All five seats at the New Hanover County Board of Commissioners dais were once again occupied Monday morning after new commissioners Skip Watkins and Rob Zapple were sworn in at the board’s meeting.

Watkins took the oath of office that was administered by Judge Sandra Ray; Zapple was sworn in by Judge James H. Faison III.
 
Once the five-member board was seated, members elected new officers. Jonathan Barfield Jr. is the new chairman, and Beth Dawson is the vice chairwoman. Each will serve for a one-year term, beginning immediately. This is Dawson’s second term as vice chairwoman. Barfield has served as the board’s chairman twice before: from December 2010 to December 2011 and briefly again from October 2012 to December 2012.
 
Before swearing in the new members of the board, however, the commissioners had to take up a court-ordered matter that harked back to a 2-2 decision by the board at its June 2 meeting. At that time, ACI Pine Ridge LLC applied for a special use permit that would allow it to create a mixed-use development on nearly 40 acres in the 100 block of Porters Neck Road.
 
Commissioners Barfield and Tom Wolfe voted in favor of granting the SUP; commissioners Woody White and Dawson voted against it. Commissioner Brian Berger was absent from the meeting. The tied vote was ruled a denial of the SUP.
 
The developer subsequently petitioned the New Hanover County Superior Court, where Judge Douglas Parsons remanded the matter to the board of commissioners, ruling that the commissioners who voted against the SUP must state “findings of fact” to support their “no” vote on the permit.
 
County attorney Wanda Copley read each of the four criteria for granting an SUP. To three of the four, White or Dawson specified their objection.
 
White said he believed, based on the testimony of a traffic expert, that additional traffic generated by the proposed development would “endanger public safety.” He also said he did not think that the commercial portion of the development would ever be built, and therefore, the development would not meet all the “conditions and specifications” of the permit.
 
Dawson’s objection addressed the SUP criterion that the land use must be “in harmony” with surrounding land uses and in general conformance with the county land use plan. Since the majority of the proposed development would be outside the county’s urban services boundary, the development would not be consistent with the county’s Coastal Area Management Act (CAMA) land use plan, Dawson said.
 
Copley will now relay the commissioners’ findings of fact statements to Parsons to complete the record of the June vote. No vote was needed at Monday’s meeting, and the permit denial still stands.