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The lines dividing Beaufort and Pitt Counties are blurry. Knowing where one county ends and one begins is hard to tell. Two county tax assessors are working together to make those lines clearer so they don’t look with hindsight wishing they had done something sooner. 

Lloyd Salter with Beaufort County Government and Russell Hill with Pitt County Government are tax assessors who are working together to better define border lines between the counties. 

County borders are blurred, because a large number of county borders are descriptions of natural scenes. The issue with that terrain changes over the years and centuries. The challenge for survey crews is recreating those scenes that existed many years ago, Salter explained. 

To resolve this, Salter and Hill are sending a request to the North Carolina Geodetic Survey to have a survey completed where Beaufort and Pitt County borders overlap. Salter said it would be better to have the state – a neutral party – determine county lines rather than Beaufort and Pitt Counties try to have discussions on where they believe where the borders should be drawn. Also, it doesn’t cost either county or taxpayers for the state to do the survey. 

“I think ultimately the state and most of us would like all borders of every county to be done by the state. To have that second look at us all [by] a neutral authority. Even if you didn’t really disagree, it would be nice, but it takes a while to do all of this,” Salter said. 

The only downside is that the survey will be on a two-year waiting list and it is unknown how long the survey will take to complete once it begins. 

The Grimesland area will be surveyed, because that is where growth is anticipated to happen in the near future. 

“If I was going to guess at which border of our county was going to get any development that would be the obvious one I would think,” Salter said knowing the amount of permits that have been pulled over the years for that area compared to other Beaufort County borders. 

By going ahead and having a survey completed, both Salter and Hill can give accurate data to developers. This way, they can avoid confusing situations where future subdivisions could straddle county boundaries. 

“Let’s say one of those big farm fields down there becomes a subdivision,” Salter illustrated, “it to me would make more sense to have this now, because we can say ‘well Beaufort County has six of those lots that we’re responsible for…and Pitt is responsible for six…,” 

“I just think it makes more sense to have that knowledge now and have it in place, because it makes everything smoother,” Salter continued. 

Another benefit of a survey is that it could prevent legal disputes over land being in either county. 

When the survey is actually completed, there is a chance some homes and farmland could be incorporated into the neighboring county. They could be incorporated into Beaufort County where they had been in Pitt County and vice versa. In these instances, Salter said those home and property owners would be properly notified and rebilled by the correct county only. 

Before a request could be sent to Geodetic Survey, Salter and Hill had to get approval from county commissioners. At their respective meetings, Beaufort and Pitt County Commissioners unanimously voted to send a survey request to the state.