DATE: Tuesday, March 4, 1997                TAG: 9703040010

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B11  EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Opinion 

SOURCE: BY MARY M. HEINRICHT 

                                            LENGTH:  101 lines

BEACH RESIDENTS WANT TO PROTECT NEIGHBORHOODS

Virginia Beach is struggling with the required appraisal of its Comprehensive Plan. This is the ``plan'' for the next five years, but it will really set the stage for our whole future. We have learned that once a plan is changed, once zoning is in place, you can't take it back.

At 17 public meetings last summer, Virginia Beach residents made it very clear to the planners that they want to protect their neighborhoods from incompatible uses, preserve open space and resource areas, and prevent sprawl. They want adequate school, library and recreational facilities for their children. They want their taxes to remain reasonable and they want attention paid to existing neighborhoods before new ones are built.

Unfortunately, the Planning Commission is dominated by interests related to real estate and house building. It is focusing discussions on how to continue to build more and more houses, not on how to preserve the quality of life of current residents or to protect the quality of life for future citizens. Commission members are bringing to the table only their industry perspective by seeing how they can affect policy-decisions to promote continued, guaranteed profits to their group.

If we continue to rezone land to residential from agriculture, there will be nothing left to attract tourists or new businesses.

In 1990, 94 percent of the nonfarm parcels in Virginia Beach were residential. Hundreds of houses are being constructed along Princess Anne, Holland, London Bridge and Rosemont Roads. If the rezoning line is moved farther south, it will benefit only home builders and their related interest groups; it will never help solve the challenges we are now facing in Virginia Beach.

We are in the process of making our city a true destination resort with a variety of amenities for residents and visitors. The expanded Virginia Marine Science Museum is surpassing all expectations and will only increase in reputation and draw. The amphitheater has brought a welcome new element of family entertainment to us. As an international golf destination, we will bring more visitors for the soft resort shoulder seasons and provide some great golf for our residents. As all these new attractions continue to develop, we will be more carefully scrutinized by relocating or establishing businesses.

Virginia Beach has some very distinct strengths and some easily identifiable limitations. Proponents of the Southeastern Parkway characterize Virginia Beach as a ``cul-de-sac'' with no significant economic-development potential without this new highway. Really? The Lillian Vernon company located and recently expanded its distribution center in Virginia Beach without another highway. Last year was the most productive in economic development in our history - all those jobs and construction were created in this ``cul-de-sac.''

On the other hand, there are benefits of being a peninsula. We have a limited city line that abuts other localities. This factor insulates us from being affected by their land-use decisions. We can largely control our physical development and experience.

We benefit from our location at the mouth of Chesapeake Bay and Atlantic Ocean. We have increased land values by their presence.

Most important, we are a destination rather than a stop on the way to somewhere else.

Our significant military presence is both a strength and a limitation. It means that a great number of residents are temporary and not vested in making decisions for our community. But it also assures us of a constant work force and related industry and business opportunities. The military is a good neighbor and, as military families retire here, they bring valuable talents to the work force.

Virginia Beach has the most-productive farmland in Virginia in growing soy and corn. Agriculture is an industry which pays for itself and leaves a surplus in the community coffers.

Within our city, we have two unique state parks, two national wildlife refuges, the headwaters of one estuary and the mouth of another. Throughout the southern watersheds of Back Bay and the North Landing and Northwest rivers, we have some of the highest natural diversity in Virginia, globally ranked in significance. Within 60 minutes, our people can reach two other national wildlife refuges, two other significant state parks, the Eastern Shore and the historic destinations of Colonial Williamsburg, Yorktown and Jamestown. No new housing development will ever compete with these resources for appeal.

These issues should be the core of our decision-making when we are examining the choices of our future. Our real strengths and limitations and opportunities should weigh in when the Comprehensive Plan is evaluated or changed.

We must be able to afford the upkeep on all we create. If we build too much in our city, we will not be able to maintain existing neighborhoods. We have children in temporary classrooms behind brand new schools as we try to catch up with the population and maintenance of existing old buildings. We have diverted funds from needed neighborhood projects like upgrading Holland Road for new roads like the Southeastern Parkway.

In 1970, the average annual property tax was $223. In 1995, it was $1,446. How high would it go to provide roads, sewers, water, schools, fire and police for a bigger and bigger area?

What will existing neighborhoods have to give up to service the new areas? We will have no agricultural industry to add surplus dollars to the till. The southern waterways will follow the Lynnhaven's fate as one of the most-impaired waterways in Virginia. Back Bay's recovery will be reversed. And we will have missed our opportunity to be the wonderful generational city we want to be. MEMO: Mary M. Heinricht of Virginia Beach has been a regional

environmental planner for more than two decades and is coordinator for

Southeastern Association for Virginia's Environment (SAVE).

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