Land Clearing · Septic · Site Work
Forestry mulching, septic systems and full site work for property owners and builders in Kitty Hawk Village, along the Beach Road, and throughout the wooded soundside off US 158.
Family-run out of Jarvisburg, a straight run down over the Wright Memorial Bridge. Nothing too small, nothing too big — and the estimate is free.
40+ Years
of Family Experience — Working this coast since the 1980s
15+ Projects
Completed in Kitty Hawk
Free Estimates
Always
Kitty Hawk, NC
Kitty Hawk is the first town you reach coming over the Wright Memorial Bridge, and it is the only one of the northern beach towns with a genuine forest at its centre. Kitty Hawk Woods Coastal Reserve takes up roughly 1,800 acres of maritime deciduous forest, swamp and marsh between US 158 and Currituck Sound, sitting on old dune ridges with freshwater ponds tucked between them. High Bridge Creek threads through it toward Kitty Hawk Bay. It makes for a town split in character: an oceanside strip along the Beach Road, and a wooded, low-lying village on the sound side.
That split is exactly why land clearing services in Kitty Hawk come down to reading the ground correctly. The town’s own land use plan spells it out — Newhan fine sand on the higher ridges carries a water table around six feet down and only a slight limitation for septic and structures, while Corolla and Duckston soils on the flats sit one and a half to three feet from water and are rated a severe limitation. Two lots on the same street can need completely different approaches, and on a barrier island there is no room to guess.
Albetuck Land Development works out of Jarvisburg, a short run north over the bridge, and has been on Outer Banks jobs for years — clearing wooded lots on the soundside, setting septic systems where the water table dictates a fill or pump design, and handling the dirt work behind new construction. Clay Newbern grew up in this work; his father’s company, F&H, was doing site work, clearing and septic across this coast back in the 1980s.
Six Categories, One Company
Every service Albetuck offers is available across Kitty Hawk, from the Beach Road to the soundside village. One crew, one point of contact, from the first tree to the final grade.
01 / 06
Kitty Hawk has something most Outer Banks towns no longer do — wooded lots worth clearing. The soundside village around Kitty Hawk Woods still holds buildable ground under real maritime forest, and clearing it means working carefully around ancient dune ridges, freshwater pools and neighbouring property lines that sit closer than they do on the mainland. We clear building lots and driveway corridors, take out brush and stumps, and haul the debris off the island rather than leaving a pile behind.
Services include:
02 / 06
Mulching is often the smarter call on this island. Grinding growth in place leaves the soil structure intact, which matters on dune-ridge ground where disturbance invites erosion and blowouts, and it means no burn permit and no debris trucked back over the Wright Memorial Bridge. On overgrown soundside lots off Kitty Hawk Road, mulching opens the property up without tearing it apart.
Services include:
03 / 06
Septic is where Kitty Hawk soil gets expensive. Corolla and Duckston sands across much of the town carry a water table one and a half to three feet down and are rated a severe limitation for septic fields in the town’s own land use plan, which is why so many lots here need a fill system, a pump system or an advanced treatment unit rather than a conventional gravity install. Albetuck works the Dare County sequence — site evaluation, Improvement Permit, then Construction Permit — and installs the system, sets the tank and finishes the grade.
Services include:
04 / 06
On an island a few feet above sea level, grade decides everything. A driveway off the Beach Road either sheds water or holds it, and a pad on the soundside flats either sits above the seasonal water table or does not. Albetuck handles the full package — pads, drives, ditching, utility trenching and finish grade — for new construction and for rebuilds across Kitty Hawk Village and the oceanside streets.
Services include:
05 / 06
A great deal of Outer Banks construction is now teardown and rebuild rather than new lots, and Kitty Hawk’s older oceanside cottages are prime candidates. Albetuck handles residential and light commercial demolition, deck and outbuilding removal and concrete slab breakout, then clears the debris and leaves the lot graded and ready — which matters when demolition is step one of a rebuild rather than the end of a project.
Services include:
06 / 06
Albetuck runs its own sand pit, which matters more on an island than on the mainland — material for Kitty Hawk jobs does not wait on a third-party supplier or a bridge backup. Fill dirt to raise a pad above the water table, stone for a drive that holds up in sand, gravel, crusher run and rock, delivered and spread.
Services include:
We Know This Ground
Kitty Hawk sits at the northern end of the Dare County beach towns with Currituck Sound on one side and the Atlantic on the other, and roughly 1,800 acres of maritime deciduous forest in between. The soils tell the whole story. Newhan fine sand on the old dune ridges sits about six feet above the water table and is rated only a slight limitation for building and septic; Corolla fine sand and the Corolla–Duckston complex on the flats sit one and a half to three feet from water and are rated severe. Duckston soils, which fill the depressions between dunes, are poorly drained and flood outright after heavy rain or a high storm tide.
Our crews come in on US 158 over the Wright Memorial Bridge, which puts every part of town within a few minutes of the highway. We work the oceanside streets between the Beach Road and North Croatan Highway, the soundside village along Kitty Hawk Road and West Kitty Hawk Road, and the wooded lots off The Woods Road and the residential streets that back onto the reserve — Birch Lane, Ridge Road, Amadas Lane and Colleton Avenue among them.
The work here divides into two kinds. On the soundside there are still wooded lots to clear and mulch for new builds, which is increasingly rare on the Outer Banks. On the oceanside the demand runs to teardown and rebuild, septic replacement on lots where the original system has aged out, driveways and pads. Albetuck does both, and because we handle clearing through to final grade with one crew, a rebuild does not stall waiting for the next trade to show up.
Two permitting layers apply here that do not exist inland. Dare County runs septic through a three-step sequence — site evaluation, Improvement Permit, Construction Permit — and coastal permitting commonly takes four to eight weeks, so starting early is not optional. On top of that, the Coastal Area Management Act defines development to include land clearing and land alteration, not just building, which means work near the estuarine shoreline or the oceanfront can require a CAMA permit before a machine touches the property. Seasonally, the island’s water table rises through the wet months, and ground that clears cleanly in October can be a different job entirely in February.
Why Albetuck
Plenty of outfits will quote land clearing services in Kitty Hawk. Fewer can take a lot from raw ground to a finished, permitted, buildable site without handing you off halfway.
Clay Newbern has been on job sites since he was five years old. His father’s company, F&H, did site work, land clearing and septic along this coast starting in the 1980s. Albetuck opened in December 2021 carrying the same trades and the same standards forward.
The difference between Newhan sand on a dune ridge and Duckston sand in the flat between dunes is the difference between a straightforward job and an expensive surprise. We read that before we quote, not after the permit comes back.
Clearing, mulching, septic, grading, utilities, demolition, material hauling. Six to seven people who do all of it, so the schedule does not stall between trades and no one is pointing at anyone else when something goes sideways.
An eighty thousand dollar septic system or a single lot that needs brush knocked back — both get a real quote and a real crew. Clay is honest about it: he has a hard time saying no.
We are based in Jarvisburg, straight over the Wright Memorial Bridge, and we own our own sand pit. On an island where every load of fill has to come across a bridge, that is a scheduling advantage as much as a price one. Estimates are free.
Service Area
Albetuck provides land clearing services in Kitty Hawk and across the Outer Banks, from the Wright Memorial Bridge south through the beach towns to Hatteras. We are based in Jarvisburg, run north to Moyock and Corolla, and west to Elizabeth City and Columbia.
Areas we serve
Questions
It depends on what is standing and where the lot sits. A soundside parcel under maritime forest with mature oaks prices very differently from a lot carrying scrub and wax myrtle. On the Outer Banks two extra factors apply that do not on the mainland: debris has to be hauled off the island rather than dumped nearby, and if the property falls inside a CAMA Area of Environmental Concern, permitting has to be resolved before clearing starts. Albetuck quotes off a walk of the actual property, and the estimate is free.
The soil decides most of it, and in Kitty Hawk the soil is often the problem. The town’s land use plan rates Corolla and Duckston sands — which cover much of the town — as a severe limitation for septic fields, because the water table sits one and a half to three feet down. That usually rules out a conventional gravity system and pushes the design toward a fill system, a pump system or an advanced treatment unit, all of which cost more. Lots on Newhan sand along the higher ridges, rated only a slight limitation, come in considerably cheaper. We price the system after the site evaluation.
Yes, and Dare County runs it in three steps. First a site evaluation, where an environmental health specialist visits the property — it needs to be properly marked — and writes back on whether the lot will support a system in its present condition. Second an Improvement Permit, which requires a scaled survey showing all planned improvements. Third a Construction Permit, which requires proof of an approved water source plus two sets of house plans. Coastal permitting commonly runs four to eight weeks, so start early. North Carolina also requires the installer to hold current NCOWCICB certification.
Possibly, and it catches people out. The Coastal Area Management Act defines development to include any construction, associated land clearing or land alteration — so clearing alone can require a permit if the property sits in an Area of Environmental Concern. As a rule of thumb, anything along the oceanfront or the estuarine shoreline is affected, which covers a lot of Kitty Hawk given the town’s frontage on Currituck Sound and Kitty Hawk Bay. Depending on scope you may need a minor, major or general CAMA permit. Dare County has a Local Permit Officer who handles these, and we work the process with you.
Usually yes, and often better than conventional clearing. Mulching grinds the growth in place and leaves the material as a mat, which protects dune-ridge soil that erodes easily once it is stripped and disturbed. It also removes the debris problem entirely, and on a barrier island where every load has to cross the Wright Memorial Bridge, that is a real saving. A typical one to two acre lot with brush and small trees is a one to two day job. Heavier maritime hardwood slows it down.
Yes, and it is a common job here. Many Kitty Hawk homes are on systems installed decades ago under different standards, and on soils that today would be rated a severe limitation. Replacement usually means a new site evaluation, because the county assesses the lot as it is now, and the replacement design often differs from the original. Space is the practical constraint — setbacks from wells, property lines and the shoreline can leave a narrow window on an island lot, which is where smaller-footprint designs come in. We look at the existing system and the available area before quoting.
We do. A lot of Outer Banks work now is taking an older cottage down and rebuilding on the same lot, and Albetuck handles the demolition, the slab and deck removal, and the debris haul-off. Because we also do the clearing and grading, a teardown can finish as a level, ready-to-build pad rather than a pile someone else has to deal with. If the demolition is step one of a rebuild, we can carry it straight through.
