A proposal introduced by U.S. Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., could return Brunswick County to the Wilmington Metropolitan Statistical Area, according to an announcement this week.
Burr has introduced an amendment to the Commerce, Science and Justice Appropriations Act "that will require the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to accurately measure the economy and population of the Wilmington area. Under current guidelines, the residents of Brunswick County are included in the same Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) as Myrtle Beach, South Carolina," said a news release from Burr's office.
An MSA is a geographical region with a population center at its core defined by the OMB and used by federal agencies for statistical purposes. In 2013,
OMB announced it would redefine the Wilmington MSA, removing Brunswick County and lumping it with the Myrtle Beach-Conway-North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, MSA.
The release from Burr said that including Brunswick in an MSA with a South Carolina area understates the size of North Carolina’s economy and hurts economic development in the region.
“All of these folks live in North Carolina and an overwhelming majority work in Brunswick and New Hanover Counties,” said Burr in the release. “Businesses use this data when deciding where to locate. A bureaucratic record keeping flaw shouldn’t stand between this community and a fair shot at economic development opportunities.”
A Brunswick County official agreed Thursday morning.
“We would be favorable toward being re-established as part of the Wilmington MSA. We think that that would be in Brunswick County’s interests,” said Mike Hargett, director of economic development and planning for Brunswick County.
The Wilmington Regional Association of Realtors responded to Burr's move in a news release Thursday.
“Returning Brunswick County to the Wilmington MSA simply makes good sense,” said Don Harris, WRAR president, in the WRAR release.
The change "has made it challenging as we plan for the future because statistical information no longer matches up by state and region,” Harris said.
As an example, in April, WRAR collaborated with the Wilmington-Cape Fear Home Builders Association to publish an annual Housing Report/Forecast. The process was complicated when looking at historic values because Brunswick County had been removed from the Wilmington MSA, the WRAR news release said.
“Hats off to Sen. Burr for watching out for North Carolina and for the Cape Fear Region,” Harris said.
Burr and other lawmakers and local officials have tried before to get the MSA changed back to the way it was without success.
"Sen. Burr meets with local leaders frequently and introduced legislation to fix the MSA problem in 2014 and 2015 as well," said Burr's press secretary Taylor Holgate. "This month was the first time Sen. Burr had the opportunity to introduce the Brunswick County MSA fix as an amendment to the Commerce, Science and Justice Appropriations Act."
She said Burr "is hopeful the amendment will be adopted. He will continue to work in the Senate and with stakeholders to raise this issue when OMB does their midterm review in 2018."
Hal Kitchin, a Wilmington attorney and former chairman and member of the Wilmington Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors, has been involved in the chamber’s efforts regarding the MSA issue for the past few years.
"We’re certainly glad to see Senator Burr continuing to work to try to solve this problem. I think we believe that we’d have a good chance to get Brunswick County back in our Wilmington MSA after the 2020 Census, but we would love to have them back in our MSA even before that," Kitchin said.
