OUTER BANKS, N.C. — It’s no secret that the Outer Banks is a vacation destination. But this comes with challenges in housing availability for seasonal and permanent residents.

“Eighty percent of our land is publicly owned, so there’s a lot of competition for the other 20 percent,” said Donna Creef, chair of Dare’s community housing task force.

In January, the Dare County Board of Commissioners created a task force to examine the current housing situation in the Outer Banks. An obvious, but known, challenge is that many properties are used as vacation rentals or second homes.

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“It’s not a lack of housing units, it’s the utilization of those units where we have this competition in how the units are used,” Creef said.

This competition also contributes to rising costs, raising the question of affordability.

“I think it’s about making housing affordable, but not necessarily making it affordable. The cost of insurance and the cost of maintaining your home are also part of the puzzle. This is in addition to providing housing for our workforce,” Creef said.

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The challenge of providing workforce housing is a major priority. Robert Barker, general manager of Dirty Dick’s Crab House in Nags Head, shares the impact the lack of housing has had on his staff.

“I interviewed people who said their homes had fallen into disrepair. There are many employees that I have had over the last three years, they were renting on a six month contract, on the fourth month they were kicked out of their house on a week’s notice because it was sold,” Barker said.

“We understand that the Restaurant Association and all other business owners are struggling to find housing for their employees. The private sector is certainly a part of the solution that we will find as we move forward,” Creef said.

One recent potential solution is the Nags Head Board of Commissioners. approve multi-family housing regulations have focused on longer-term rentals and workforce-specific housing.

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“I think the report (end-of-year Dare Community Housing report) we’ll actually use them as examples that some of the other local cities might want to look at in terms of their workforce and how they can maybe develop these regulations. adapt to their situation,” Creef said.

“I think they’re trying to do something, and that’s fantastic, but decisions are coming slowly and they’re not aware of the magnitude of the situation yet,” Barker said.

For the Housing Task Force, it’s also about working with the community to understand the process of potential development.

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“We’re not an urban environment, so we have to recognize that going forward and try to make it work based on the expectations of the community, which is that it will be small scale and more in line with what what the Outer Banks is,” Creef said.

Even if progress is made, time will tell if what is being done will be enough to solve the problem in the future.

“When you look at what other communities are doing, they’re often moving out of their jurisdictions through ETJs (extraterritorial jurisdiction) or expanding outside of their jurisdictions and that’s not easy to do here in Dare County, where we We’re surrounded by water,” Creef said.