THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 19, 1995 TAG: 9503170210
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Annual Business Review
Cover Story
SOURCE: BY PATRICIA HUANG, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 77 lines
CHESAPEAKE WAS HOME to 182,951 people by the end of 1994, a 4.2 percent increase in population from the year before, as housing construction continued to boom, more retailers moved into town and industries expanded.
As a result, the level of service on the city's roads deteriorated, more children had to attend classes in portable classrooms and the City Council continued to look for ways to keep the pace of growth under control.
Retailers saw a healthy climb in sales last year, and industries expanded, spending about $31 million on capital investments. The number of new retailers dipped slightly from 574 to 566 last year. But the overall number of licensed retailers increased by 14.4 percent.
The busy Great Bridge area led the city again as the fastest growing section of Chesapeake with a 7.4 percent population increase. Greenbrier trailed in as the second fastest growing area with a 6 percent increase.
Planning Department statistics divide the city into nine sections, showing that the least growth was in South Norfolk, Indian River and Camelot last year.
``Much of that has to do with the fact that there is relatively little developable land,'' said Brent R. Nielson, director of Chesapeake's Planning Department.
Last year, the city welcomed a total of 2,074 new dwellings but saw a slight decline in the percentage of single-family homes. Department of Inspections officials attribute the decline to the rise in lumber costs and increased interest rates.
And more than 6,000 acres of undeveloped residential land still exist in Chesapeake, according to a city study completed last July.
But the growing trend over the past several years has been to nix rezoning plans that would further burden the city's already congested roads and schools, Nielson said.
On Tuesday, the City Council is expected to vote on the proposed Planning and Land Use policy that would set specific limits to rezoning approvals according to level of service reports.
``What we didn't have before was an explicit policy that set exact limits,'' he said. ``With the new policy, for example, the staff would deny rezoning if say, a road is an E or F (level of service).''
The policy is aimed at directing growth in the city as well as assuring the timeliness of it, Nielson said.
Last year, for the first time since 1992, when the city began to require developers to pay capital impact costs through proffers, several developers volunteered to pay an average of $6,000 per unit to offset costs of school overcrowding.
More farmland was consolidated throughout the city last year as fewer farmers chose to stay in the profession.
And as summer approaches, Chesapeake residents brace themselves for another season of heavy tourist traffic and bustling thoroughfares. ILLUSTRATION: Charts
New Homes
Source: Chesapeake Department of Inspections
Population Growth
Source: Chesapeake Planning Department, U.S. Census
For a copy of charts, see microfilm
Staff photo by STEVE EARLEY
The bulldozers are rolling in and staying busy as the city's economy
continues to expand.
by CNB