THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 27, 1996 TAG: 9610250233
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 07 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letters
LENGTH: 93 lines
The Virginia Beach Resort Area Advisory Commission is strongly in favor of the Redevelopment and Housing Authority. Over 14 years, the RAAC has seen the lack of redevelopment tools available to the city, and has reached several conclusions.
We know Norfolk's Redevelopment and Housing Authority has been a major agent for changes and preservation in Norfolk for 30 years, and for most people it is the only model they know, for better or for worse, even though the Beach's needs and goals are very different.
We know the Burton Station project might be seen as the entire issue, but it is not. Burton Station may or may not be declared an appropriate project area for an authority. The larger issue is whether Virginia Beach has the tools to successfully address major goals in developed areas, now or in the future.
We know planning, studying and re-designing are essential for some commercial or residential areas as they continue to age. Virginia Beach currently has no agency that focuses for a long term on a physical area and improves it through coordination of public and private efforts. The RAAC is acutely aware that there are far more private funds available than public funds, and that it takes major public effort to steer the private sector toward public goals. We need an agency that can do these tasks effectively.
We know an authority is subject to rigorous controls. An area must be clearly blighted before it can be considered as a potential authority project area. Council must specifically request that the authority examine an area, the authority must report the area's problems and potential changes, public hearings must be held, and council must formally approve any project area before the authority can take action.
We know the most touted ability of Redevelopment and Housing Authority - eminent domain (condemnation) - is already available to the city and is infrequently used for road, school, water, airport, reservoir, sewer and other publicly owned projects. The vast majority of the properties necessary for those projects have been obtained by simple sale rather than by eminent domain. Eminent domain has generally resulted in the classic settlement of money issues: the seller thought the price was too low and the buyer thought it was too high. A Redevelopment and Housing Authority can, unlike the above examples, later sell property obtained through eminent domain to a private owner, rather than keeping it in public ownership.
We do not doubt there are past occasions of unfairness on both sides of eminent domain proceedings, but we do not want to confuse the quality of past medicine with the quality of tomorrow's doctor. We know ``eminent domain'' is not an important or familiar term to most of the voting public, but in the world of city growth and health it is as important as vaccine to a victim.
We know Virginia Beach has reached a maturity level where the northern half of the city is largely developed and some of that development has deteriorated, and improvement opportunities have emerged. We, as every city, have lower value properties and all public and private projects seek to improve lower value property. Sometimes the owners of lower value property are delighted to renovate or to sell and move, and sometimes they are not. These normal free-market effects are often clouded by racial perceptions, or by ties to the land, relatives or neighbors.
We know the city does not want to use eminent domain and most often does not have to. We have seen the $60 million Atlantic Avenue project benefiting property owners, city residents and the city's general fund completed with no eminent domain at all. We have seen the 24th Street Park, 25th Street Parking lot, a 600-car parking garage, 17th Street Park, and the Amphitheater completed on formerly private lands without using eminent domain. But we have also seen projects high on the list of ``must do'' for neighborhoods, property owners, tenants, civic leagues and citizens stopped because we cannot be sure we can obtain all essential properties. One person can stop the goals of 400,000.
The city must have the tools to repair areas that need or request it. The city must have the tools to move ahead with projects that benefit hundreds of supportive property owners and may take 10 years and hundreds of acres and millions of dollars, using a fair and equitable method to resolve a property that may have no clear title, no clear property line, or even no clear owner. The issue is whether Virginia Beach will have the tools to move major goals ahead in the developed city, rather than on farmland. After that come the issues of when and where we want to use them. We urge voters to see that there are several levels of protection for the people of Burton Station or other potential project areas within the Redevelopment and Housing Authority legislation, and that eminent domain is so seldom used that it should not be the focal point of the voting issue. Do not discard 100 tools we need for fear that one is dangerous - take them all and be extra careful if and when we have to use the one.
Roger Newill
Chairman, Resort Area
Advisory Commission
Oct. 16 ILLUSTRATION: Graphic
BALLOT QUESTION
Is there a need for the redevelopment and housing authority to be
activated in the
City of Virginia Beach?
KEYWORDS: REDEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY DEBATE by CNB