THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 25, 1994 TAG: 9406250267
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A9 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY CHRISTOPHER DINSMORE, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: 940625 LENGTH: Medium
The perception is that the city is about to dry up and blow away because of severe water shortages.
{REST} The reality is that the city's long-term economic health will suffer without the Lake Gaston pipeline project or an alternative fresh-water supply.
The fact is, Virginia Beach has enough water for now, thanks to mandatory restrictions on car washing, lawn watering and development of new residential neighborhoods, city and business leaders say. Still, even the most optimistic admit that the city needs to secure a long-term source if it is to attract new businesses and grow.
``In an effort to try to ensure that we get the pipeline, we may create an alarm among companies looking at the city that is more detrimental to economic development than the situation actually warrants,'' said Gerald Divaris, president of Divaris Realty Co., a Virginia Beach developer and commercial real estate company.
``One of the concerns we have is that the more publicity we give to it. . . ,'' said Arthur L. Collins, executive director of the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission. ``People all over the Eastern Seaboard will think that Hampton Roads is drying up and blowing away. And that's not the case.''
Virginia Beach, and to a lesser extent Chesapeake, needs to find another source of water to continue growing at the pace it has been for the past decade. Virginia Beach, which buys its water from Norfolk, is charged penalties if it uses more than 30 million gallons a day.
For years, both cities have been planning on the pipeline to relieve their growing water needs and resolve the impending water crisis. Development officials were counting on the guaranteed water supply to help attract businesses and accommodate new home building.
``It's distressing,'' said Greg Wingfield, president of Forward Hampton Roads, the economic development arm of the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce. ``That was our light at the end of the tunnel.''
Whenever a hot development prospect asked about water, economic developers could point to the giant lake straddling the Virginia-North Carolina border, Wingfield said.
The water-supply problem limits the types of companies Virginia Beach recruits, city officials said. Manufacturers are most affected. And some clients who don't have big water needs have to be sold harder than they otherwise would have to be on the issue of water.
Real estate agents in Hampton Roads are concerned about the problem and the threat it poses to growth, said Darlene M. Lamb, president of the Tidewater Association of Realtors and a vice president of Prudential Decker Realty.
``It will have a large effect on building, on future developments,'' she said.
``There's nothing positive about it,'' said Tuck Bowie, president of the Tidewater Builders Association.
Indeed it is a major negative for any business considering moving to Virginia Beach or anywhere in Hampton Roads, Bowie said.
``If economic development is impacted and we don't get new business and industry in here, there's not even going to be a need for new housing.
``Putting aside concerns about economic development and new housing development, it's going to impact Oceana, it's going to impact the race track, it's going to impact a whole lot of things,'' Bowie said.
{KEYWORDS} LAKE GASTON PIPELINE WATER SUPPLY PLAN
by CNB