THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, January 27, 1997 TAG: 9701270054
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PAUL CLANCY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: 98 lines
The tide is low, the white, midday moon full, and boats in Lake Rudee just inside the inlet aren't budging. Instead, they're resting quietly in gooey mud.
``What's happening is the whole cotton-picking Rudee Inlet basin is filling in,'' says Charles Kiley, a longtime resident of the exclusive waterfront community that surrounds the lake.
``You get a full moon and a spring tide, and you just can't get in or out.''
The problem is separate from Rudee Inlet itself, which has been plagued by shoaling sand.
This is more universal. It is silt, the sediment that lays on the bottom of stagnant creeks and channels behind thousands of waterfront homes in Hampton Roads.
The silt, accumulating faster as water flow decreases, is turning many once deep-water channels into mud flats, threatening to lower property values and, ultimately, city tax bases.
The Rudee area is just one of several in the southern part of Virginia Beach that will be the focus of a neighborhood workshop Thursday at 7 p.m. at the Princess Anne Community Recreation Center.
To judge from the turnout of more than 500 residents at two similar public sessions last week in the Lynnhaven River section of the Beach, attendance and interest should be high.
For the first time in its relatively young history, the city is looking at the possibility of sharing the cost of dredging many miles of channels, some of them originally cut or deepened by developers of waterfront residences.
The city has taken responsibility for keeping some of its main waterways clear, but never the secondary channels, even though many have silted up because of municipal stormwater drainage pipes.
Virginia Beach's cautious venture into what could cost several million dollars is being watched carefully by other Hampton Roads cities, particularly Norfolk, that have similar problems but have shied away from taking responsibility for an essentially private privilege.
But the cities realize they stand to lose a significant part of their tax base if high-priced homes stagnate, and the quality of life in a water-bound region begins to suffer.
``We're all in the same boat,'' says Phillip Roehrs, a coastal engineer for the city.
And a kind of rocking boat, to judge from the real-estate horror story told by David Johnston, former president of the Baycliff Civic League.
The prospective buyer of a luxury waterfront home beside Dam Neck Creek recently backed out of a sale after attempting to pull his boat up to what was supposed to be a deep-water dock and plowing into deep mud, Johnston said at the first of the neighborhood meetings.
The city had reserved a Great Neck Community Center meeting room that would hold about 100 people. After more than 300 showed up, the meeting moved to the gymnasium.
Baycliff has a community boat ramp at the headwaters of Dam Neck Creek, but a stormwater inlet has filled it with silt. ``There are 276 houses in Baycliff with access to an unusable boat ramp,'' Johnston said.
Added Robert Swink, who lives on Echo Cove in Baycliff, ``This is potentially a dynamite situation, taxwise.''
So far, the market for waterfront homes in Virginia Beach has not declined, says the Beach's real estate assessor, Jerry Banagan. ``In general, waterfront neighborhoods don't decline in value. Even inside lots that don't have a water view maintain their value.''
But there are examples of neighborhoods where values have shot up after privately funded channel dredging has occurred, he adds.
Gail Garrington, an agent for William E. Wood Associates, says nearly 2,000 waterfront homes have sold at the Beach since 1993. Prices have not dropped, she says, but, ``Obviously it would increase some of their values if the waterways were dredged.''
The city paid $250,000 for a study of ``neighborhood navigation channels'' that is supposed to weigh citizen interest in boating and better boating access on virtually all of its waterways.
``How much do you believe having a private dock/boating access increases the total value of your property?'' one question in an eight-page questionnaire asks.
But the big question is: ``Would you be willing to pay a share of the costs?''
One way to do it would be to add user taxes and fees, including licensing fees for private docks, waterfront development impact fees and increases in such things as marina slip fees, boat registration fees, personal property taxes and watercraft sales taxes.
Waterfront residents say they already pay higher taxes for the privilege of living on the water because assessments are higher.
``When are we going to get some of that money back?'' Bill Buono, chairman of the Great Neck Association of Civic Leagues, demanded at the first neighborhood meeting, followed by applause from the crowd.
Roehrs said after the study is completed this summer, his office will put the matter before City Council.
``We will probably end up with recommendations that suggest some level of city participation,'' he said. ILLUSTRATION: STEVE EARLEY
The Virginian-Pilot
Charles Kiley, left, a longtime resident of Harbor Pointe
subdivision, and John Crowling, general manager of the Virginia
Beach Fishing Center, visit a silted canal off of Lake Rudee.