A developer with plans to build 4,000 homes on a sprawling Castle Hayne property is working with Unique Places to Save to conserve more than 1,100 acres on the site, according to a letter addressed to county officials and community members.

In the letter, Copper Builders founder Wade Miller stated the firm has entered into an agreement with Unique Places to Save, a Durham-based nonprofit conservation land trust, to sell about 1,160 acres through a funding application to the North Carolina Land and Water Fund.

Unique Places to Save submitted a $10.2 million request to fund the acquisition of part of Sledge Forest, according to a list of 2025 North Carolina Land and Water Fund grant applications. The conservation project’s total cost is listed as $15.2 million.

The development proposal from Copper Builders, Hilton Bluffs, could bring 4,000 homes to the 4,038-acre site bordered by the Northeast Cape Fear River. The plan has sparked significant pushback from neighbors and other residents. 

Grassroots group Save Sledge Forest has raised concerns about the project’s impacts on the area’s natural resources and about whether local roads and other infrastructure can support the influx of so many new residents.

Copper Builders is under contract to purchase the site, pending due diligence, and the firm submitted plans for the project to New Hanover County in October. The proposal would cluster the proposed 4,000 homes on the site’s roughly 1,000 acres of uplands. Plans show the remaining 3,000 acres of wetlands on the property would not be developed.

The project is proposed as a performance development, which allows developers to cluster the number of units allowed by a site’s zoning on one part of the property. Since the existing rural agricultural zoning allows one unit per acre, the developers plan to cluster the 4,000 units allowed on the 4,038-acre site on the 1,000 acres of uplands.

In the letter dated March 17, Miller thanked residents for their insights and said discussions with community members are ongoing as plans evolve. 

“As you know, we are interested in the protection of the natural condition of the old-growth forests, swamps and other natural features of this land,” Miller wrote. “Several others in our community have expressed a similar interest. We are aligned on this.”

“To demonstrate our intent towards conserving a majority of the property, we have entered into an agreement with Unique Places to Save to sell an approximate 1,160-acre area on the north side of the property (areas N, O, P and more) through a funding application to the NC Land & Water Fund,” Miller added.

The letter states that the agreement includes uplands, wetlands, stretches of shoreline along the Northeast Cape Fear River, and portions of the site currently subject to a forestry plan. Unique Places to Save did not respond to a request for comment before publication deadline.

Miller acknowledges in the letter that the grant application might not be funded and that any other conservation efforts on other parts of the property would require additional time, partnerships, grants and funding from other sources.

“If portions of the land are sold for conservation purposes, or conserved via a conservation easement, we recognize that will impact the total acreage available for calculation of the permitted residential density for the development, thereby lowering the number of residences we ultimately build,” Miller wrote, “and we are prepared to adapt the overall plan of development accordingly should our conservation efforts prove successful.”

Andy Wood, a local conservation biologist and member of Save Sledge Forest, said Tuesday that while he believes the agreement could be a positive step to conserve part of the site, it doesn’t address other aspects of the development process that the group has concerns about. For example, Wood said he sees the developer’s use of the county’s zoning rules to allow increased density on the site’s uplands as a “loophole.”

“I’m glad to hear that there’s an effort in movement to protect habitat in its natural state,” he said, "that’s always to the good.”