Reach her at [email protected] or message her on Twitter/X @jameybcross.