Star News Online April 18, 2024:
Dr. Martin Smith, an environmental economics professor at Duke University, and McNamara created a new economic model called the Coastal Home Ownership Model (C-HOM) to analyze the long-term evolution of coastal real estate markets.
Smith said government actions to protect and enhance coastal communities from environmental risks, such as sea-level rise and stronger and more frequent hurricanes, helps support and boost property values.
“What it signals to the market is that this is a fine place to further invest,” he said.
Paradoxically, as property values increase and coastal communities become more wealthy, it becomes easier for officials to justify additional and more expensive projects to maintain that economic value in these increasingly vulnerable areas.
“We’re shielding these markets from the underlying risks they face, and hence propping up these markets,” McNamara said.
As erosion has increased thanks to sea-level rise and more frequent storms, that’s now been reduced to every couple years − a timeline that doesn’t include federal emergency beach-building projects after major storms. And as more towns see their beaches washing away and confront the high costs of nourishment, thanks to sand scarcity and increased environmental regulations, there is a growing chorus of communities who want their own federal nourishment project. Currently, New Hanover County’s three beach towns and Ocean Isle Beach in Brunswick County are the only North Carolina communities that are guaranteed a periodic injection of fresh sand largely funded by the federal government.
Critics say beach nourishment projects funded by federal taxpayers are bad long-term investments that literally just wash away, only benefit rich oceanfront property owners, and have to be repeated every few years to be truly effective. Backers claim beach-building projects are vital to keeping coastal economies running, protecting oceanfront properties and vital infrastructure, and helping communities hit hard by hurricanes rebound.
