Under a bill now working its way through the legislature, Jacksonville would annex large swathes of Camp Lejeune and New River Air Station, nearly quadrupling the city's footprint, expanding it toward the coast.
City officials say the new annexation would help provide the base with contracted services it couldn't efficiently arrange on its own.
The city already provides several such services — such as running computerized traffic signals on base and hauling truckloads of dirt and gravel for its sprawling array of training ranges.
"We just want to be available to support the base," said Ron Massey, the Deputy City Manager, who acts as a liaison to the military.
Federal law lets military bases arrange for services through local governments and bypass the often slow and onerous federal contracting process.
The contracts can also help the city gain more efficiency by scaling up its processes.
But the proposal has caused alarm in small communities between the base and the Atlantic Ocean. Some, like the Town of Holly Ridge, are now miles from Jacksonville but would suddenly be adjacent to it. The Holly Ridge town board passed a resolution this week against the annexation, said Mayor Pete Parnian in an interview.
"They claim that it's because of the traffic lights and gravel movement, which doesn't make sense, because they have only a few traffic lights on that side of the annexation property," said Parnian.
His town, with its location just inland of the coastal barrier islands on the key highway between Jacksonville and the booming Wilmington area, has been growing rapidly, with its population up nearly 50 percent since the 2020 census to about 6,500. And it's projected to reach 14,000 by 2033, he said.
Parnian says that while the annexation would directly affect only military property for now, he fears it could allow Jacksonville to gain planning jurisdiction – known as Extraterritorial Planning Jurisdiction or ETJ – even farther and into areas that could hem in his town's future growth.
"The territory comes right to the street next to Holly Ridge. I mean, just the ETJ part of it can eat up Holly Ridge, and it just doesn't make sense to me what they are trying to do, other than sort of, for lack of a better word, and I apologize for this, land grab," he said.
Parnian said the town hadn't been given any notice the annexation bill would be filed and was surprised to hear about it.
The measure passed the state Senate in May and is now being considered by committees in the House of Representatives.
The lack of communication, Parnian said, makes it hard to trust that the city's intention is just to help the base with contracts. He said he's suspicious Jacksonville will eventually try to annex private property in the area.
Massey, though, said the city had no interest in adding non-base territory. He said it would be prohibitively expensive and irresponsible to try to provide city services like police and fire protection – things the Marines handle on-base – at such a great distance from Jacksonville's current service areas for civilians.
There are good reasons for the city to agree to such service contracts, he said. For example, Jacksonville initially had three traffic signal technicians who had to rotate being on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week, But the contract to extend services onto the base let the city hire another technician, increasing its capacity and making life easier for the employees.
"And that's the kind of explanation we would give to the council when we'd ask them to approve agreements like this, because it benefits both sides, and it helps our base be more efficient also," he said.
He said the city had already told Parnian it would be happy to sit down with Holly Ridge leaders and work out an agreement on ETJs and future annexations, much as it had 18 years ago with the adjacent town of Richlands.
"We don't ever intend to be trying to provide services out there, police services, fire services, to areas that aren't part of the military base," he said. "We would not want to stretch our city out there, it would be just inefficient as hell to do something like that."
Jacksonville already annexed the populated areas of Lejeune, including barracks and headquarters buildings, more than 35 years ago.
The new annexation would take in mainly training areas, including one that is home to Marine special operations. It's mainly unpopulated land, but does include the homes of about 3,000 people, Massey said.
The military would have to approve the annexation. Massey said he wasn't aware of any objections from the military.
The sponsor of the bill, state Sen. Michael Lazzara of Onslow County, told a House committee this week that the base wants it.
"This is simply a request that indirectly the base has, and the city would like to acquiesce to provide those services," he said.
In an emailed statement, a spokesperson for the Marine Corps installations in North Carolina said Camp Lejeune's Government and External Affairs office is reviewing the proposal, and that the Navy would not oppose it unless it would adversely affect operations and training.
Officials from Lejeune and New River are scheduled to meet with the City of Jacksonville to review the proposal, it said.
During the committee hearing this week on the annexation bill, three House members who represent Onslow objected to passing it, at least without getting the local governments involved together to work through any issues.
"If you're in a small town, and some big town 20-some miles away, is going to come annex all the way down to you, surround your town, and extend their ETJ from wherever they are, and control your growth from then on, everybody's going to be against that," said Rep. Carson Smith. "This is just too much. The people in my area down there do not want this."
Lazarra said it was clear the base needed the services, that the city could provide them and the small communities couldn't, and he didn't see a reason not to run it through the committee and send it on to its next step, a review by the House rules committee.
Legislators agreed to do that, with the caveat that Lazarra and the Onslow County House delegation meet first and iron out the issues.
