THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, May 12, 1996 TAG: 9605120133
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAVE ADDIS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Long : 147 lines
For the time being, let's just call it The Hole.
If you call it a borrow pit, developer Gale Levine will get her back up and tell you it soon will be a picturesque fish pond.
If you call it a fish pond, the neighbors whose homes it borders will roll their eyes, scuff their feet, and tell you it's nothing more than a money pit for Levine and her father, Luther Malbon Sr., and that it threatens to drain their wells, ruin their roads, lure their kids, and turn their neighborhood into a strip-mine moonscape.
Whatever The Hole is, the only thing coming out of it right now is a great big stink over the otherwise pleasant neighborhood of Lago Mar. Digging has stopped while the state Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy decides if the project is up to snuff.
Trouble has been bubbling out of The Hole since it first appeared late last fall, right alongside Sandbridge Road, and right up against the back yards of some homes that push $300,000 in value. Trouble spilled over the brim a week agowhen the Mines people got the neighbors and the developer together for a hearing.
``It started out kinda OK,'' said one resident. ``But it got ugly in a hurry. A lot of it got personal. I didn't like some of the stuff I was hearing.''
Lago Mar is the southern outpost of Virginia Beach suburban development, but for the beachy-resort streets of Sandbridge. It's a place where neighbors tend their lawns, drift through one another's back yards in summer for a weekend beer or barbecue, and generally enjoy a breath of country air away from their weekday jobs in the city.
The first hint of a problem came when neighbors on Los Colonis Drive began hearing an annoying ``beep-beep-beep'' from the field behind their homes. It was the back-up warning horns of a lot of heavy equipment. Work on The Hole had begun.
And it had begun without notice, which is one of the reasons why people are so angry. But just one.
The Hole sits on 11 acres of land owned by Gale Levine, who developed the popular Marina Shores site off Great Neck Road. She's the daughter of Luther Malbon Sr., whose family has farmed in southern Virginia Beach for many years.
Levine says her father has researched the project for at least four years. He wants to raise rock bass for sale in restaurants and offer folks a place to wet a fishing line, for a fee.
``Call me a dutiful daughter, call me whatever you want,'' Levine said, ``but he has wanted to do this for a long time. He's retired, this is something he can do with his remaining years, and I'm going to do what I can to make sure it happens for him.''
Levine acknowledged that sand and gravel would be sold as The Hole is dug, but she says that's just a side venture that will end when The Hole hits 50 feet, or less, and the berms are leveled for landscaping. She envisions a pond covering 6 to 8 acres, with weeping willows and other trees, and fences and grassy berms and flowers.
``Here I thought I was doing something they'd like,'' she said, referring to the hornet's nest of neighbors. ``I could have put condos in there, or more houses.
``For that matter, it's zoned agricultural, I could do anything I want with that land. I could have put a hog farm in there. Take your pick, hogs or fish.
``What could be better than having a lake in your back yard? I thought that would be better for them than having to stare at the back of somebody else's house.
``I thought I was doing something good.''
The Hole, as it sits right now, is definitely not something good. From the back yard of Lissa and Victor Philleo's house on Los Colonis Drive, it is a massive, 15-foot wall of wet sand. On the other side is a network of dug-out channels and pits, some filled with three or four feet of water.
``They've already had to chase kids out of there,'' said Lissa Philleo, standing atop the berm with her husband, looking out over 8 acres of muck. ``There've already been kids swimming in there.'' Two mattresses lay in the middle, possibly dumped there, possibly dragged out there by rambunctious teenagers. Nobody knows.
There is no fence. ``That's our primary concern,'' Lissa Philleo said.
``Look, kids will be kids,'' said neighbor Gary Rogacki, a member of the Lago Mar Civic League that's fighting the project. ``Those big walls of sand, that's like a magnet for kids.''
Victor Philleo pointed across the street, where a homeowner is putting in a swimming pool. ``Look,'' he said, ``that guy is required by law to have a fence around that pool. But right over here, nothing. That doesn't make sense.''
Beyond the safety question - and the noise and the dust and the truck traffic - the homeowners are worried that a 50-foot-deep pond could damage the aquifer and ruin their wells. Roughly half of the 430-odd homes at Lago Mar use well water exclusively.
``They've done this with no regard for the neighbors,'' Rogacki said. ``They should have sat down with us and said `Now this is what we're doing, this is the plan,' and it would have been more palatable.''
The suddenness with which The Hole began has left suspicions. The homeowners think Levine and her father started digging before year's end to evade stricter rules governing borrow pits that took effect in January. At the hearing, people made rude remarks about other projects the family has done that resulted in something other than what was discussed in public.
``Fish pond,'' said Victor Philleo, kicking a clump of sand down into The Hole. ``The only way there will ever be a fish in there is if somebody drives down Sandbridge Road and throws one in there.''
That's just too cynical for my taste,'' Levine said in an interview last week. She admitted that her temper boiled at the public hearing as the criticism grew more pointed, more personal.
``I was not prepared for the vitriol,'' she said.
``Look, I had one guy say how he likes to look out over those fields in the morning, how he'll lose that view. You know what I say to that? You want that view, then buy yourself a field.
``These people ought to remember that all that land they're living on was all woods and marshes. It's all filled in. I used to ride horses out there when I was a kid. They didn't come to me and ask my permission to build their homes. They didn't think of what impact their construction had on my family.''
On the safety question, she said: ``They want a fence, they'll get a fence. The last thing I want is for someone to get hurt out there.''
On the wells: ``I've told them, we're going to dig this slow, only down to 20 feet this summer. The water table will even out naturally, I've had well and water people tell me that. If there's a problem with somebody's well, we'll fix it.''
Officially, Levine has done nothing wrong. In a city where you're told where you can ride a skateboard and where you can fling a Frisbee, there's nothing to stop a farmer from digging a hole on his land.
``They tell us the purpose of that project is so that they can raise fish,'' said Robert Scott, the city planning director. ``Now, under the law, raising fish is an agricultural operation. We cannot interfere with the conducting of agricultural operations. We can't keep them from digging that hole.''
The city did, however, clamp weight limits on nearby Colechester Road when trucks working from a borrow pit there tore up the streets. ``We contend it's our right to do that,'' Scott said, adding that the city would take ``commensurate action'' if Levine's project causes similar damage.
For now, all's quiet at The Hole. The Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy got involved when they learned that sand and gravel would be trucked from the site. That required a permit, and a hearing, which resulted in the public airing of the feud.
Among the state's concerns will be safety, and possible damage to the wells. ``Groundwater is one of our considerations and we will be looking at that,'' said Gary Barney, the state mines officer who held the hearing.
The state's ruling on the project is likely to come in the first week of June, Barney said.
And what happens if the state shuts it down permanently? ``You know,'' said Levine, ``I haven't really thought about that. I have no idea.'' ILLUSTRATION: Map
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