THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, January 3, 1997 TAG: 9701030475
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MEREDITH COHN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE LENGTH: 96 lines
In suburbia, there are houses and stores and automobile-choked roads in between. At least that's the trend in Chesapeake as it grapples with its growth.
Carroll Williamson, a local landowner and architect, says his idea of building parks, convenience stores and a network of sidewalks within a subdivision could ease one of the biggest problems associated with a booming city: traffic.
Williamson owns property, 128 acres between Butts Station and Kempsville roads, that was recently rezoned by City Council to accommodate his vision of a ``human scale'' neighborhood.
But residents fear that the development, a denser housing community than zoning originally would allow, will overtax already burdened roads and cause safety problems. They are taking their battle against Williamson's Warrington Hall up to full speed this weekend. A volunteer crew will go to publicplaces seeking signatures on a petition to initiate legal action against the project.
The development will be built in phases during the next five years, and Williamson said no more than 282 of the 316 homes will go up before Kempsville Road is expanded in the year 2000. The 282 homes is the number allowed under the original zoning.
Williamson's family has owned the property since the 1920s. ``Because it was my father's and I grew up in the area, I wanted to do my very best with it,'' he said. Now that he's in his 50s, his children are grown, he lives in Boston, and he has invested four years of planning in the project, he's ready to finish it, he said.
The development's plan includes 189 single-family houses, the most expensive selling for $250,000. Mixed in would be 18 single-family attached homes, 44 condominiums and 65 townhouses. About 25 percent of the property would be turned into parks, including a nine-acre central park. Senior housing would comprise 84 condo units and 100 assisted-care units.
The rezoning also allows the developers to build 40,000 square feet of commercial space and 90,000 square feet of residential-style office buildings - enough for some convenience grocery and service stores, Williamson said.
``If the civic groups defeat this, I will throw up the 282 single-family houses and they will have one more subdivision that looks like every other,'' Williamson said.
``As things exist in this city, there are acres and acres of subdivisions and people get in their cars 10 times a day and drive,'' he said. ``They balance the subdivisions with those huge so-called box stores like Wal-Mart and there are major highways in between. That's so out of balance, and it's so car-oriented.''
Williamson argues that if more planned unit developments such as his are built in Chesapeake, the major thoroughfares would not be so clogged.
The roads leading to and from the developments and the additional schools needed would be funded from increased tax revenue from the development's upscale homes and businesses.
This scenario is different from how civic leaders view the project, however. Gene Waters, head of the Chesapeake Council of Civic Organizations and a neighbor to the project, said residents would prefer no development until the infrastructure can support the 2,700 cars that are expected to move in with Warrington Hall.
Kempsville Road is slated for widening after 2000, but no plans are in the works for Butts Station Road, where the main entrance to the development is planned, Waters said. He also has counted 185 accidents in the past several years on those roads.
At the schools, students already attend classes in trailers at Crestwood Middle School and Indian River High School, where an expected 152 children from the development eventually would attend.
The commercial and office space is another concern, Waters said. It could generate more traffic from customers and would set a precedent for placing stores in residential neighborhoods.
Water and about 75 volunteers will be out this weekend to try to collect 9,800 signatures - equal to 15 percent of the number of people who voted in the latest presidential election - to pursue a legal challenge in Chesapeake Circuit Court that would force the council to vote on the rezoning again. If the council were to approve the development a second time, the voters would have a chance to vote for or against it.
``The City Council should look out for the safety and well-being of its residents,'' he said. ``They should hold up all development until the infrastructure can support it. Shouldn't existing residents have some rights?''
Councilman W. Joe Newman said the property owner is legally entitled to build on the land he owns.
``The issue before the council was, `Can he change the plan slightly?' '' he said. ``We liked the idea of phasing because that slows down the growth. And besides we're not going to yank private property away from people. We're not about to send that message to the business community.''
Newman added that the number of residential building permits and the rate of population growth have both been slowed in the past two years. MEMO: Volunteers from the Chesapeake Council of Civic Organizations plan
to collect signatures on their petition in the parking lot beside
In-A-Hurry at 501 Kempsville Road Saturday and Sunday from 9 a.m. to 5
p.m. for the next two weekends. More information on the petition drive
is available by calling Gene or Denise Waters at 547-8885. ILLUSTRATION: [Map]
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