Wetlands in New Hanover County, North Carolina: The Sledge Forest Controversy and What It Teaches

A 4,000-home proposal collides with a state-protected wetland forest

Copper Builders has proposed developing roughly 4,000 single-family homes on a 4,000-acre property in Castle Hayne, in the northern part of New Hanover County, that includes a previously undeveloped area known as Sledge Forest. Part of that acreage carries a specific, meaningful state designation: it's classified as an Exceptional Significant Natural Heritage Area, a category that under state guidance requires at least 90% of the designated acreage to be preserved -- meaning development on that specific portion of the site is supposed to be confined to roughly 10% of it, not the developer's preferred layout for the whole tract.

That designation, on its own, would already make Sledge Forest a genuinely distinctive site. What makes it directly useful for any land buyer elsewhere in the county is the zoning mechanism at the center of the dispute -- covered next -- because it isn't unique to this one property.

The zoning mechanic every wetland-adjacent buyer should understand: how density gets calculated

Under New Hanover County's "performance residential" zoning approach, the dispute over Sledge Forest turned on a specific, non-obvious question: when the county calculates how many housing units a parcel is allowed, does it start from the parcel's total acreage (wetlands included) or only from the acreage that's actually developable? Reporting on the dispute describes the county calculating allowed density using the property's full acreage, including the roughly 3,000 acres of wetland -- which lets a developer then compress the resulting unit count onto only the remaining non-wetland acreage, leaving the wetland itself largely untouched except for accessory uses like a proposed horse ranch and golf course, rather than reducing the total unit count to reflect the land that can't actually be built on.

That is a genuinely important fact for any buyer evaluating wetland-adjacent land anywhere in New Hanover County, not just at Sledge Forest specifically: a parcel's total allowed density under performance residential zoning may not shrink just because a large share of it is wetland. In practice, that can mean a wetland-heavy parcel gets developed at a higher effective density on its buildable portion than a buyer might expect -- with real consequences for stormwater runoff and flooding risk onto the adjacent, undeveloped wetland, a concern environmental groups raised directly regarding Sledge Forest's specific hydrology.

A real, current enforcement action -- and an unresolved fight

This is not a hypothetical concern layered onto an abstract zoning rule -- New Hanover County issued Copper Builders a formal notice of violation in April 2025 for illegal construction and land use at the Sledge Forest site, citing zoning, floodplain, and Coastal Area Management Act (CAMA) infractions. That is a real, dated, county-documented enforcement action, not just community objection. As of an October 2025 report, the builder has publicly stated an intent to continue pursuing the development despite the violation notice and organized opposition from a community group calling itself Save Sledge Forest, meaning the dispute remains active and unresolved as of this pass.

For a buyer, the practical lesson isn't about this one property specifically -- it's that New Hanover County's own enforcement of zoning, floodplain, and CAMA rules on wetland-adjacent land is a live, contested, and imperfect process even for the county's own staff to get right the first time (the reporting specifically notes the county initially miscalculated the site's density). Don't assume a project's originally approved or proposed density figure near any New Hanover County wetland is final or correctly calculated -- ask directly whether the acreage used for that calculation excluded or included wetland portions, and check for any pending enforcement action or appeal.

What to check before buying wetland-adjacent land in New Hanover County

• Get an independent, current wetland delineation for any parcel near a marsh, creek, or forested wetland -- don't rely on a developer's or seller's density figure without confirming how it was calculated.
• Ask New Hanover County Planning & Land Use directly whether a specific parcel's allowed unit count under performance residential zoning was calculated using total acreage or developable (non-wetland) acreage only, given the ambiguity this exact question created at Sledge Forest.
• Check whether any portion of the parcel carries a state Natural Heritage Program designation (including but not limited to an Exceptional Significant Natural Heritage Area), since that can trigger a specific, high preservation-percentage requirement.
• Confirm CAMA (Coastal Area Management Act) permit status directly with the county's CAMA Permit Program office for any parcel near a wetland, given the real enforcement action taken against a New Hanover County developer for CAMA infractions in 2025.
• For any large adjacent tract, ask about stormwater runoff and drainage plans specifically, since altered flow from a nearby development is a documented concern raised about Sledge Forest's own wetland hydrology.