DATE: Saturday, June 14, 1997               TAG: 9706140311

SECTION: BUSINESS                PAGE: D1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY KAREN JOLLY DAVIS, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: CAPE CHARLES                      LENGTH:   81 lines

CAPE CHARLES ECO-PARK FOSTERS FEUD OVER ZONING

Nobody has built an industrial park like the one in Cape Charles. During the past two years, citizens, environmental engineers and architects have worked together to design a business environment so clean it wouldn't need government regulation.

Now, the Port of Cape Charles Sustainable Technologies Industrial Park is developing faster than the internal rules that guide it can be written.

And there's a scramble for control of its vast commercial potential. The land alone - sitting on the harbor and bayfront - will be worth a fortune if Virginia Beach developer Dickie Foster builds the golf course community he has promised.

The struggle for power has translated into a zoning battle, dividing people into warring political camps.

``There are no controls in that park,'' said Chris Bannon, a member of the town council. ``Would they put a juvenile detention center in it? There'd be nothing to stop it.''

Cape Charles officials helped design the zoning during a community workshop in 1995. Bannon participated, along with council members Libby Thomas and Frank Wendell, town manager Don Clarke and supervisor Jack White. The town council adopted the zoning in January 1996.

``There wasn't any big controversy,'' said Tim Hayes, director of Northampton County's sustainable development program and executive director of the Industrial Development Authority, the public body charged with running the park.

The zoning was intentionally broad so the eco-park could be marketed more easily, say IDA officials. But a series of misunderstandings in recent months convinced the town council that it needed to put a leash on the development.

So, in April, Cape Charles advertised zoning changes that would keep out several types of businesses envisioned by the eco-park's master plan: a conference or training center, performing arts center, recreational facilities, library, post office, educational institution, parking structure, utility substation and sawmill.

``It seems like the destruction of the industrial park,'' said Lenore Mitchell, a member of the IDA, said of the proposed changes.

Meanwhile, four companies have told Northampton County that they want to move into the eco-park when the roads and utilities are built.

One, McAfee Manufacturing Inc., has been a source of contention. McAfee builds low-cost, modular housing. The company promises jobs and affordable homes for the area's large low-income population.

But some people in Cape Charles see a sprawling manufacturing plant near prime waterfront as inappropriate.

Within days of a visit by the company's president, Charles McAfee, two more proposals for zoning changes were presented to the town council. Foster's attorney, R.J. Nutter, presented zoning proposals for Foster that would ban, among other things, outdoor storage and assembly of products.

Since learning of all of these proposed zoning changes, lower income residents of the Shore have jammed town council meetings.

``I beg you to do as you agreed two years ago,'' said William Denney, representing the NAACP. ``These are the people you represent. They need jobs.''

Shirley Spady, a single mother who lives in one of the town's many HUD houses, is frightened by the zoning battle. With welfare benefits disappearing, she fears that, without the jobs the eco-park would provide, homelessness is a real possibility.

For Spady, the battle is between the rich and the poor. It's golf courses vs. living-wage jobs.

The town's planning commission has been meeting as often as twice a week to work out a zoning amendment that satisfies everyone. And the town has agreed to hold a public hearing to discuss the issue on Monday.

The IDA, meanwhile, has yet to write the rules that will govern the running of the park because, until recently, it didn't have the money to hire an attorney.

But the rules won't be written before Cape Charles considers the zoning amendments. Some council members, hoping for continuing control, want to make most - if not all - of the building permits conditional on future town council approval.

That won't work, say park supporters.

``We're in competition with parks throughout the world,'' said Hayes. ``We've got to be able to give straight answers to prospective tenants. They need to know the criteria up front, or they'll go elsewhere.''

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