Proposed bill could remove 11 homes from Oak Island Town Limits
OAK ISLAND, NC (WWAY) — A group of homeowners in the Oakwood Glen neighborhood are pushing for a change they say is long overdue — and a new bill at the state level could finally make it happen. But not everyone is on board.
James Rowsey built his home in Oakwood Glen back in 2006, just a few years before the neighborhood was annexed into the town of Oak Island.
“I’m not sure how many years it’s been, but quite a while. And, um, they stopped forced annexation, so they didn’t get to bring in those other properties. So we’re kind of here by ourselves,” Rowsey said.
Rowsey is one of eleven homeowners in Oakwood Glen who are technically part of Oak Island. The rest of the neighborhood, however, is not.
Those other residents only pay taxes to Brunswick County — while Rowsey and ten others pay both county and town taxes.
“We’re only a couple people in the whole development that are part of Oak Island — and we were told the whole development would be… but it’s not. So that doesn’t seem very fair,” he said.
On Tuesday night, the Oak Island Town Council voted 3 to 2 to oppose House Bill 338. The bill, filed by Representative Charlie Miller, would remove Rowsey’s home and ten others from the town limits.
Council Member Bob Ciullo expressed concern about the broader impact of the legislation.
“These other homeowners in the neighborhood — they could, one by one, approach Representative Miller and say, ‘You know what? We want what they got. We don’t want to pay town taxes anymore.’ So it could happen on the island, it could happen in other areas and the mainland. It opens a door that probably should stay shut,” Ciullo said.
Representative Miller has also filed a similar bill for the town of Southport, which their Board of Aldermen also formally opposed.
Ciullo also noted that if the town loses those 11 homes, it would lose about $6,000 a year in property tax revenue.
WWAY has reached out to Representative Charlie Miller for comment. As of this writing, he has not responded.
