THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, August 2, 1996 TAG: 9608020512
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY NANCY LEWIS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: 97 lines
Business is anything but booming at the little commercial hub in Bay View.
A Be-Lo food store that could use sprucing up, a dank and dark ``medicine'' and soda fountain shop that residents say is closed more than it's open, and a barber shop from a bygone era seem to huddle defensively at the intersection of Fishermans Road and Bay View Boulevard.
A vacant hardware store is sandwiched between the drug and grocery stores. The blank storefront and empty interior exemplify what urban planners refer to as ``a missing tooth'' in the community.
Teeth missing or not, this clutch of structures that lie almost dead-center in the triangular Bay View section has led to a minor fray in the usually staid residential neighborhood in recent days.
A community leader and a city official say the rift came because they failed in their efforts to explain how they were looking for ways to boost the sagging strip.
Disgruntled residents say they understand full well what's going on, and they don't like it. Expanding the commercial zone would lower property values and change the character of the neighborhood, they say.
The trouble began when the Bay View Civic League Board of Directors, hoping that re-visioning would jump-start the businesses, recommended changing the city's long-term plan to make commercial land use more possible along the 1500 block of Bay View Blvd.
They believed that the economic stagnation was a result of a city plan that ordained that the commercial properties would eventually become residential.
But that's not likely to happen, the leaders say, because the going price would be way out of line for home builders.
On the other hand, the hub's predestination made the commercial properties' owners think twice about spending money to clean up and fix up. After all, they were surrounded by residential property that prevented them from expanding.
So the civic league leaders touted their plan at a July 22 public informational meeting, then asked the Planning Commission to approve the amendment, which it did after a public hearing on July 25.
Now the proposal to change the 1992 General Plan must go to City Council for approval, something a group of residents, some of them civic league members, hopes to forestall.
Mary Wilson is one of those opposed to the plan. She closed on a duplex in the 9300 block of Beaumont St. June 18 with the intention of converting it to a single-family home.
``I'm upset,'' she said after learning of the proposed amendment. The change from residential to commercial land-use designations would make it more likely that a business, rather than a family, could move in next door to her.
``We have two young children, and our dream was always to live in a nice family neighborhood,'' she said. ``We wanted a larger home, a yard. We had a dream, wanted to move up.''
Others were just as vocal.
Margaret Sullivan, who has lived on Bay View Boulevard since 1935, said that amending the General Plan would change the character of the neighborhood.
``Sort of like a ripple,'' she said, ``like a spreading thing.''
What these folks don't want, they say, is a commercial intersection like the one just blocks away where Bay View and Chesapeake boulevards cross, with its array of businesses.
But a city official and the president of the civic league disagree with these residents.
City Planner Brian Townsend says the plan would encourage business revitalization and would provide protection from the encroachment of unwanted businesses.
``Now, it's a stalemate,'' Townsend said, with commercial ventures ``sitting there with no room to expand.''
Although the neighborhood was slated to turn single-family from commercial when the General Plan was approved in 1992, ``Now we recognize . . . that ain't gonna happen,'' Townsend said. ``Who could afford it? That's why it hasn't happened. No one is happy with it the way it is, and all are agreed it's a mishmash.''
John Roger, president of Bay View Civic League, said the proposed amendment would give the community safeguards it doesn't now have. For example, he said, ``a lot of bad things could happen'' the way the plan now reads.
Now, some businesses that residents might not welcome, such as pawn shops, thrift shops, pool parlors and places that sell alcohol, could apply for zoning changes and move into the neighborhood, Roger said. The proposed amendment to the plan would likely exclude such businesses, he said.
``We want to protect and set parameters,'' Roger said. ``There are six areas in the community, little shopping areas, and this would be a prototype. We want to beef 'em back up.''
Roger said that the Camellia Foods grocery store chain has purchased the Be-Lo market, and a couple is interested in buying the drug store for an ``old-timey'' soda parlor.
``We seem to have failed in explaining,'' Roger said. ``We may have used the wrong words.
``I've heard people say `industrial' and `zoning change,' '' and these are not accurate, he said.
``This is the heart of the community, and if we don't take care of the heart, we'll be in trouble.'' ILLUSTRATION: Graphic by John Earle/The Virginian-Pilot
The Bay View Proposal
KEYWORDS: BAY VIEW NORFOLK PLANNING COMMISSION by CNB