DATE: Tuesday, May 20, 1997                 TAG: 9705200209

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B3   EDITION: FINAL 
TYPE: Public Life 

SOURCE: BY JON GLASS, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:   96 lines

LEFT IN THE LURCH

In December, after four decades of getting the runaround, residents of the 1600 and 1700 blocks of Parkview Ave. in Bay View finally made the city's street-improvement list.

But relief from the flooding and standing water on their street is nowhere in sight.

They're now on a waiting list that dates to 1988, joining residents on 35 other streets in neighborhoods across Norfolk who've petitioned for such improvements as sidewalks, curbs and gutters, storm drains and re-graded streets.

The petition program - in which 75 percent of residents must request the improvements and agree to help pay for sidewalks - is at a crossroads.

Saying it lacks money, the city hasn't funded the program since 1995 and is no longer accepting petitions - Parkview Avenue was the last. The possibility of ending the program has been referred to the City Council.

Their decision, some Norfolk citizens say, may signal how sincerely city officials are working to become more neighborhood-friendly.

``We've got nice homes over here, but it looks terrible with this street,'' said Shirley Kriete, a Parkview Avenue resident and leader of the neighborhood petition drive.

Her neighbor, Wade Pearce, is angry that he must pay about $50 a year on his city utility bill for stormwater management, even though his street lacks storm drains.

Residents who've benefited from the program, which has resulted in miles of street improvements over the past 40 years, say it's city money well spent.

``If you've got a house looking like a million dollars, but your street's a dump, you've got a dump,'' said Woodrow Brinkley, 73, who lives on Karlin Circle in Ingleside, the last street the city improved under the petition program. The work was done about a year ago, using leftover funds.

The city spent $240,000 to rebuild an approximately 1,500-foot section of street serving about 16 homeowners on Karlin Circle, Weems Road and Trant Circle. The improvements, including the addition of ``roll'' curbs and storm drains, solved a flooding problem that rendered the road and front yards a virtual swamp after rains.

``I think everybody's property value in here has gone up $10,000 to $15,000 because of that,'' Brinkley said.

Brinkley, who said he filed the neighborhood's petition with the city more than a decade ago, said he didn't think he would live to see the work done. Some people haven't.

On Merritt Street, in the Brentwood Forest neighborhood, neighbors submitted a petition to the city in May 1988 seeking sidewalks and drainage improvements. Among those neighbors were Margie Kennedy, 72, and her husband, Richard, but Richard Kennedy died of cancer in 1994. Another neighbor died about six months ago.

Now, Margie Kennedy said she no longer wants sidewalks because she no longer can afford the assessment - up to $8 per linear foot of property frontage.

``It would be nice, it would improve the neighborhood and make the selling value go up, I'm sure,'' she said, ``but I'm a widow now and on a fixed income, and I can't afford it.''

City officials estimate they'd need about $9 million to make the improvements on the 36 streets on the waiting list. That comes to about $1.8 million per mile for the 5 or so miles of streets involved, although most of the petitions involve 200- to 1,200-foot-long blocks.

About 85 percent of the city's estimated 610 miles of residential streets have curbs and gutters and storm drainage. Some neighborhoods in the 90 miles without don't want them, preferring a more rural atmosphere, officials say.

The cost to outfit a 600-foot-long block with a properly graded street, sidewalks, curb and gutter and underground storm drains is about $205,000, said John Keifer, director of the city's Department of Public Works. That's 35 times more expensive than the $5,600 he said it would cost to just repave the section.

The cost - plus the comparably low number of residents who'd directly benefit - has city officials re-evaluating the program. Also, officials wonder whether the first-come, first-served nature of the petition program is the best way to address the city's priorities, said Shurl Montgomery, an assistant city manager.

In the 1980s, the city spent about $735,000 a year on the petitioned street improvement program. That dropped to around $205,000 per year in the early 1990s.

Federal dollars once used for the program have dried up, and state gas tax money the city gets to resurface and repair existing roads can't be used for the improvements, officials say.

That means residents who want sidewalks or curbs and gutters must compete for local money set aside for such capital projects as downtown development, school construction, recreation centers and other neighborhood work, Keifer said.

``There are competing priorities,'' Keifer said. ``You can do an awful lot of resurfacing, concrete repair, landscaping, street lighting and buying abandoned houses with that money.'' ILLUSTRATION: Graphic by Ken Wright

In the Neighborhoods

Backlog of requests since March 1988 by street and block

[Lists neighborhood and streets still in need of improvements]

For complete copy, see microfilm KEYWORDS: STREET IMPROVEMENT SIDEWALK

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