While one controversy is over for now, a related debate remains.

Now that the name “Titan” will likely exit conversations about economic development, the term “Special Use Permit” as it relates to potential industrial projects and job creation, continues to be a source of concern.

Titan America LLC officials on Thursday announced that they’d be dropping plans to build a cement plant in Castle Hayne that was expected to create about 160 jobs, saying the project is no longer financially feasible. That proposal in 2008 had sparked protests and in some cases split the community, with discussion about the New Hanover County's SUP ordinance becoming part of the issue. Titan would have had to apply for an SUP to build the plant.
  
Five years after its adoption, the county’s SUP ordinance is still a sore subject for some members of the business community, who say it’s a deterrent for potential employers. And at least one environmental group, which has been working toward a compromise in a cooperative effort while still advocating the SUP as a tool to guide development, is also concerned about the way the current SUP is worded.

Potential changes could be on the horizon, though a timeline is unclear.

For Bob Warwick, the SUP for industrial projects that was adopted in 2011 and the Titan controversy are inextricably linked. Warwick is a manager with business consulting firm RSM US in Wilmington and a Titan supporter who has been involved in area economic development issues since the 1960s.

“Our No. 1 goal is to get the SUP off the books or modified,” said Warwick, referring to the Coalition for Economic Advancement, an advocacy group he founded. “The planning board and the planning staff recommended modifications to the SUP [in 2014] that would have fixed it so it was not so onerous for industry. It still would have been in place, it still would have prevented certain types of operations, but it would not have made our process so much more difficult than other counties in North and South Carolina … That was really sort of the beginning of the end for Titan.”

The modifications Warwick mentioned were not approved by the New Hanover County Board of Commissioners. In recent months, county officials and members of a project team that worked on SUP modifications for more than a year are discussing a new set of proposed changes related to heavy industry.

“What they said industry needed was clarity, requirements, a timeline and the process [spelled out]. That’s what we presented to the county manager,” said Mike Giles, coastal advocate with the N.C. Coastal Federation, referring to a proposed model industrial development SUP process that the project team, funded by a $25,000 grant, worked to come up with. “Not everybody’s going to be happy … but we think what we presented is a vast improvement over the existing ordinance and what we presented was exactly the same issues the industry and chamber and economic recruiters brought forward to the county commission.”

Some members of the project team have not supported the modifications, citing specific problems that included wanting more clarification on the timeline, more specifics about which industries would be affected and submission requirements, according to Hal Kitchin, an attorney who was part of the team and who has studied the SUP issue for the Wilmington Chamber of Commerce.

Giles said, “There are some things in there that some people aren’t going to like. Yes. There’s some things in there that we don’t like. This is the only county that has a special use permit process that allows existing industry to expand no matter what without an SUP.”

Referring to an overall problem with the way the SUP for industrial projects is currently worded, Connie Majure-Rhett, president and CEO of the Wilmington chamber, pointed to employment and income data that was included in the chamber’s 2015 Economic Scorecard.
 
“We’re creating jobs like crazy, but they’re all service jobs,” she said. “The SUP is a little part of that. We need to look at how we create jobs.”
 
Other members of the business community also see the SUP as limiting new, high-paying job prospects. Grayson Powell, managing partner at Coldwell Banker Commercial Sun Coast Partners real estate firm, who was not on the project team, said of the SUP, “You don’t have businesses looking at us ... You can just put up so many road blocks before people just say I’m not going to deal with that; I’m going to put my money elsewhere.”
 
Giles said he hopes the SUP modifications will be addressed by county officials as soon as possible to clarify and improve what many agree is a vague ordinance for industrial prospects.
 
“It’s going to take a while ... Our concern about this is moving forward so we can put it behind us,” Giles said. “I think what we will eventually end up with is something everybody can generally agree on. A SUP is just a filter; it’s a filter for the county commissioners and the community.”
 
Possible delays on the SUP proposal being considered could include upcoming elections and the county’s efforts to complete its comprehensive plan, which will guide a rewriting of county zoning ordinances.
 
For county commissioners chairwoman Beth Dawson, the comprehensive plan is a priority.

“My suggestion right now is that if any organization or company wants to bring text amendment changes to the table, then I would consider text amendment changes if it makes the process more consistent and easily understood. But right now we don’t have that and all of that will be looked at when we get into our zoning rewrite, and if any organization would like to present data or information for the planning staff and the planning board and the commissioners to consider during the process of the zoning ordinance rewrite, then of course those are always welcome,” Dawson said in an interview last month.

She added that officials wouldn’t have to wait until the plan is adopted, however, to consider a text amendment to the SUP ordinance as it concerns industry.

Meanwhile, Titan's announcement on Thursday said the company will review the project in the future if conditions in the cement industry change.