THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, June 21, 1994 TAG: 9406210382
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JEFF HOOTEN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: 940621 LENGTH: CHESAPEAKE
The city sheriff wants to expand prisoner housing in Greenbrier: He wants to build a jail for up to 200 inmates who will do the city's gruntwork without pay, from mowing median strips to collecting trash. He wants to build the $2.3 million building next to the City Garage, so inmates can sleep within a few yards of one place where they will work.
{REST} The jail would be next to the state prison, which houses 110 inmates. It would be an annex to the existing City Jail, which is 250 percent over capacity.
Some Greenbrier residents, who have paid $100,000 to $500,000 for their piece of suburbia, want to stop the jail expansion.
``This an inappropriate location for the work-release program,'' said Bill Constantine, an officer of the Wedgewood Estates Homeowners Association. ``The concern of the community is that Greenbrier will begin to become another central jail point for the community.''
``It's the jewel of the entire Chesapeake area, and they're going to turn it into a prison,'' said Dennis R. Jones, a businessman who lives in Wedgewood Estates.
Wedgewood Estates is an upper middle-class neighborhood of quarter-million dollar homes that lies directly across Greenbrier Parkway from the proposed jail site. Many residents fear another jail would stigmatize the area and erode property values.
The residents' opposition stopped the City Council's first vote on the project, but it is scheduled to vote on funding the annex at today's meeting. In the past few weeks, several council members have been investigating other sites. Councilman Alan P. Krasnoff asked city staff to consider the Bowers Hill area.
Sheriff John Newhart knows where he wants to build - on city-owned land between the SPSA Transfer Station and Executive Boulevard in Greenbrier. Lt. Col. C. A. Stafford, chief deputy for the sheriff's office, says the city will save at least $1.7 million in property and utility costs by building there.
Stafford said the city can't postpone or eliminate plans to build an annex: The city currently houses 500 inmates in a jail designed for 200.
Nearby residents are angry about more than the jail's location. They charge that the city not only failed to give them advance notice, but most of the residents were never notified at all.
Constantine said he learned of the city's plan one day before the City Council was scheduled to vote on the annex, from a local businessman who faxed him a copy of the city's letter about the project.
``The city did not notify any of the residential property owners in the area, because none of them had property that immediately abutted the proposed jail annex,'' Constantine said.
Once mobilized, neighborhood leaders gathered more than 670 signatures on a petition opposing the jail. About 50 residents mustered to oppose the jail at last Tuesday's council meeting, even though the annex wasn't on the agenda.
Petition-signers say they already have a jail next door - the state-run prison farm. They want the jail annex moved to a more rural section.
``We already have enough jails out here,'' said Karen DiDomenico of Wynngate Place, which lies south of Wedgewood Estates. ``I have children that I raise here by myself, so I take them into consideration.''
Jones said the jail annex would stifle future commercial growth in Greenbrier. ``I don't think that major industries are going to want to come to this area when less than a mile down the street is a prison complex,'' Jones said.
Residents also said that they don't trust the city to keep its promise not to expand the size and scope of the site. ``What they say and what they do are two different things,'' said Helen Andrews, a Norcova Estates resident who lives less than a mile from the proposed annex location.
Stafford emphasized that the facility would house only nonviolent offenders. Future expansion, he added, would be limited to double-bunking, bringing the inmate count to 200.
Many residents who oppose the annex acknowledge that more jail space would help take criminals off the streets. But few people want a jail too close to home.
``It doesn't bother me, since we already have one over there,'' said Carl Dudley, who lives in Hunningdon Lakes, a neighborhood about a mile from the proposed jail site. ``I might feel different if I was right across the street from it.''
{KEYWORDS} JAIL PROPOSED
by CNB