THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, November 29, 1995 TAG: 9511290407
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY FRANCIE LATOUR, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE LENGTH: Medium: 64 lines
Despite the pleas of dozens of citizens, the Chesapeake City Council on Tuesday voted to allow commercial development on a site linked to its Colonial heritage.
In a 6-2 vote, council members approved a permit for drive-through windows that were key to construction of a new bank and pharmacy at Cedar Road and Battlefield Boulevard, a corridor already teeming with traffic and stop-shop centers.
The move staved off a strip shopping center that developers threatened as an alternative, but erased any hope of preserving the 3-acre site as a chapel green to commemorate patriots who shed blood during the American Revolution.
Last month, that hope seemed real when council members denied the drive-through permits and vowed to purchase the property and turn it into a historical park.
But the property's owners refused to sell the land, offering the city only an expensive, long-term lease.
In testimony that lasted more than an hour, students, neighbors and teachers invoked everything from nursery rhymes to a Roman philosopher to plead their case to save the last vestige of a battle that the city has never officially celebrated.
``Extinct is forever,'' said Warren L. Puckett, one of 17 speakers Tuesday night. ``Great Bridge could have been another Yorktown. . . but now the congested eyesore of Battlefield Boulevard is now our only monument to our own history.''
The lot is the final testament to the 1775 battle of Great Bridge, the first battle fought and won in Virginia by American soldiers against British forces.
``I think it's really sad,'' said Bonnie Mahl, 17. The Great Bridge High School senior and two other students read a Dr. Seuss book to the council to explain what she called the simple lesson of preservation.
``Great Bridge is going to become a town where there's going to be buildings, buildings everywhere. We have two of everything, and we don't need it.''
Bahl, who will be eligible to vote in May, was one of many who pledged to use the method of resistance begun by their forefathers against British colonialists: the ballot and the boycott.
Council members emerged from a closed meeting saying their only power was in choosing the lesser of two evils.
Mayor William E. Ward, Vice Mayor Robert T. Nance Jr. and council members John E. Allen, Peter P. Duda Jr. and Dwight Parker voted in favor of the development. Council members John M. de Triquet and Alan P. Krasnoff voted in opposition.
The owners had turned down the city's offer of $1.2 million to purchase the property.
The council decided it could not justify leasing the land. Council members said their only option then was to approve the bank and pharmacy or make way for a strip shopping center, which did not require their approval.
Allen said pleas by some residents to condemn the property to put in the park were unreasonable.
``The right to own property is one of the most basic things of our republic, and we have to respect it,'' Allen said, ``as distasteful as it may be. And this is one of those times.'' by CNB