THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, March 11, 1995 TAG: 9503110263
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY FRANCIE LATOUR, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE LENGTH: Medium: 73 lines
The region's builders have strongly criticized the Chesapeake City Council's proposed strict rezoning rules.
A letter from the Tidewater Builders Association to the city's nine planning commissioners this week warned that ``the city may be starting down a very questionable path'' with a plan that would deny requests to build homes in areas where certain basic services were at or beyond fixed limits.
For example, the new policy would prohibit development in neighborhoods where schools are 20 percent or more over their capacity.
City officials say the plan is designed to strengthen guidelines that already exist in Chesapeake's 1990 Comprehensive Plan.
But using those new rules as a way to control growth could be tantamount to ``a de facto and illegal moratorium'' on rezonings, wrote Richard D. Guy, general counsel for the builders group.
Guy said imposing the rules would lead to a ``Catch-22'' scenario, in which no building could take place until all the schools, roads and sewer lines were in place to accommodate future growth.
The association's president, Michael D. Newsome, said cities simply do not grow that way.
``Infrastructure usually follows growth,'' said Newsome, vice president of Michael Lee Co., a building firm based in Virginia Beach.
``What the city is asking is that infrastructure come before the growth. It's like building a school before any students are there.''
Newsome said the letter was not a precursor to a lawsuit.
``What the letter is saying is that we're watching what is going on. We're asking, `Is this something you have the authority to do, and if you don't know whether you do or not, you had better check it out.' ''
Chesapeake is the fastest-growing city in the state. Council members have pledged to take control of development before it overwhelms the city's infrastructure.
``Our current situation is that we are totally fiscally stressed,'' said Vice Mayor Arthur L. Dwyer. ``We have overcrowded schools and urgent road needs, and the builders, they have just not come to the table with us on these things.''
In January, the city failed to get approval by the General Assembly to impose fees on developers that would offset the impact of new homes on already overcrowded schools and roads.
Dwyer said there are still plenty of opportunities for builders in Chesapeake.
``I'm willing to bet that there are 7-10 years' worth of building permits that could be issued at the current rate with all the land already zoned,'' Dwyer said. ``This is not a policy to stop growth. It's a prudent action that will direct future growth to areas that can handle it.''
Some local builders question the city's raw statistics on acreage and building permits.
``Some of that land is remote, some of it is encumbered by wetlands, some of it is remote from utility access, and some of it just is not in demand,'' said S. Grey Folkes, Jr., vice president of the Hassell & Folkes building firm in Chesapeake, ``that is, people don't want to live there, so we're not going to build there.''
Though the city and builders will probably continue to dispute the numbers, Folkes said residents and their leaders will ultimately have to come to terms with a persistent ``close-the-door-behind-us'' attitude he says has plagued Chesapeake since it first began to grow.
``Wherever we go in Chesapeake,'' Folkes said of a recent meeting with a neighborhood's residents, ``people don't want other people to come. But those people who don't want (building) are here as a result of my being able to compromise with their previous neighbors before they got here.'' by CNB