THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 18, 1994 TAG: 9409180074
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KAREN WEINTRAUB, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Long : 148 lines
After 49 years as next door neighbors, it didn't make sense for Flora Lee Cornick and Virginia Wood to move apart, even when they had to relocate.
You get used to a person after that long, and Wood, who doesn't drive, relies on Cornick to get around.
So the two bought adjacent condominiums this summer - the left wall of Cornick's house is the right wall of Wood's - and they spend a good part of the day commuting the three short steps between front doors. Cornick, the younger of the two, has a wreath on her baby blue door and a welcome mat. Wood, who's got the green thumb, provides the flowers that sit on both front stoops.
``I love it, I sure do,'' Cornick said of her new home.
But both women wish they could have stayed in Burton Station - that is, if the history of the past dozen years or so had been written a little differently.
First through zoning changes and now through a buyout plan, city leaders have made public policy out of their belief that Burton Station would be a better home to businesses than people. The city has relocated about a dozen Burton Station residents so far.
Cornick and Wood, who were moved to condominiums off Princess Anne Road, are glad for the modern conveniences of their new homes, but they are clearly torn about having to give up a neighborhood their families settled a century ago.
Cornick, 62, never lived anywhere else but Burton Station. Wood, Cornick's second cousin, has spent almost all of her 74 years in the neighborhood.
Their friends and most of their relations lived within shouting distance. The church they attended almost every day was a short walk down the railroad tracks. Their ancestors were buried down the street.
They gave up a community, or what was left of one, when they loaded up a borrowed truck the third week in June and headed to Kempsville.
For many years, local government appeared to have forgotten Burton Station. Officials didn't hook the 175-acre neighborhood up to city sewer and water, and city appraisers didn't give much value to the modest homes.
But two years ago the City Council decided Burton Station was the ideal spot for a new industrial park.
``It's the key industrial development opportunity for the city in the next 10 years,'' City Councilman Louis R. Jones said. ``It's a prime opportunity that we really cannot afford to let sit there.''
About 61 houses sit in the way of the city's plans.
Those who have already been bought out were given about $85,000 between city contributions and federal relocation payments, said James C. Lawson, the city's real estate agent. Several homeowners decided to move to more expensive neighborhoods and supplemented the money with a mortgage.
The city has offered about $1 a square foot to homeowners, many of whose lots are valued at about 30 cents per square foot on the tax rolls. The land might fetch more on the open market, though. Nearby industrial land is valued at $2.42 per square foot on average, city property tax data shows.
Lawson said he's not confident he will be able to buy all the property he wants, regardless of price.
The city had planned to buy two-dozen homesteads by now, but has only acquired half that number. The neighborhood is so old and property has changed hands so many times that it is nearly impossible in some cases to figure out who to pay for the land, Lawson said. On one such lot, nearly 100 people have legitimate title claims, he said.
The title problems and the lack of available city water for growth probably mean long delays for the industrial park, Lawson said. He doesn't expect the park to be on line for at least a decade.
Meanwhile, houses in Burton Station are falling apart, potholes are getting deeper and the sense of community is slowly moving out.
That spirit, like some of the residents, has relocated to Kempsville.
Cornick, Wood and many other former neighbors belong to the United House of Prayer for All People, another Burton Station refugee.
Wood is related to 25 or 30 of the church's 300 members. Cornick said she's related to all of them.
``We are cousins down the line every which way,'' she said. Most of her relations spent at least part of their lives in Burton Station; and most of them, like her, spend their free time at church.
Both women also chose their new homes because of the proximity to the new church on Princess Anne Road near Providence Road. A striking new white church with a neon red and blue frontispiece was built to replace the weather-battered wood building on the corner of Pearl Street.
``I'm closer to my church and that's the most important thing,'' Wood said.
Cornick, who works as a presser for a cleaners two days a week, talks gleefully about not having a lawn to mow anymore. She looks forward to forgetting something in one of the two bedrooms on the second floor so she'll have an excuse to climb the stairs. She never thought she'd like stairs, but now she can't get enough.
``I never had a house with no steps. I just enjoy going up and down those steps. It feels good,'' she said.
Wood, a retired short-order cook, is less enthusiastic about the stairs, but they do help keep her in shape, she said. She loves how clean the place is, and how big.
``I get lost,'' Wood said. ``Sometimes I try to get to the refrigerator and I end up in the bathroom. Too many doors.''
Wood thinks she got a raw deal out of the sale of her land: She and Cornick had the same sized lots, but while Wood only got the condominium, Cornick's aunt and uncle, who lived in another house on Cornick's lot, also got city money.
But when asked whether she holds it against Cornick, Wood chuckles. ``Lord no. Why would I do that?''
Wood brought up two sons and a daughter in her two-bedroom house. Cornick raised her daughter 20 feet and two numbers up Tim Road in a slightly larger green house with a red metal roof. Neither woman mentions a time when there was a man in their lives.
Cornick gets upset thinking about her old home now, because of the vandals. Someone pulled off the storm door and windows she spent so much hard-earned money to install. She had to take out a second mortgage on the house back in 1976 to pay for those windows and other work around the house.
It makes her sad to see the place. She's stopped going by every day as she did when she first moved away. She just drives by once a week or so to see how her neighborhood is getting on.
Wood hasn't been back in weeks - she has no way to get there - but she's not sure she wants to see it again.
``All I want to do is get back and get my rose bushes,'' she said. ``That's what worries me. I don't know if they're still there.''
The people who still live in Burton Station are torn about whether to accept the city's buyout offers.
Naomi Morgan said the city has not offered her mother enough money to relocate. City officials want to give her mother, Gladiola Stiff, 68, between $70,000 and $80,000 for her half-acre.
``My mother needs at least $150,000 to get her going. All the houses we're looking at are in that range,'' she said.
Tracey S. Hipp, 24, who moved back in with her mother in February, said she's still not sure what she'll do when the city knocks on her door.
Hipp, Wood's great-niece and Cornick's daughter's goddaughter, said she would like to seek the advice of her ancestors.
``I would like just to go back in time and ask them. Would they say, `Go with the times?' Or `Stay here?'
``If they would say no, I would stay right here.''
Cornick said if someone had told her a few years ago how good life could be somewhere else, she would have moved sooner.
``I'm happy with where I am. I feel like they could have given us more money, but I don't have a big mortgage or anything. I'm sorry for the people who aren't happy, but I am. I have a better place than I did,'' she said.
As for Wood: ``I asked Him to let me live to see my children get grown (and He did). I asked Him to let me live to see my church get built (and He did). Now, I pray He lets me live and enjoy this place.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo
L. TODD SPENCER
Virginia Wood and Flora Lee Cornick had lived side by side for 49
years, so when a Virginia Beach buyout plan led them to leave
Burton Station, they found adjacent condominiums to stay near each
other.
by CNB