Hubert United

The Infrastructure First Initiative

Building a Better Connection Between Growth and Public Infrastructure

The Infrastructure First Initiative is a long-term research, public-information, and policy-development project led by Hubert United. Its purpose is to examine how communities can support responsible growth while ensuring that roads, bridges, water and wastewater systems, stormwater facilities, schools, parks, emergency services, and other essential public infrastructure are planned and delivered in a timely, transparent, and fiscally responsible manner.

The initiative begins with a straightforward principle:

Infrastructure should lead growth, not spend decades chasing it.

Growth can create opportunity. New homes, businesses, investment, and economic activity can strengthen a community and expand its tax base. At the same time, growth creates additional demand on public systems that may already be strained or operating near capacity. When land-development decisions move faster than infrastructure delivery, residents can experience increasing traffic congestion, longer emergency-response routes, overloaded intersections, utility limitations, flooding concerns, deferred maintenance, and mounting pressure for expensive public improvements.

Infrastructure First does not treat growth as the problem. It examines how growth and infrastructure investment can be coordinated more effectively so that development, public services, and long-range capital planning move forward together.

Why the Initiative Was Created

Communities across North Carolina routinely prepare comprehensive plans, transportation plans, utility plans, small-area plans, capital-improvement programs, and long-range growth forecasts. These documents may identify future needs many years before construction begins.

Planning, however, is not the same as delivery.

A transportation plan does not widen a road. A capital-improvement program does not, by itself, construct a bridge. A future utility map does not install a water main. Projects must still proceed through engineering, environmental review, funding, right-of-way acquisition, permitting, utility relocation, contracting, and construction.

That process can take years or even decades.

During that time, development may continue, population may increase, and infrastructure demand may grow. The result is a planning-to-delivery gap in which public documents recognize an infrastructure need, but the improvement remains unfunded, unprogrammed, incomplete, or dependent on future decisions.

The Infrastructure First Initiative studies that gap and asks whether North Carolina can create clearer, fairer, and more predictable systems for coordinating growth with infrastructure capacity and capital investment.

Hubert and Western Onslow County

Hubert and western Onslow County serve as the initiative’s principal demonstration area.

Hubert is an unincorporated community located between Jacksonville, Swansboro, Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, and the coastal communities surrounding the White Oak River and Intracoastal Waterway. The area has experienced significant residential growth while remaining dependent on a network of state-maintained highways, rural roads, bridges, utility systems, schools, emergency services, and other public facilities.

The community’s location creates both opportunities and challenges. Military activity, regional employment, tourism, coastal living, and residential demand all contribute to continued growth. At the same time, wetlands, waterways, flood-prone land, limited roadway connections, bridge constraints, and long infrastructure-delivery timelines complicate planning and construction.

The initiative is examining local corridors and development patterns not to assign blame to individual property owners, developers, agencies, or elected officials, but to understand how the overall system functions.

The Hubert case study provides a real-world setting in which transportation planning, land development, public finance, environmental constraints, utility capacity, military growth, and community needs intersect.

Research areas include major routes and local corridors such as NC 24, NC 172, Queens Creek Road, Queens Creek Bridge, Sand Ridge Road, Old Hubert Boulevard, Riggs Road, Corbett Avenue, and surrounding intersections and development areas.

Additional work considers residential growth, subdivision patterns, food access, emergency mobility, coastal resilience, public-service demand, and the cumulative effects of development occurring over many separate projects and approval cycles.

A North Carolina Policy Project

Although Hubert and Onslow County provide the local case study, the initiative is intended to address a broader statewide question.

North Carolina has sophisticated planning institutions. State agencies, local governments, metropolitan and rural planning organizations, utility providers, engineers, and professional staff already produce substantial amounts of data and analysis.

The challenge is not necessarily the absence of planning. The challenge is that planning, development review, infrastructure funding, and project delivery often operate through separate systems and timelines.

Infrastructure First is researching whether those systems can be better aligned through North Carolina law and administrative practice.

The initiative is examining:

• North Carolina’s land-use and development statutes, including Chapter 160D.
• NCDOT planning, project prioritization, and transportation-funding processes.
• Capital-improvement planning by counties and municipalities.
• Transportation, water, wastewater, storm water, and public-facility capacity.
• The relationship between development approval and infrastructure readiness.
• Constitutional protections affecting development conditions and public exactions.
• Fiscal-impact analysis and long-term infrastructure costs.
• Intergovernmental coordination among counties, municipalities, state agencies, utilities, and regional planning organizations.
• Public reporting, performance measures, administrative review, and transparency.
• Legislative and administrative options that could be adapted to North Carolina’s existing institutions.
  

Core Principles

Infrastructure Planning Should Be Transparent

Residents, property owners, developers, elected officials, and public agencies should be able to understand current infrastructure conditions, anticipated growth, planned improvements, estimated costs, funding sources, project schedules, and responsible agencies.

Infrastructure commitments should be visible to the public rather than buried across multiple plans, technical reports, meeting records, and agency databases.

Infrastructure Readiness Should Be Measurable

Infrastructure readiness should not be treated as a political slogan or an undefined judgment.

Transportation capacity, utility capacity, emergency-service coverage, stormwater systems, public facilities, and other infrastructure conditions should be evaluated using objective information, published standards, engineering analysis, and publicly available assumptions.

The relevant measurements may differ by infrastructure type. Transportation may involve intersection performance, safety, travel reliability, roadway capacity, or multimodal access. Utilities may involve treatment capacity, system pressure, available connections, storage, or programmed extensions. Emergency services may involve station locations, staffing, travel times, and service demand.

The central principle is that decisions should rely on understandable and reproducible analysis.

Growth-Related Costs Should Be Proportionate

New development should not be expected to repair every historical deficiency, replace deferred maintenance, or finance infrastructure needs created by the existing population.

At the same time, growth should not impose all of its infrastructure costs on current residents and future taxpayers.

A fair system should distinguish between:

• Existing deficiencies.
• Maintenance and replacement obligations.
• General public improvements.
• New capacity needed for future growth.
• Project-specific impacts attributable to a particular development.

Any contribution associated with new development should bear a reasonable relationship to the measurable impact being addressed. It should be supported by an adopted methodology, technical analysis, clear accounting, and appropriate administrative review.

Public and Private Responsibility Should Be Clearly Defined

Infrastructure frequently serves both existing residents and future growth. A road project may correct a current safety problem while also providing additional development capacity. A utility extension may improve service for existing customers while opening new areas for construction.

Infrastructure First does not assume that responsibility belongs entirely to either the public sector or private development.

Instead, the initiative studies how costs and responsibilities can be divided fairly among public funding, grants, utility revenues, bonds, appropriations, development contributions, improvement agreements, and other lawful sources.

Credits and Anti-Duplication Protections Matter

Developers or property owners who construct qualifying public improvements, dedicate land, install oversized facilities, or contribute through another lawful mechanism should not be charged twice for the same infrastructure.

A responsible framework should include clear credit procedures, reimbursement rules where appropriate, separate accounting, expenditure deadlines, reporting requirements, and remedies when collected funds are not used as promised.

Property Rights and Constitutional Protections Must Be Respected

Infrastructure First is not a proposal to disregard private-property rights or grant unlimited authority to government.

Any policy involving development conditions, fees, land dedication, infrastructure construction, or proportionate-share contributions must operate within federal and North Carolina constitutional law.

The initiative is examining the legal principles governing regulatory takings, development exactions, due process, equal protection, statutory authority, administrative procedure, and judicial review.

The goal is to develop policy options that are effective, lawful, predictable, and fair to both the public and affected property owners.

Infrastructure First Should Support Responsible Development

The initiative is not anti-development.

Unclear requirements, improvised negotiations, uncertain project schedules, and inconsistent infrastructure expectations can create risk for residents, local governments, and the development community alike.

A transparent system can provide greater predictability by identifying infrastructure conditions, planned projects, funding responsibilities, review procedures, and mitigation options before individual applications reach the final stages of approval.

Responsible development and responsible infrastructure planning should reinforce one another.

What the Initiative Is Researching

The initiative includes several interconnected areas of study.

Local History and Growth Patterns

Research examines how Hubert and surrounding areas developed over time, including the effects of Camp Lejeune, regional employment, transportation investment, subdivision activity, demographic change, and coastal growth.

Understanding the history of development helps explain why current infrastructure conditions exist and why some public systems may not reflect today’s population and travel patterns.

Transportation Planning and Funding

The initiative is reviewing how transportation projects move from local concern to regional planning, state prioritization, funding, design, and construction.

This includes examination of NCDOT processes, the Strategic Transportation Investments framework, the State Transportation Improvement Program, metropolitan and rural transportation planning, corridor studies, bridge projects, traffic analyses, and local land-development decisions.

North Carolina Land-Use Law

Research includes Chapter 160D and related statutes governing comprehensive planning, zoning, subdivision regulation, development approval, vested rights, administrative decisions, enforcement, and judicial review.

The purpose is to determine what authority currently exists, where statutory gaps may remain, and what changes would require action by the North Carolina General Assembly.

Constitutional and Administrative Law

The project is examining constitutional limits affecting land-use regulation and development conditions, as well as procedural protections involving written findings, notice, hearings, appeals, public records, and judicial review.

Comparative State Research

Infrastructure First is reviewing approaches used in other states, including concurrency systems, adequate-public-facilities requirements, impact fees, system-development charges, capital-improvement planning, proportionate-share programs, service-unit methodologies, credits, refunds, accounting, and appeal procedures.

The goal is not to copy another state’s system wholesale.

North Carolina has its own constitutional framework, transportation system, local-government structure, planning statutes, utility arrangements, and political traditions. The initiative is identifying individual features that may be adapted to North Carolina rather than importing an entire outside model.

Fiscal Impact and Lifecycle Costs

The initiative considers not only the initial cost of construction but also the long-term cost of operating, maintaining, repairing, replacing, and eventually modernizing public infrastructure.

A project that appears affordable at the time of approval may create substantial future obligations. Fiscal-impact analysis can help decision-makers compare projected public revenues with capital, operating, and lifecycle costs.

Capital Improvement Programs

Capital Improvement Programs can serve as the bridge between planning and actual investment.

A meaningful program should identify proposed projects, estimated costs, funding sources, responsible agencies, implementation schedules, and changing priorities. Infrastructure First is examining how capital programs can be better integrated with comprehensive planning, transportation planning, utility planning, budgeting, and development review.

Implementation Tools

The project is developing possible model legislation, administrative procedures, local ordinance concepts, checklists, fiscal notes, reporting standards, implementation schedules, and public dashboards.

These tools are illustrative. They are intended to support discussion and professional review, not to bypass formal drafting, engineering, legal analysis, or public decision-making.

The Public Records Vault

Transparency is a central part of the initiative.

The Public Records Vault will provide a centralized location for records relevant to infrastructure planning, development, transportation, utilities, public finance, and local decision-making.

Materials may include:

• Government reports and planning documents.
• Transportation studies and project records.
• Public meeting materials.
• Development applications and approvals.
• Traffic-impact analyses.
• Engineering reports.
• Bridge and roadway documentation.
• Capital-improvement plans.
• Maps and GIS materials.
• Correspondence produced through public-records requests.
• Statutes, ordinances, policies, and administrative guidance.
• Research sources and supporting references.

The purpose of the Public Records Vault is not to present documents as proof of a predetermined conclusion.

Its purpose is to make relevant public information easier to locate, review, compare, and understand. Visitors should be able to examine the underlying records and reach their own informed conclusions.

Deliverable One

The first major work product of the initiative is Deliverable One, a comprehensive research and policy report.

Deliverable One is being developed as a foundation for public discussion and future decision-making. Its components include:

• The history and development of Hubert and western Onslow County.
• Demographic and land-use analysis.
• Local transportation and infrastructure case studies.
• North Carolina statutory analysis.
• Constitutional analysis.
• NCDOT planning and transportation-funding research.
• Comparative research involving other states.
• Economic and fiscal analysis.
• Infrastructure-readiness concepts.
• Capital-improvement planning.
• Proportionate-share and infrastructure-financing options.
• Model administrative procedures and implementation tools.
• Illustrative legislative language.
• Appendices, glossary, bibliography, and supporting references.

Deliverable One is a research product, not final legislation and not legal advice.

Draft materials will continue to be reviewed, expanded, corrected, and supported with additional primary records. Formal legislative language would require professional review by legislative drafting staff, agency experts, engineers, fiscal analysts, local-government professionals, and legal counsel.

Potential Policy Options

The initiative is considering a range of possible options rather than beginning with one fixed answer.

Those options may include:

• Improved statewide infrastructure reporting.
• Local infrastructure-readiness assessments.
• Better coordination between comprehensive plans and capital programs.
• Clearer transportation and utility capacity evaluations.
• Fiscal-impact analysis for major development proposals.
• Optional infrastructure-capacity or concurrency programs.
• Proportionate-share contributions authorized under defined conditions.
• Credits for qualifying public improvements.
• Development agreements and phased infrastructure delivery.
• Intergovernmental project agreements.
• Infrastructure service areas and adopted performance measures.
• Separate accounts and annual public reporting.
• Refund procedures when promised improvements are not delivered.
• Administrative appeals and judicial-review protections.
• Pilot programs before broader implementation.
• Periodic legislative review and program evaluation.

No single option will be appropriate for every community or every type of infrastructure. The initiative is therefore emphasizing flexibility within clear statewide guardrails.

What the Initiative Is Not

The Infrastructure First Initiative is not:

• A campaign against all development.
• A demand that every infrastructure project be completed before any growth occurs.
• An attempt to force new residents to pay for every existing public deficiency.
• A substitute for licensed engineering, legal, planning, or financial advice.
• A claim that one agency or elected body is responsible for every infrastructure problem.
• A finished bill awaiting automatic adoption.
• A predetermined conclusion searching for supporting evidence.

It is a research and policy-development effort intended to improve information, coordination, transparency, fairness, and long-term decision-making.

Public Engagement and Future Review

Any meaningful infrastructure reform must involve the people and institutions affected by it.

Future work should include engagement with:

• Residents and community organizations.
• Property owners.
• Developers and builders.
• County and municipal officials.
• Planning and engineering staff.
• NCDOT and regional transportation organizations.
• Utility providers.
• Emergency-service agencies.
• School and park officials.
• Environmental and resilience professionals.
• Attorneys and constitutional-law experts.
• Fiscal analysts.
• Legislators and legislative staff.

Technical review and public participation are not obstacles to the initiative. They are essential parts of it.

Infrastructure systems are complex, funding is limited, and local conditions differ. No framework can eliminate uncertainty or guarantee that every project will be delivered immediately. The goal is to create a better process for identifying needs, assigning responsibility, planning investment, measuring progress, and explaining decisions to the public.

The Long-Term Vision

The long-term vision of Infrastructure First is a North Carolina in which communities can grow without repeatedly discovering that public infrastructure has fallen years behind.

It is a vision in which:

• Plans are connected to funded capital programs.
• Infrastructure conditions are measured openly.Public commitments are easy to track.
• Existing deficiencies are separated from growth-related needs.
• New development contributes fairly without being charged twice.
• Property rights receive meaningful protection.
• Residents can see where infrastructure money is going.
• Government agencies coordinate rather than operate in separate silos.
• Development decisions account for long-term public costs.
• Communities have practical tools for balancing growth, affordability, safety, and fiscal responsibility.

Hubert United is beginning this work locally, but the underlying questions extend far beyond one community.

How should North Carolina plan for growth?

How should infrastructure be funded?

How should responsibility be divided?

How can residents, government, and private development work from the same reliable information?

The Infrastructure First Initiative exists to study those questions carefully, make the supporting public records accessible, develop practical options, and contribute to an informed public conversation.

Plan first. Build responsibly. Grow with purpose.